More than 90 play­ers from four Caribbean coun­tries have en­tered so far for the in­au­gur­al Carif­ta Çhess Games which be­gins at UWI-SPEC on Fri­day. As ex­pect­ed, T&T, the host coun­try, is field­ing the most, 60 play­ers. Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica are send­ing ten ju­niors each while Mar­tinique and Suri­name have en­tered eight and three re­spec­tive­ly. The Games, an of­fi­cial FIDE event, will be played in three age groups with six cat­e­gories-Un­der 12, Un­der 16 and Un­der 20, each hav­ing an Open and Girls sec­tion. Par­al­lel to this ju­nior event, an­oth­er tour­na­ment, the T&T In­ter­na­tion­al Open will be held.

"We are hop­ing that as many se­nior play­ers in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the re­gion will al­so be par­tic­i­pat­ing in this his­toric event," said T&T Chess As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Kam­la Ram­per­sad De Sil­va. Three no­table en­tries from the re­gion are Gilles Suez-Pana­ma, five time Mar­tinique cham­pi­on, Cu­ra­cao vet­er­an Willem Bjlis­tra whose ca­reer dates back some 40 years and An­tho­ny Ear­lam of Bar­ba­dos. The Games will be an his­toric event as it the first of­fi­cial FIDE event host­ed by T&T. It al­so cel­e­brates the 75th an­niver­sary of the Chess As­so­ci­a­tion and the 50th an­niver­sary of the coun­try's in­de­pen­dence.