Kael Samuel-Bis­nath placed Mon­trose Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School on the map as its star play­er placed first in the Un­der-10 cat­e­go­ry in the Point Fortin Chess Cen­tre (PFCC) first Open Ju­nior Un­der-16 Rapid Play Chess Tour­na­ment last Sat­ur­day at the Point Fortin Sec­ondary School.

Samuel-Bis­nath beat na­tion­al U-8 cham­pi­on Kyan Mu­radali in­tyo sec­ond and for­mer na­tion­al U-10 cham­pi­on Sa­jan Joseph was third in the event which at­tract­ed par­tic­i­pants from sev­er­al clubs in­clud­ing Pal­ladins, Cen­tral Vikings as well as the host club, PFCC.

Fa­cil­i­tat­ing the event was Bhisham Soon­dars­ingh (Pal­ladins) as well as his son Dev Soon­dars­ingh (Can­di­date Mas­ter) who served as chief ar­biter for the tour­na­ment along with An­drew Bowles (Pal­ladins) serv­ing as se­nior ar­biter. Oth­er ar­biters in­clud­ed Nikhil Nicholas, She­dron Collins and Lin­coln Joseph, all train­ers at the Point Fortin Chess Cen­tre.

Win­ners in the oth­er cat­e­gories were Joseph’s old­er broth­er San­jiv, copped the first prize in the U-12 cat­e­go­ry fol­lowed by Nicholai Bap­tiste, Makay­la Joseph, who placed first in the U-10 cat­e­go­ry at the FEMS Chess Tour­na­ment, fol­lowed by Ar­mand Bas­deo all from the host club.

Zara La Fleur, na­tion­al U-14 cham­pi­on was at the top of her game as she copped first place in the U-14 cat­e­go­ry, with for­mer na­tion­al U-12 cham­pi­on hold­er Brad Munroe-Brown set­tling for sec­ond place and PFCC’s own Nicholas Ly­Fook tak­ing third. Not to be out­done, her broth­er Jun­in­ho got first place in the U-16 cat­e­go­ry with Justin Ram­ta­hal and Ross Mur­ray set­tling for sec­ond and third places re­spec­tive­ly.

It is an­tic­i­pat­ed that this tour­na­ment or­ga­nized by PFCC’s co-founders, Dr Jo-Anne Sewlal and Ray­mond Aaron, will be an an­nu­al event and one on the na­tion­al chess cal­en­dar, at­tract­ing wide­spread par­tic­i­pa­tion.

This tour­na­ment al­so served as a warm-up and fea­tured play­ers who would be rep­re­sent­ing T&T at the up­com­ing CARIF­TA Ju­nior Tour­na­ment in Cu­raçao over the East­er week­end. A fi­nal warm-up for these par­tic­i­pants will be host­ed by the FEMS Chess Club on April 14 at the Tu­na­puna Sec­ondary School and it is open to play­ers 18 years and un­der. Dev Soonars­ingh who will be trav­el­ing with the T&T con­tin­gent will be the chief ar­biter at the FEMS Tour­na­ment which got sup­port from LNG pro­duc­er, At­lantic.