Carl Ja­cobs

The re­vival of or­gan­ised com­pet­i­tive chess in To­ba­go made an­oth­er gi­ant step for­ward last Sat­ur­day. It took the form of the first open ju­nior rapid-play tour­na­ment held at the Pen­te­costal Light and Life High School, Scar­bor­ough, to­geth­er with arrange­ments for launch­ing a new chess or­gan­i­sa­tion in the is­land.

These de­vel­op­ments are out­growths of the chess-in-schools pro­gramme launched in Feb­ru­ary last year among eight sec­ondary schools by Rhand Cred­it Union in part­ner­ship with the T&T Chess Foun­da­tion.

The sport died a nat­ur­al death in To­ba­go about two decades ago when most of the lead­ing play­ers even­tu­al­ly gave up the game to pur­sue their in­di­vid­ual pro­fes­sions. Now, thanks most­ly to Rhand's chess-in-schools pro­gramme, a new gen­er­a­tion of To­ba­go's young­sters has be­come ac­tive in the game and ef­forts are now be­ing made to pro­vide a more per­ma­nent foot­ing for de­vel­op­ment of the sport.

The Pen­te­costal Light and Life High School at Sang­ster's Hill has emerged a lead­ing cen­tre of this chess re­vival. This was seen in the en­thu­si­asm of the young­sters who came from dif­fer­ent parts of the is­land to par­tic­i­pate in Sat­ur­day's open tour­na­ment. It was al­so ev­i­dent in the kee­ness of Joel Pe­ters teacher in charge of the school's chess pro­gramme and or­gan­is­er of the event.

Dis­cus­sions on for­ma­tion of the chess club cen­tered on the name and na­ture of the pro­posed or­gan­i­sa­tion - an as­so­ci­a­tion, so­ci­ety or league - and its con­sti­tu­tion. Edi­son Raphael, pres­i­dent of the Foun­da­tion, which pro­vid­ed the tech­ni­cal needs of the tour­na­ment, of­fered to as­sist the founders in set­ting up the or­gan­i­sa­tion. Oth­ers tak­ing part in the dis­cus­sions were To­ba­go chess coach­es Lew­son Thomas and Fi­del "Croc­o­dil­ian" James who al­so saw the need for a cen­tral lo­ca­tion and prop­er stor­age for lap­tops, videos and oth­er train­ing equip­ment of the club.

DR sin­cere­ly hopes this ini­tia­tive would give birth to a vi­brant new chess body in To­ba­go which would gen­er­ate a last­ing re­vival of this mind-en­hanc­ing sport among the is­land's young peo­ple. Ex­pec­ta­tions are that the re­tired stal­warts who once rep­re­sent­ed the is­land at the na­tion­al lev­el would come for­ward to as­sist in this re­vival move­ment.

The five-round rapid play tour­na­ment at PLLHS was con­test­ed in three age groups and at­tract­ed a to­tal of 19 play­ers. As ex­pect­ed from ear­ly novices, their stan­dard of play demon­strat­ed the need for a con­sis­tent pro­gramme of prac­tice, com­pe­ti­tion and coach­ing, but there was no mis­tak­ing their youth­ful in­ter­est in and en­thu­si­asm for the roy­al game.

The youngest par­tic­i­pant in the tour­na­ment was six-year-old Ray­den Ram­per­sad who was al­so the on­ly en­trant from Trinidad. A stu­dent of Ex­change Pres­by­ter­ian School and a mem­ber of the Grant Memo­r­i­al Chess Club, young Ram­per­sad emerged the star of the event, fin­ish­ing with a per­fect score of five points in the Boys Un­der 10 cat­e­go­ry, three ahead of sec­ond placed Trent Brent-Har­ris and third placed Jade Quashie. Top­ping the girls in this group was Shako­nia Meade with four points.

Ram­per­sad's per­for­mance was an­oth­er in­di­ca­tion of the ben­e­fits of be­long­ing to an ac­tive and pro­gres­sive chess club, the kind that To­ba­go would need if it is to pro­duce a young gen­er­a­tion of strong play­ers.

Win­ners in the Un­der 14 cat­e­go­ry were Josephine Broome, three, and Kezia Fran­co, two. Win­ners in the Un­der 18 cat­e­go­ry (Boys) were Aaron Floyd 4; Dar­rion Nel­son 3.5; Matthew Chung 3.5. Girls: Sarah Bap­tiste, Shawnea An­drews, Brith­ney Brath­waite.

The ef­fort to re­vive the sport of chess in To­ba­go is long over­due and de­serves all the help it can get from the coun­try as a whole. DR hopes that, soon­er rather than lat­er, the is­land would be pro­duc­ing play­ers strong enough to com­pete with the best in Trinidad.

?