Carl Ja­cobs

FM Ryan Harp­er added the sixth na­tion­al chess cham­pi­onship ti­tle to his bag of tro­phies last week­end when he topped the field of 11 fi­nal­ists, fin­ish­ing two points ahead of his clos­est ri­val Rav­ishen Singh.Af­ter an ear­ly set­back, los­ing to Singh in the sec­ond round, the cham­pi­on ploughed through the op­po­si­tion to fin­ish on ten out of eleven points.Harp­er's dom­i­nant per­for­mance re­in­forces his po­si­tion as the coun­try's strongest chess play­er; but it al­so pro­vokes the fas­ci­nat­ing ques­tion, will he con­tin­ue his win­ning streak to match and pos­si­bly over­take FM Chris­to Cave's phe­nom­e­nal record of 13 na­tion­al cham­pi­onships?

As far as Dou­ble Rooks can see, the prospects look good. Harp­er has both the time and the abil­i­ty to do it.The cham­pi­on is still rel­a­tive­ly young, 34, and his chess strength, if any­thing, is quite like­ly to in­crease now that he has giv­en up his bank job to de­vote his en­er­gies to his new ca­reer, the coun­try's first full-time pro­fes­sion­al coach.With re­spect to his mo­ti­va­tion, how­ev­er, Harp­er con­fess­es that he has no spe­cial de­sire to set a new record in na­tion­al cham­pi­onship ti­tles.

As he has told Dou­ble Rooks on more than one oc­ca­sion: "All I can say is, I will con­tin­ue to play and what­ev­er hap­pens hap­pens." Still, in keep­ing with the com­pet­i­tive na­ture of all sports, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a top per­former at­tain­ing a new stan­dard, what­ev­er the chal­lenge may be, al­ways makes for an in­trigu­ing sto­ry.It's no se­cret, how­ev­er, that the T&T FM has set his heart on an­oth­er and far more sig­nif­i­cant ob­jec­tive. He has, in fact, been cam­paign­ing over the last few years in for­eign tour­na­ments seek­ing to gain the norms that would earn him the man­tle of the coun­try's first In­ter­na­tion­al Mas­ter.

Heart­break­ing­ly, that goal has re­mained an elu­sive dream.While the T&T cham­pi­on has held his own in this for­mi­da­ble in­ter­na­tion­al com­pa­ny, even out­play­ing a num­ber of GMs and IMs, the re­quired norm re­mained just out­side his grasp.At the Guelph Pro-Am In­ter­na­tion­al in Toron­to, for ex­am­ple, Harp­er tri­umphed over two GMs but missed the IM norm by a half a point.Along­side all this, he has outscored the re­gion's best at the He­roes' Day In­ter­na­tion­al Mas­ters in Bar­ba­dos and earned his high­est rat­ing, 2270, at the 2006 Olympiad, one of his five out­ings at this pre­miere event.

Harp­er's next op­por­tu­ni­ty comes up at the Uma­da Cup in Bar­ba­dos lat­er this month.This an­nu­al in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ment, launched by FIDE pres­i­dent Kir­san Ilyumzhi­nov in Trinidad and To­ba­go last year, is again ex­pect­ed to at­tract a num­ber of GMs and IMs from with­in the hemi­sphere.The event is an open and valu­able one as it presents play­ers from the Caribbean re­gion with a con­ve­nient op­por­tu­ni­ty of boost­ing their FIDE rat­ing.While the T&T sport­ing com­mu­ni­ty will be hop­ing that Harp­er re­alis­es his dream of en­ter­ing the ranks of IMs, it must be recog­nised that the 34-year-old FM has al­ready made a unique con­tri­bu­tion to the sport, not on­ly in his out­stand­ing achieve­ments over the chess­board but, ad­di­tion­al­ly, in his ad­min­is­tra­tive ac­tiv­i­ty as the as­so­ci­a­tion's sec­ond vice-pres­i­dent and in the coach­ing as­sis­tance he has giv­en to sev­er­al promi­nent ju­niors.

In fact, his de­ci­sion to quit his job at Re­pub­lic Bank and set up a chess coach­ing school, to­geth­er with na­tion­al qual­i­fi­er Alex Win­ter-Roach, is an un­prece­dent­ed and coura­geous move, one that must in­di­cate his love for the roy­al game and his in­ter­est in lift­ing stan­dards par­tic­u­lar­ly among younger en­thu­si­asts.To gain for­mal cre­den­tials in his new en­ter­prise, Harp­er will soon be off to Brazil where he will par­tic­i­pate in a FIDE train­ing sem­i­nar and, at the same time, serve as coach to Boys Un­der-12 na­tion­al cham­pi­on Joshua John­son, T&T's en­trant in the World Youth Chess Fes­ti­val.Mar­cus Joseph, win­ner of the na­tion­al ti­tle in 2009, took third place in this year's event, scor­ing sev­en and a half points. Be­hind him were FM Mario Mer­ritt on sev­en, FM Frank Yee on six and a half and Alex Win­ter Roach on six.

WNM Adi­ti Soon­dars­ingh, fin­ish­ing on sev­en and a half, main­tained her hold on the women's na­tion­al chess crown, edg­ing out Ja­van­na Smith by half a point.Gabriela John­son placed third on five and a half.This year's na­tion­al fi­nals were some­what marred by the un­ex­pect­ed first round with­draw­al of young FM Keron Cabralis who claimed that the noise of cadets train­ing at the venue, St George's Col­lege, Barataria, made it dif­fi­cult for him to con­cen­trate.What­ev­er the mer­its of his case, DR be­lieves that, ba­si­cal­ly, the in­ci­dent has lessons for the as­so­ci­a­tion in its un­suit­able sit­ing of such an im­por­tant chess event.

Hap­pi­ly the con­test was shift­ed to Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel, St Ann's, for the fi­nal round, the blitz tour­na­ment which Harp­er al­so won and the prize giv­ing func­tion.As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Kam­la Ram­per­sad De Sil­va, in her clos­ing re­marks, thanked spon­sors PKF Char­tered Ac­coun­tants and Busi­ness Ad­vis­ers for their "strong sup­port over the last two years." She felt that af­ter 75 years of T&T chess his­to­ry, "we re­al­ly ought to have grown more". To has­ten de­vel­op­ment of the sport she said the As­so­ci­a­tion would now be plac­ing its fo­cus on younger play­ers.