Cave takes De Verteuil Memorial chess

NATIONAL champion Christo Cave continued his domination of the local chess circuit by winning the Knights Chess Club 2003 de Verteuil Memorial Open Tournament in the final round at the DRETCHI Building, Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain.

Cave ended on six points after winning his match up with Eddison Chang on  Thursday last,  the same tally as Olympiad silver medallist Ravishen Singh, but emerged victorious on the Sonneborne Berger system employed by the tournament to resolve the tie-break, leving Singh runner-up. Chang, playing white, put up resistance against Cave’s French Defence, a subsequent exchange of Rook for Bishop and Knight however  tilted the game in Cave’s favour, Chang then exchanged his second Rook and this served to further strengthen Cave’s position. Under time pressure Chang was forced to resign, a true mirror of Cave’s immaculate play and domination of the board. Singh’s battle was more of a tug-of-war with Cesar Ramos which required more patience as it went the distance. Using Paulsen’s Attack against Ramos’ French Defence, Singh sacrificed a Rook to drive Ramos’ King from the security of it’s castling position, Ramos’ defence was stout and at one point he was even able to equalise, Singh’s persistent Queen raids broke down Ramos’ to give up his Queen for Rook and Knight.

The movement of Singh’s Queen, Bishop and advanced King formed a mating net found to be inescapable by Ramos’ whose flag fell giving Singh the win on time. As a cap off to a superb performance throughout the tournament Michael Pouchet upset the higher rated Frank Yee to end on five points, playing against Yee’s French Defence/Rubinstein Variation , Pouchet gained pawn majority on the Queenside which determined the outcome and Yee’s surrender. Also finishing on five, Guelmo Rosales defeated Ken Fitzpatrick on time despite Fitzpatrck having the better game, utilising the Stonewall Attack/Colle System and being in a winning position when his flag fell. In other results: Cecil Lee defeated Prakash Persad, Leonard Duncan beat Nicholas Chin, Andrew Bowles defeated David Maynard, Ian Ramrattan beat Sherwin Duke, Kishore Ramdahar defaulted to Louis Wiltshire, Sylvan Seaforth defaulted to Prince Primus, Bryan Valentine defaulted to Michael Marcano, Carl Jacobs defeated Arlene Blackman, Jesse Sudan beat Alpacino Smith, John Everon beat Robert Daniel and Satyam Maharaj lost to Chay Gomez.