Johnson defeats rival Singh in TT Chess Open

The annual competition will be taking place over the course of this long weekend and the excitement continues every weekend until October 22.

Grabbing the first win of the day in the Open category was the number six seed, Joshua Johnson, as he defeated his rival Ravishen Singh 1-0 in the opening round. The longest match of the opening round came when the number 12 seed, Atwell Adrian Winter, pulled off an upset as the underdog got past the number one seed, Frank Yee, 1-0 in their match-up.

Number two seed, Ryan Harper, got his first round victory 1-0 as he was too much to handle for the number 11 Alan-Safar Ramoutar.

The fifth seed, David Jones, could not get past the number eight seed, Dev Soondarsingh, as the latter battled immensely for the 1-0 victory. Kevin Cupid also went under to Mario Merritt 1-0 while Isaiah McIntosh proved to be tactically better than Esan Wiltshire in the first round by winning the match 1-0.

In the Women category, the number 12 seed almost pulled of another upset as Shemilah James battled the top seed, Aditi Soondarsingh, and managed a draw as they both earned half of the points. The number two seed, Gabriella Johnson, got the better of Zara Le Fleur 1-0 in the first round action.

Anusha Saha got past her rival Athena Martin 1-0.

The competition continues today with round two at the same venue and is scheduled to start at 2 pm.