Bar­ba­di­an Or­lan­do Hus­bands, 13-year-old Lodge School stu­dent, emerged the un­der-14 cham­pi­on of the Caribbean Chess Car­ni­val which end­ed on Thurs­day at Queen's Roy­al Col­lege. Hus­bands played un­beat­en, fin­ish­ing the sev­en-round Swiss on six points, to top the field of 22 play­ers. Along the way, he scored vic­to­ries against Dim­itri Pacheco, Joshua John­son, Chris­t­ian Am­mon and Ma­hen­dra Singh.

With this vic­to­ry, Hus­bands en­ters the list of promis­ing Caribbean ju­niors, hav­ing won the un­der-20 Sagi­cor Open in Bridgetown a few weeks ago. Hus­bands, one of the four Bar­ba­di­an young­sters who played in the Car­ni­val, is a mem­ber of the Lodge School chess team, in­ter-school cham­pi­ons of Bar­ba­dos.

Joshua John­son and Chris­t­ian Am­mon took sec­ond and third spots in this group, both gath­er­ing five and a half points. An­oth­er Bar­ba­di­an rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Yu Tien Poon, was edged out in­to sec­ond place by FM Keron Cabralis in the Un­der-20 cat­e­go­ry. Poon, al­so a Lodge School stu­dent, fin­ished half a point be­hind Cabralis's win­ning tal­ly of five from sev­en rounds. He gained the sec­ond place on the tie-break, with Vish­nu Singh and Joseph Gill al­so fin­ish­ing on four and a half. The two oth­er Bar­ba­di­ans al­so had good tour­na­ments, Kemp Lynch plac­ing sixth among the un­der-20s with four points and Al­lon Richards tak­ing fifth place among 22 un­der-14s with four and a half. The suc­cess of the Bar­ba­di­an ju­niors is fur­ther ev­i­dence of the high stan­dard of the game in that is­land, ob­served Edi­son Raphael, pres­i­dent of the T&T Chess Foun­da­tion.

Del­la Marie Wal­cott of Maria Regi­na emerged cham­pi­on among the un­der-10s, edg­ing out Mikel Mar­tin of Grant Memo­r­i­al. They both topped the field of 15 play­ers with six points. Third place went to Justin Labastide of Holis­tic Pri­ma­ry on five. Savio Fournil­li­er of New Town Boys was the on­ly play­er to fin­ish with a per­fect score, head­ing the field of 34 novices with sev­en points. Be­hind him were five play­ers on five, Rishab Kush­wa­ha, Joshua Wal­cott, Christo­pher Bolandz, Athena Mar­tin and Kar­ish­ta Puni­lal. The Caribbean Chess Car­ni­val, spon­sored by First Cit­i­zens As­set Man­age­ment Ltd, con­clud­ed with an up­beat prize-giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny which al­so fea­tured ad­dress­es from sur­prise vis­i­tor Dr Amery Browne, who won a na­tion­al schol­ar­ship at QRC in 1991 and al­so played chess for the col­lege, Kurt Val­ley, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of FCAM and com­ic ac­tor Er­rol Fa­bi­en.

A video of the tour­na­ment tak­en by jour­nal­ism stu­dent and ex-fe­male na­tion­al cham­pi­on Chan­tal Fitz­patrick added its own ex­cite­ment. Dr Browne, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral, re­called his stu­dent days at QRC when he had a great pas­sion for chess, lead­ing the Col­lege team to the in­ter-school cham­pi­onship. The game, he said, helped him to fo­cus his men­tal en­er­gies and de­vel­op life-long friend­ships, but he not­ed, to some amuse­ment, that he nev­er had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to play chess for mon­ey which young­sters now re­ceive as part of their prizes. Val­ley was thank­ful for the op­por­tu­ni­ty grant­ed his com­pa­ny to play a role in the event. "It has been our plea­sure to sup­port the de­vel­op­ment of the youth of our na­tion through this spon­sor­ship and we look for­ward to forg­ing a long-last­ing re­la­tion­ship with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Chess Foun­da­tion," he added.

While the com­pe­ti­tion and ri­val­ry of the tour­na­ment were in­tense, he not­ed, "it has al­so been an op­por­tu­ni­ty for ca­ma­raderie and for build­ing bridges and mak­ing new friends. And that's all part of the mag­ic of chess...the abil­i­ty to bring peo­ple to­geth­er and share ideas...and maybe even learn a few new moves." Val­ley said while his com­pa­ny was in the busi­ness of man­ag­ing mon­ey and mak­ing in­vest­ments, its mis­sion was al­so to help peo­ple achieve their dreams. "And that is ex­act­ly what we have done here by pro­vid­ing our sup­port for the 2011 Caribbean Chess Car­ni­val."