Na­tion­al draughts cham­pi­on Omatie Ma­habir, will seek to de­fend her ti­tle as the first two rounds of the T&T Na­tion­al Sin­gles Women's Draughts Cham­pi­onship jumps off on Sun­day at the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um, Ari­ma. The Freeport res­i­dent who at­tends Wa­ter­loo High School, is in great form for her ti­tle de­fence hav­ing just played against the Suri­name na­tion­al team last month. Ma­habir per­formed very well draw­ing against the top play­ers. Her chal­lenge will come from the Women War­riors Draughts Club from Arou­ca, who has some of the top play­ers to pose the best chal­lenge for the na­tion­al ti­tle. Some of the top club play­ers in­clude To­ba­go-born Cis­ley Fos­ter, Pamela Raphael and In­grid Sim­mons. Oth­er play­ers in­clude Dek­isha Maughn, Abi­gail Agus­tine, Trea­sure Haynes, Aleyah Ali, Re­nee Carr who are all from Arou­ca.

From cen­tral the chal­lenge will come from Emi­ly Jages­sar of Bank Vil­lage Cara­pichaima, De­vi Garib, and Ani­ta Ram­sun­dar. All women's draughts play­ers must have a healthy mind and am­bi­tions to be­come na­tion­al cham­pi­on of T&T and rep­re­sent our coun­try in In­ter­na­tion­al Draughts Games. De­spite beat­ing Ma­habir last year, Fos­ter will like­ly be look­ing to chal­lenge the reign­ing champ ve­he­ment­ly. Ma­habir has long been known for pos­sess­ing a nat­ur­al ap­ti­tude and vi­sion for the draughts game; more­over, she is a tal­ent­ed board play­er who has an abil­i­ty to ac­cu­rate­ly vi­su­alise com­plex po­si­tions and sit­u­a­tions. She is al­so not­ed to be an ex­cel­lent endgame play­er whose skill has con­jured up wins from seem­ing­ly even po­si­tions.