The Knights Chess Club's an­nu­al tour­na­ment, the longest-run­ning and most pop­u­lar open chess event in the coun­try, gets un­der­way on Thurs­day April 19 at RHAND Cred­it Union build­ing, Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain. The sev­en-round FIDE-rat­ed tour­na­ment will run for sev­en con­sec­u­tive Thurs­days start­ing at 7pm every night ex­cept for the open­ing round which will start at 7.30 pm to al­low for late reg­is­tra­tion. The tour­na­ment, spon­sored by the build­ing firm of En­de­co (Trinidad) Ltd, car­ries a first prize of $1500 plus the fol­low­ing five prizes of $1000, $700, $500, $400 and $300. In ad­di­tion, four spe­cial prizes of $200 each will be award­ed to the Best Ju­nior (Un­der 20), Best Fe­male Play­er, Best Un­der 1700 ELO and Best Un­rat­ed Play­er. For­mer na­tion­al cham­pi­on NM Mar­cus Joseph, who won last year's event with a score of 6.6, is ex­pect­ed to de­fend his ti­tle. This year marks the 39th edi­tion of the Knights Open which, from its in­cep­tion, has at­tract­ed a large cross sec­tion of the coun­try's chess play­ers. With­in re­cent years, the event has al­so seen a grow­ing num­ber of ju­niors among its par­tic­i­pants.