ETHAN LEE WINS NATIONAL JUNIOR CHESS QUALIFIERS

The De Sinco Limited National Junior Chess Qualifiers concluded on Tuesday, July 11th, at the National Stadium, Providence, with an excellent performance from Ethan Lee, who emerged as the best player. 

Lee finished on 6.5 points after seven rounds. His only draw was a round 6 clash against Keron Sandiford.

He also amounted wins against National Under-16 Girls Champion Anaya Lall and Under-16 Open Champion Alexander Zhang, Aditi Joshi, Micaiah Enoe, Ronan Lee and Kishan Puran. 

This puts Lee as the top contender to rival reigning champion Ricardo Narine, who is poised and ready to defend his title. 

In 2022, when Narine first claimed the title, the championship had winded down to a tense battle between him and Lee who had tied on points and were forced to go to a play off. 

But Lee is not the only challenger Narine must prepare for, with the top 9 players in the qualifiers, eager for a chance to win the title of National Junior Champion 2023. 

In second place is Keron Sandiford with 6 points, after drawing matches with Lee and National U14 Open Champion Kyle Couchman, and winning his remaining games. 

Alexander Zhang, Ronan Lee, Nicholas Zhang, Kyle Couchman, Matthew Singh and Oluwadare Oyeyipo all finished on five points each to take 3rd to 8th place respectively. 

With 4.5 points, Kishan Puran took the final spot to continue on to the Championships. 

Notable performances came from Logan Simpson, Italy Ton-Chung, Ethan Persaud and Omar Shariff who all ended on 4.5 points each. 

The 2023 Junior National Championship will play in a round Robin format under the time control of 90 minutes with 30 second increments. Games will play between July 14th and 19th at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence. 

The Junior Chess Championship Qualifier tournament attracted over 50 students from schools in Region 3, 4, 6 and 10, and was supervised by FIDE Arbiters John Lee and Anand Raghunauth, assisted by top player CM Taffin Khan. The top 8 boards were broadcast live on you-tube and livechesscloud.com giving viewers at home a first-hand look at the juniors’ performances. 

The Guyana Chess Federation would like to thank the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport for once again providing the venue for the tournament and Café Bellvana for their support.  

The GCF has recently engaged the Ministry of Education’s CEO Saddam Hussain to expand its chess in schools program. The initial focus will be on dormitory schools and some key regions in the initial stages. Mr. Nicholas Fraser from the Allied Arts division had the opportunity to interact with the chess players participating in the tournament and committed to collaborating with the GCF in providing the necessary support in having the sport introduced to teachers and students in various regions.

Special thanks to the event title sponsor De Sinco Limited and Milex: one of Guyana’s leading distributors of fast-moving consumer goods. Medals were presented to the top 9 performers and to Italy Ton-Chung, who copped the best female prize for the tournament. De Sinco Limited also distributed gifts to all participants promoting their product Milex. Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Alicia De Abreu congratulated the players and commented on the familiar faces in chess she’s been seeing over the years since De Sinco Limited has been a sponsor. She thanked the parents who took time off from their busy schedule to support their children in the game of chess. Ms. De Abreu said De Sinco will continue to promote different brands in upcoming chess tournaments. Milex is the official brand for the National Junior Qualifiers and National Junior Championship 2023.