An­tho­ny Aqui won the $2,500 first prize at the Point Fortin Draughts Mas­ters Club's first an­nu­al In­vi­ta­tion­al Tour­na­ment at Point Fortin West Sec­ondary School on Sun­day. He was fol­lowed by Tim­o­thy Den­nis and na­tion­al cham­pi­on Dick­son Maughn, who bagged $2,000 and $1,500 re­spec­tive­ly. Speak­ing to the Guardian yes­ter­day, Aqui said that he would not be get­ting car­ried away with his vic­to­ry.

"I'm ac­cus­tomed to win­ning events like these," he said ca­su­al­ly. "I like to win, but its not like its the first time. It's nor­mal." Revered as one of the coun­try's best, he has not com­pet­ed in the Na­tion­al Sin­gles Cham­pi­onships since 1999 since he feels it is im­por­tant for younger play­ers to have a chance to rep­re­sent their coun­try.

Mean­while, Ru­fus Fos­ter pres­i­dent of the or­gan­i­sa­tion ap­plaud­ed all the play­ers who par­tic­i­pat­ed in both the or­gan­i­sa­tion's event two weeks ago and Sun­day's Tour­na­ment in Point Fortin and as­sured them that the or­gan­i­sa­tion is mak­ing every ef­fort to im­prove the gen­er­al stan­dard and qual­i­ty of play at all lev­els and re­wards for all par­tic­i­pants.

scores

1. An­tho­ny Aqui ($2,500)

2. Tim­o­thy Den­nis ($2,000)

3. Dick­son Maughn ($1,500)

4. Trevor El­der ($1,000)

5. James Gabriel ($800)

6. Ku­mar Sookram ($600)