Louis Wiltshire, president of Knights Chess Club, has issued a call for more girls to get involved in the sport of chess.
Speaking at the prize giving ceremony of the club's annual open tournament, Wiltshire said he would like to see more young persons, particularly girls, taking part in the club's events. "There is no reason why chess should be a male-dominated sport," he added. Wiltshire paid tribute to his predecessor, the late Lucio Araujo, who he said had done an enormous job in maintaining the Knights' Open event which had its 39th annual edition this year. Araujo, he recalled, would come week after week to preside personally over the tournament. The Knights president also commended the support he receives from Knights officials Clayton Gomez and John Everon who, he said, serve the club "as a labour of love."
Wiltshire regretted the decision of the T&TCA to refuse the club's request to have the Lucio Araujo Invitational Tournament FIDE rated. He explained that it would have been unreasonable to ask RHAND Credit Union to provide the venue for a third open tournament last year. (Subsequently, however, at the Association's annual general meeting, this decision of the outgoing executive was overturned.) Wiltshire thanked Endeco (Trinidad) Ltd for its sponsorship over the years and explained that the club had placed a cap on its top prize and extended the list to the first six places to achieve a better prize balance. He congratulated the winners especially FM Frank Yee who seemed to have made it a habit of winning the Knights tournaments. He also noted the improvement in the performance of young Dev Soondarsingh who scored a number of upsets tied with FM Ryan Harper for the fifth place, both finishing on five points. Other winners were Andrew Bowles, Sean Perryman and Marcus Joseph, all on five and a half points.
