Five-time chess cham­pi­on Gilles Suez-Pana­ma of Mar­tinique would be lead­ing a strong con­tin­gent of play­ers for the in­au­gur­al CARIF­TA Chess Games at UWI-SPEC from April 6-10. "I want to help in any pos­si­ble way to raise the stan­dard of our Caribbean chess style as a play­er, as a train­er, an ar­biter, and an or­gan­is­er of chess event" said the chess cham­pi­on in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with the Guardian. Suez-Panana is the Vice Pres­i­dent of La Ligue d'Echecs de la Mar­tinique and tech­ni­cal ad­vi­sor for the CARIF­TA team. The Mar­tinique con­tin­gent com­pris­es eight play­ers: four boys and four girls. Five of the play­ers will be com­pet­ing in the un­der-12 cat­e­go­ry. Suez-Pana­ma is con­fi­dent that his coun­try will be tak­ing home one of the medals in this cat­e­go­ry. "I have cho­sen the play­ers for their ob­vi­ous abil­i­ties, their fight­ing spir­it and their sports­man­ship," he said.

Mar­tinique's un­der-20 par­tic­i­pant is Ken­ny Cepisul. Ken­ny has a FIDE rat­ing of 1796. "He's used to com­pe­ti­tion," said Suez-Pana­ma, "Not on­ly chess but al­so in run­ning. He par­tic­i­pat­ed in the CARIF­TA Games 2010 in 110m hedges semi­fi­nals. "I can tell you he is one of our most tal­ent­ed play­ers as he of­ten fin­ish­es in first places in lo­cal tour­na­ment. Let's bet he will want more in the Chess Games." The two re­main­ing play­ers will be com­pet­ing in the un­der-16 cat­e­go­ry.

Suez-Pana­ma al­so said he in­tend­ed to play in the T&T In­ter­na­tion­al Open which will run si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly with the CARFI­TA Chess Games. "I've played in Trinidad in 2007 and 2009. I've of­ten played in Bar­ba­dos where I won the He­roes Day cup can­di­dates 2009. I play a lot of in­ter­na­tion­al events: in France, Gibral­tar, Eng­land." He added that four days af­ter the CARIF­TA Chess Games he will be ac­com­pa­ny­ing a team of play­ers in the ju­nior France Cham­pi­onship as coach. Three of these play­ers will be com­pet­ing in the CARIF­TA.