Trinidad and To­ba­go have won the first women's team en­counter against Bar­ba­dos in the 40th World Chess Olympiad, cur­rent­ly be­ing played in Is­tan­bul, Turkey. T&T beat Bar­ba­dos 2 ½-1 ½ when the two met in Round 6 of the tour­na­ment. Corinne Howard and Carif­ta Girls Un­der-20 gold medal­list Ka­t­ri­na Black­man, both mem­bers of the UWI Cave Hill Sports Pro­gramme, got the up­per hand when Howard beat T&T's Ade­ti Soon­dars­ingh on Board 1 and Black­man drew against Carif­ta Girls un­der 16 gold medal­list Ja­van­na Smith on Board 2. The Ba­jan's strat­e­gy was how­ev­er un­rav­elled by the two promis­ing T&T ju­niors, Gabriel­la John­son and Del­la-Marie Wal­cott who won on Boards 3 and 4 against Sheena Ram­say and Don­na Mur­ray.

The news was no bet­ter in Men's ac­tion for Bar­ba­dos as the men's team lost 3-1 to a young Es­ton­ian team. Na­tion­al Cham­pi­on, FIDE Mas­ter Mar­tyn Del Castil­ho and Shamel How­ell, both of whom are mem­bers of the UWI Cave Hill Sports Pro­gramme, held their ground with draws against Pavel Vorob­jov and Ro­man Ezov. How­ev­er, loss­es by In­ter­na­tion­al Mas­ter Kevin Den­ny and FIDE Mas­ter Delisle Warn­er against Mark Lapidus and Sander Kukk gave the match to the Es­to­ni­ans. In oth­er Men's ac­tion, Cu­ba trounced Qatar 3 ½-½ to leap 20 po­si­tions to 27th place with eight match points. Ja­maica slip to 95th af­ter los­ing 2½-1½ against Bo­livia fol­lowed by Puer­to Ri­co on 98th af­ter draw­ing 2-2 with Lux­em­bourg.

Bar­ba­dos slide a fur­ther 14 po­si­tions to 134th and T&T are 140th hav­ing lost 3-1 to the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic. In the Women Stand­ings, Rus­sia still tops the ta­bles with 11 match points hav­ing drawn with Chi­na 2-2. Poland scored a fine 3½-½ vic­to­ry over Ser­bia to move in­to 2nd place while Chi­na are 3rd. T&T, com­pli­ments of Bar­ba­dos, move ahead of their Ja­maican and Ba­jan coun­ter­parts for the first time, jump­ing 6 po­si­tions to 116th. Ja­maica slip to 120th, hav­ing lost 3-1 to Suri­name and Bar­ba­dos con­tin­ue their de­cline by an­oth­er four po­si­tions to 123rd. (CMC)