East chessist upsets champ Harper

Thirty six players, including most of the national qualifiers and top junior chessists are competing in the event. They are bidding for valuable cash prizes for first, second and third places as well as for Best Junior, Best Female, Best Under-1700 ELO and Best Unrated Player titles.

RHAND Credit Union is sponsoring the seven-round tourney which is being held at the RHAND building at 57-61 Abercromby Street, Port-of-Spain.

Playing on top board Christopher started with the Two Knights Variation of the English Opening. Champion Harper took the reverse Sicilian posture to defend.

The match was evenly poised up to Move 35 when, experiencing extreme time pressure (he had one minute to Christopher’s ten minutes remaining on the clock) Harper sacrificed his black Bishop to open up his opponent’s defence. In a highly exciting finish Christopher was able to not only evade the double threats of mate and draw but also to make telling use of his extra piece, the White Bishop, to help deliver a forced mate in the few seconds remaining in the contest.

Breakling into the elite ranks of the tournament’s unbeaten three-match winners was John Everon who won emphatically against the higher rated David Fortune.

laying Black, Everon used the Slav Defence to counter Fortune’s Queen’s Gambit. Fortune gained a slight ascendancy early in the match. However, his position gradually deteriorated and when the middle game was reached with material even Everon offered a draw. Not recognising his by now inferior position Fortune refused the draw. Everon was then able to improve his own position by fully exploiting his better placed Queen to destroy Fortune’s Queenside pawns. Everon was then in full cry with two connected Queenside pawns and a rampaging Queen. With his clock running out on him Fortune threw in the sponge after he lost another pawn this time on the Kingside.

In other clashes FIDE Masters Mario Merritt and Frank Yee kept their unbeaten record in the tournament by defeating Colin Knight and Hayden Lee respectively.

Notable results were again recorded by Under-20 players Joseph Gill who defeated Rohan Heerah in an exhilarating display of attacking chess; Christopher Raphael who drew with Nicholas Chin; Justin Salloum who defeated Jonathan Forde; and Vandoff Smith who defeated Louis Wiltshire.

In another upset Ian Solomon defeated the badly out-of-form Daryl Davis.

Other results: Javanna Smith lost to Jesse Sudan; Andrew Bowles def Bryan Valentine; Joseph Laquis lost to Carl Jacobs; Shamah Khan def Avinash Maharaj; Byron Barnett lost to Arlene Blackman.

Heavy rains severely affected attendance and no less than four players defaulted by non-appearance: Rafael Guerrero to Frank Sears; Alex Winter-Roach to Prince Primus; Hollingsworth Dolabaille to Esan Wiltshire and Prakash Persad to Alpacino Smith.

Round 4 fixtures to be played on September 7 (current points in brackets):

Everon (3) vs Merritt(3); Yee (3) vs Christopher (3); Harper (2) vs Gill (2); Sears (2) vs Salloum (2); Knight (2) vs E Wiltshire (2); Primus (2) vs Lee (2); Sudan (2) vs A Smith (2); Guerrero (1.5) vs Bowles (1.5); Raphael (1.5) vs Fortune (1.5); Solomon (1.5) vs Chin (1.5); Jacobs (1.5) vs V Smith (1.5); Valentine (1) vs Winter-Roach (1); Heerah (1) vs Khan (1); Dolabaille (1) vs Forde (1); Persad (1) vs J Smith (1); Blackman (1) vs Davis (.5); Maharaj (0) vs Laquis (.5); Barnett (0) vs L Wiltshire (0).