T&T's sib­ling chess duo of Shan­non and Sean Year­wood claimed first and sec­ond places re­spec­tive­ly in the un­der-12 cat­e­go­ry at the Bar­ba­dos Chess As­so­ci­a­tion's an­nu­al Sagi­cor Open Ju­nior Chess Cham­pi­onships held at the Bridgetown Chess Cen­tre from Ju­ly 10-13. Shan­non and Sean were part of T&T's five-mem­ber team which in­clud­ed their old­er broth­er, Syl­van, and Seecha­ran sib­lings Saman­tha and Keanu. In their fi­nal match, the Year­wood un­der-12 pair each fin­ished in a draw with 6.5 points each. How­ev­er Shan­non emerged on top af­ter the tie break, mak­ing the St Joseph Con­vent (Port of Spain) stu­dent the first girl to win the Sagi­cor un­der-12 Cham­pi­onship ti­tle. The Year­woods al­so be­came the first sib­lings to take first and sec­ond in the 28-year his­to­ry of the Open Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships. Shan­non al­so re­ceived dou­ble ho­n­ours in re­ceiv­ing the "Best Girl" prize in the cat­e­go­ry.

Syl­van, a 13-year-old stu­dent of Queen's Roy­al Col­lege, placed fifth out of a field of 22 in the un­der-16 cat­e­go­ry; hav­ing won five out of his sev­en games. Nine­teen-year-old Saman­tha al­so re­ceived top ho­n­ours in win­ning the Best Girl prize in the un­der-20 cat­e­go­ry. The first-year Ac­tu­ar­i­al Sci­ence stu­dent at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies edged Bar­ba­dos' Ka­t­ri­na Black­man to win the fi­nal round. Saman­tha tal­lied four points, af­ter her vic­to­ry over an­oth­er Ba­jan, San­jay Ma­habir, to fin­ish sixth over­all in the cat­e­go­ry. The crit­i­cal fi­nal game be­gan with Ma­habir us­ing the King's Pawn open­ing. Seecha­ran played the well-known Bg5 pin on move eight. Con­se­quent­ly, Ma­habir weak­ened his king­side by a fu­tile chase af­ter the bish­op. Saman­tha main­tained con­trol of the cen­tre dur­ing the mid­dle game, re­sult­ing in her cap­tur­ing her op­po­nent's re­main­ing Bish­op on move 23. Af­ter a long and te­dious bat­tle, vic­to­ry came on move 80, with Saman­tha us­ing the clas­sic King & Rook check­mate tech­nique.

In her ear­li­er lo­cal per­for­mances, Saman­tha won the un­der-18 girls' ti­tle in the na­tion­al tour­na­ment in 2010. Pre­vi­ous­ly, she was the un­der-14 and un­der-16 girls' cham­pi­on in 2006 and 2008, and al­so placed third at the Na­tion­al Women's fi­nals in 2006. She thanked her par­ents and spon­sor En­de­co Trinidad Lim­it­ed, for their con­tin­u­ous sup­port in her prepa­ra­tion for the com­pe­ti­tion.

Mean­while, her broth­er, Keanu, end­ed with 2.5 points in the un­der-16 cat­e­go­ry. A form one stu­dent of Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, he has en­joyed some suc­cess in lo­cal tour­na­ments, hav­ing placed third in this year's Cen­tral Vikings An­nu­al Tour­na­ment in the same cat­e­go­ry, and third in the 2009 First Flight Air Am­bu­lance In­vi­ta­tion­al. T&T Chess As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent, Rus­sell Smith (IA), and Kam­la Ram­per­sad-de Sil­va, Pres­i­dent of the Cen­tral Vikings Club, praised the ef­forts of the na­tion­al team in the re­gion­al tour­ney, cit­ing the play­ers as ex­em­plars for oth­er club mem­bers.