Louis Wilt­shire, pres­i­dent of Knights Chess Club, has called on T&TCA mem­bers to get to­geth­er to put the na­tion­al chess body back on track "in an or­der­ly way, with­out dis­sen­sion and con­tention."

Wilt­shire, re­tired T&T am­bas­sador, was speak­ing at the prize-giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny of Knights' an­nu­al Open com­pe­ti­tion last Thurs­day at RHAND Cred­it Union build­ing in Port-of-Spain.

Wilt­shire not­ed by com­par­i­son that the club's sev­en-round con­test went off as a won­der­ful fun event, with­out any dis­agree­ment and con­fu­sion. He urged T&TCA mem­bers to end the cur­rent dif­fi­cul­ties by find­ing "a so­lu­tion which works."

The Knights pres­i­dent said the club's 40th an­nu­al Open was one of its best, at­tract­ing some 50 play­ers in­clud­ing eight young per­sons and three fe­males. He com­pli­ment­ed the par­ents of young par­tic­i­pants for their com­mit­ment in bring­ing their chil­dren to play. He was pleased by the large con­tin­gent of Prom­e­nade Chess Club mem­bers who took part in the event.

He ex­pressed the club's grat­i­tude to Clay­ton Gomez and John Everon for do­ing the "don­key work" in­volved in or­gan­is­ing the tour­na­ment and to Car­lyle Singh for plac­ing the game scores on­line which must be "a ben­e­fit to all."

Wilt­shire was grate­ful to En­de­co (Tdad) Ltd for its spon­sor­ship over the years and to RHAND gen­er­al man­ag­er David May­nard who, apart from pro­vid­ing the tour­na­ment's venue, now do­nat­ed sev­er­al chess books to aid younger par­tic­i­pants in im­prov­ing their skills.

Four play­ers, scor­ing five and a half points each, tied for first place in the Open; for­mer na­tion­al cham­pi­ons FM Ryan Harp­er and Mar­cus Joseph and young­sters Kevin Cu­pid and Joseph Gill. Tak­ing sec­ond place was a three-way tie among FM Frank Yee, Alex Win­ter Roach and David Jones, each scor­ing five points.

The Rapid Play con­test, part of the prize-giv­ing func­tion, was won by na­tion­al Ju­nior cham­pi­on Joshua John­son with Mar­cus Joseph and Hay­den Lee tied for sec­ond. Re­ceiv­ing spe­cial prizes were Ja­van­na Smith, Best Fe­male; Miguel Fran­cois and Ken­neth Fitz­par­ick, Best Un­der 1700 ELO; Ce­cil Lee and Frank Sears, Best Vet­er­ans; Joshua John­son, Best Ju­nior; Aaron Browne, Best Un­rat­ed. Chess books were pre­sent­ed to Joshua John­son, Gabriel­la John­son, Ja­van­na Smith, Del­la Marie Wal­cott, Zachary Al­lum, Jor­dan Robert­son, Ky­ron Agos­ti­ni and Kyle Agos­ti­ni.

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