Kevin Cu­pid, a for­mer stu­dent of Holy Cross Col­lege, Ari­ma, played un­beat­en to top the sec­ond qual­i­fy­ing pre­lim­i­nary round in the Na­tion­al Men's Chess Cham­pi­onships which con­clud­ed last Sun­day at Val­sayn Teach­ers Col­lege, Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T.

The 21-year-old scored five wins and two draws to fin­ish on six points from a pos­si­ble sev­en, de­feat­ing for­mer na­tion­al cham­pi­ons Ryan Harp­er and Rav­ishen Singh in the process. In the fi­nal round, need­ing on­ly a win or a draw to fin­ish first, he turned back Joseph Gill with a care­ful win to seal the is­sue.

In sec­ond was Harp­er, who scored 5.5 points with Alex Win­ter-Roach, third on five points. These three join Mario Mer­ritt, Joshua John­son and Leonard Dun­can, who qual­i­fied in the first pre­lim­i­nar­ies held in Barataria. The oth­er two pre­lim­i­nar­ies for the na­tion­al fi­nals will take place in South, start­ing on March 9 and To­ba­go from April 13. The fi­nal it­self will take place from May 4-19.

Cu­pid's tough­est game was in round six against for­mer na­tion­al cham­pi­on An­der­son Gor­don, who played the white pieces in a Caro-Kann game that led to com­pli­ca­tions for Cu­pid but due to a bish­op trade for a knight sim­pli­fy­ing the po­si­tion on move 18, both play­ers agreed to a draw.

Cu­pid is no new­com­er to win­ner's row, hav­ing won the Un­der-18 in 2009 and the Or­chard Grand Prix in 2007. He was sec­ond in the Sagi­cor U-16 in Bar­ba­dos in 2006, fifth in the Uma­da Cup (Chal­lengers) in Trinidad (2010) and fourth in Suri­name (2012).

"My goal is to be­come an In­ter­na­tion­al Mas­ter af­ter I play in the sub-zon­al in T&T next year, and to make the na­tion­al team to the 2014 Olympiad in Nor­way next Au­gust. I must thank Coach Raul, who helped me to build a sol­id chess base while I was at UTT, and Esan Wilt­shire, who en­cour­aged me to stay in the game when I was about to give up a few years ago," Cu­pid said

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