Moving swiftly ahead with the youth tournament schedule, the Guyana Chess Federation is poised to host the National Under-14 Chess Championships. This year’s edition of the one-day event is set for February 25, 2023 at Queen’s College from 9:00hrs and is being sponsored by MMG – Mobile Money Guyana.
Players will compete for seven rounds under a time control of 20 minutes per player, with 5 seconds added to the clock after each move in the Open or Girls tournaments.
Reigning Under-14 and Under-16 Open Chess Champion, thirteen year old Kyle Couchman returns to defend his title after a year of impressive feat across multiple tournaments and opponents of wide-ranging ages and skill level.
Up and coming star junior players, brothers, Alexander and Nicholas Zhang, Mahir Rajkumar, Arysh Raghunauth, Jeremy Cole, Jacob McDonald, , Arush Ramnarine, Micaiah Enoe, Vivek Persaud, Mayas Khan, the Mohabir brothers, Julian and Landon, and nine year old Aquilani Swaminadha who is the current Under12 Open Chess Champion, will all challenge him for the title.
A number of these players also performed well in the recently concluded Under 12 tournament. The Girls Tournament is set to be fiercely contested as well with strong young players such as 2022 Girls Under-12 Champion Ciel Clement and Kataleya Sam who won the Under12 Girls Chess Championship recently. Atalya John, Amelia Griffith, Chelsea Harrison and Skyler Gurchuran are among those competing on Saturday.
However, they will come up against 13 year old Anaya Lall, who was the youngest player on the women’s team at 2022 Biennial Chess Olympiad in Chennai, India. The Olympiad is notably the highest level tournament Guyanese chess players compete in and includes a rigorous selection process where players show their prowess against the best players across the country.
Lall is also the first and only player, male or female, to represent Guyana online at the FIDE World Championship for People with Disabilities in 2021. This weekend’s Under-14 tournament is open to all chess players under the age of 14 at the beginning of the year. Registration is done only on [guyanachess.org](http://guyanachess.org “”) and the deadline is at 17:00hrs on February 24th.
Registration is free for members of the Guyana Chess Federation. Children who are not registered with the Federation is required to pay a fee of $2000 via MMG.
The top three finishers for each tournament will be awarded prizes as well as the top three under-10 and under-8 players. The GCF wishes to express its immense gratitude to MMG for sponsoring the event. MMG had previously supported chess in Guyana and the GCF looks forward to a continued partnership in the future.
