Carl Ja­cobs

Let us give FM Frank Yee full marks for con­sis­ten­cy, de­ter­mi­na­tion and the com­mit­ment to be his best. These are the qual­i­ties which have fi­nal­ly earned him the na­tion­al chess ti­tle, cli­max­ing an ac­tive and durable chess ca­reer that goes back to his stu­dent days at Holy Cross Col­lege, some 25 years ago.

From that point of view, the achieve­ment of the 42-year-old UWI com­put­er spe­cial­ist de­serves spe­cial com­men­da­tion as it sets an ad­mirable ex­am­ple for all as­pir­ing young­sters to fol­low.

Look­ing back over his marathon ca­reer, Yee be­lieves he has sought the na­tion­al chess crown in some 13 fi­nals and re­mem­bers plac­ing third as his high­est score.

A less con­fi­dent play­er might well have giv­en up hope, es­pe­cial­ly since he was of­ten over­shad­owed by FM Ryan Harp­er who not on­ly out­played the field of fi­nal­ists in six na­tion­al out­ings but al­so un­der­lined his su­prema­cy by vic­to­ries in sev­er­al ma­jor tour­na­ments.

But Yee's love for the game, his ear­ly achieve­ments among the ju­niors, his strong per­for­mance in con­tests at home and abroad and, of course, his be­lief in him­self have kept him go­ing.

In this year's race to the ti­tle, Yee found him­self in an ex­cit­ing see-saw tus­sle.

Harp­er took the ear­ly lead with five and a half points from six rounds, but Yee man­aged to re­main close to his heels just half a point be­hind.

The sit­u­a­tion changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly in the sev­enth when Harp­er went un­der to ex-cham­pi­on Mar­cus Joseph while Yee gained a full point from Thuku Mo­heni, the To­ba­go fi­nal­ist who had with­drawn from the tour­na­ment.

In the eighth, Yee forged a full point ahead by over­com­ing vet­er­an Frank Sears while Harp­er had to share the point with Rod­er­ick Noel who held him to a draw. The score be­tween them: Yee 7, Harp­er 6.

For­tunes changed again in the ninth as Harp­er pulled lev­el with a vic­to­ry over his de­ter­mined ri­val.

In the tenth, how­ev­er, the de­fend­ing cham­pi­on suf­fered a dis­as­trous set­back as he was de­ci­sive­ly out­played by ris­ing young­ster Dev Soon­dars­ingh.

Yee took the lead again with a char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly care­ful win over Kevin Cu­pid.

In the mean­while Joseph had re­cov­ered nice­ly by out­play­ing vet­er­an Ce­cil Lee in the ninth and Rod­er­ick Noel in the tenth.

The score among the four lead­ers go­ing in­to the eleventh and fi­nal round:?Yee, eight; Joseph, sev­en and a half; Harp­er sev­en; Joshua John­son, sev­en.

The con­clud­ing round pit­ted Yee against Joseph in a de­ci­sive en­counter which promised to pro­duce some fire­works.

A vic­to­ry by Joseph would earn him the ti­tle for a sec­ond time, but, with both play­ers giv­ing noth­ing away, the game end­ed in a tame draw.

Still, the tour­na­ment had its share of dra­mat­ic mo­ments and end­ed in a well-de­served tri­umph for a play­er who has now capped his longevi­ty at the top of the sport with the coun­try's supreme ti­tle.

DR joins with the rest of the T&T chess com­mu­ni­ty in con­grat­u­lat­ing him.

Yee's ul­ti­mate suc­cess should now serve to en­cour­age all as­pir­ing young­sters in­clud­ing the four who con­firmed their promi­nence by no­table per­for­mances in this na­tion­al event; Joshua John­son, Esan Wilt­shire and Kevin Cu­pid who scored sev­en each and Dev Soon­dars­ingh on six.

The les­son of his crown­ing achieve­ment is clear, per­se­ver­ance pays off.

Not ever for­tu­nate enough to have a coach, Yee trav­elled the long jour­ney to the top on his own steam.

He cred­its the de­vel­op­ment of his chess skills large­ly to his own wide ex­pe­ri­ence in con­tests at home and abroad and in joust­ing with for­eign op­po­nents via his com­put­er.

For ex­am­ple, he holds the un­of­fi­cial record of win­ning the Knights Chess Club's two open an­nu­al events a num­ber of times; of rep­re­sent­ing T&T at five Olympiads: Elista, Rus­sia 1998, Kalmykia, Rus­sia 2000, Is­tan­bul, Turkey 2004, Calvia, Spain 2010 and Kan­ty Man­syisk, Rus­sia 2010, of com­pet­ing at sub-zon­als at San Fil­ipe and Meri­da, Venezuela, and at Guyaquil, Ecuador, where he gained the Fide Mas­ter ti­tle.

Now where does T&T new na­tion­al chess cham­pi­on go from here?

The next log­i­cal ob­jec­tive, of course, is to make his­to­ry by be­com­ing the coun­try's first In­ter­na­tion­al Mas­ter.

In this en­ter­prise, Yee is as con­fi­dent as ever. From his present ELO rat­ing of 2099, the T&T champ would have to make 2600 in three in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments to achieve that goal.

It's a for­mi­da­ble task for any T&T play­er. But DR be­lieves he can do it.

Good luck Frank.