VETERAN Berbician chess player Kriskal Persaud emerged as the winner of the Berbice 20/20 Rapid Chess Tournament held at Little Rock Suites and Conference Hall in New Amsterdam last Sunday.

Persaud played splendidly, with an unbeaten 6.5 points in the challenging seven-round competition among the 32 participants, fifty per cent of whom were Berbicians.

He defeated his opponents Gavin Dev Mahadeo, Farrukh Bahman, Jaden Todd, Rai Sharma, Kim Shing Chong, and Steve Leung.

His game in the Fifth Round with 13-year-old Nicholas Zhang from Georgetown ended in a draw.

Zhang finished in second place with an impressive 6 points, gaining two draws with his matches against Persaud and Jaden Todd.

Todd, another Berbician, took third place with 5.5 points. The young, talented fifteen-year-old who attends the Bishops’ High School lost his game against Persaud, and drew his match with Zhang in Round 6.

Ciel Clement, who grew up in Berbice and resides in New Amsterdam, played all her Rounds with calm composure, despite the nail-biting and quick-thinking demands of rapid chess.

The sixteen-year-old Queen’s College student handed a crushing defeat to senior player Rai Sharma in Round Seven, who is known for his decades of experience in speed play in the local chess circuit.

With less than two minutes remaining on her clock, Clement forced Sharma to concede the match, even with his time advantage of approximately 15 minutes.

In an earlier Round, Clement almost lost on time, but her opponent, Darshanand Ramlall, ran out of time first, giving her the victory with just one second out of 20 minutes left.

Clement placed fourth with 5 points and took home the Best Female prize out of the thirteen females who participated. Veteran Berbician John London, and Kishan Puran from Georgetown placed fifth and sixth, respectively, with 5 points each.

The twenty-minute time-controlled rapid tournament was supervised by National Arbiter and WCM Jessica Callender. Players from Georgetown provided much competition and support to the Guyana Chess Federation-sponsored tournament, with Directors CM Loris Nathoo and Shiv Nandalall in attendance.

Fide Arbiter John Lee and Company Secretary Marcia Lee were also there to provide support to the players and the competition.

The Federation would like to extend heartfelt gratitude to Mr. and Mrs. Clement for sponsoring the tournament venue.

With the reintroduction of the game of chess in the County of Berbice, the GCF hopes that this tournament will encourage more student participation. The GCF distributed chess sets through the Gift of Chess programme to the New Amsterdam and Vryman’s Erven Secondary Schools, and plans to provide sets to more schools in the area soon to develop the local chess community.