Sport­ing events such as the Caribbean Chess Car­ni­val pro­vide many ben­e­fits to play­ers, coach­es, clubs, par­ents, com­mu­ni­ties "and the list goes on."

So said Gillian Ben­jamin, strate­gic mar­ket­ing and sales man­ag­er of First Cit­i­zens As­set Man­age­ment Ltd when she ad­dressed the prize-giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the tour­na­ment held at the Queen's Park Oval last week.

Through the four-day in­ter­na­tion­al event, she not­ed, "we had a chance to meet peo­ple from dif­fer­ing back­grounds, cul­tures and per­spec­tives but all with a com­mon in­ter­est, a love for this game that is a true match of the minds, a sport for the in­tel­lec­tu­al."

Ben­jamin said her com­pa­ny was proud to spon­sor the Chess Car­ni­val for the third con­sec­u­tive year "as chess is a nat­ur­al fit for First Cit­i­zens As­set Man­age­ment. "Just like this great game, as­set man­age­ment is about plan­ning, de­vel­op­ing strate­gies and tak­ing cal­cu­lat­ed risks so as ways to achiev­ing your goals.

"Moves are made with fore­thought and pre­ci­sion and while we may want an im­me­di­ate re­sult we may have to be pa­tient in or­der to achieve ul­ti­mate suc­cess," she point­ed out. "We too, as in­vest­ment man­agers, must care­ful­ly analyse and as­sess the sit­u­a­tion be­fore mak­ing our moves." The tour­na­ment, she said, had been an ex­cit­ing and in­tense four days of com­pe­ti­tion with some sur­pris­es and some ex­pect­ed out­comes. "It has al­so been an op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn, grow and make a few new friends. We ap­plaud the win­ners but we al­so rec­og­nize and con­grat­u­late all the play­ers for their en­thu­si­as­tic par­tic­i­pa­tion which must have con­tributed to the suc­cess of the tour­na­ment."

She com­pli­ment­ed the or­ga­niz­ing com­mit­tee of the T&T Chess Foun­da­tion for "an ex­cel­lent job" in putting to­geth­er thje tour­na­ment. She added: "We thank you for al­low­ing First Cit­i­zens As­set Man­age­ment to play a role in this event. It has been our plea­sure to sup­port the de­vel­op­ment of the youth of our na­tion through this spon­sor­ship and we look for­ward to forg­ing a long last­ing re­la­tion­ship; with the T&T Chess Foun­da­tion."

The tour­na­ment at­tract­ed 120 play­ers from across the re­gion, in­clud­ing Bar­ba­dos, Cu­ba, Suri­name, The Nether­lands and Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

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