FM Mario Merritt and FM Joshua Johnson have qualified to play in the 2015 national chess championship finals by topping the 16-player field of the Tobago preliminary. The two FMs finished the six-round contest on 5.5 points each, playing unbeaten but drawing with each other.
Veteran Merritt is one of the country's most experienced players, having represented T&T at the Chess Olympiad a record of six times. Johnson, 16-year-old Fatima College student, is a former national junior champion with a list of impressive performances at home and in regional tournaments. Johnson gained the FM title last year, heading a field of 31 players at the CAC Chess Festival at Palmyra, Colombia. Playing in his first Olympiad at Tromso, Norway, last August, Johnson registered the best score among T&T's five-man team.
The two winners now join the three who qualified in the first preliminary; Adrian Winter Atwell, Frank Yee and Hayden Lee.
In the Tobago contest, three players finished on 3.5 points; Fidel James, Shannon Yearwood and Sharondel Williams.
The success of the 2015 Tobago contest makes a notable contrast to the event of previous years when it drew only a handful of players from Trinidad. The preliminary had been boycotted by Tobago's players who protested the inclusion of contestants from Trinidad. They held fast to the view that the island's qualifying tournament should be confined to the island's players and, as a result, organised chess on the sister island remained at a virtual standstill for several years.
At the time, DR disagreed strongly with this boycott, arguing that the three other preliminary events in other parts of the country were open to all T&T national players.
"This year's qualifier is a strong indication that the sport has begun to enjoy a wholesome revival in Tobago," notes Sonia Johnson, T&T Chess Association first vice president. She pointed out that where before the Scarborough preliminary attracted only Trinidadians, this year's event saw five Tobago players in the mix including the island's new champion, Dr Anthony Thompson and veteran player Thuku Moheni. The others were Fidel James, Shorndel Williams and Rudy Kilian.
Other players taking part were Shannon Yearwood, WFM Javanna Smith, former national champion Arnold Ramon Fortune, David Maynard, Sean Yearwood, Keevin James and Elyse James.
According to vice president Johnson, the T&TCA owes a debt of gratitude to the Tobago House of Assembly whose ready cooperation in providing a venue played an important part in the success of the tournament.
She commended THA officers Terell Abbott and Javon Carrington for their interest and effort in making available the spacious Anne Mitchell-Gift auditorium in the Tobago Library for the tournament.
With this welcome "reconciliation" plus the recent formation of a Tobago Chess Club plus incentives resulting from the Chess in Schools programme launched by the T&T Chess Foundation a few years ago, the sport in the sister isle may be set for a new period of growth.
And who knows? With the added support of the accommodation industry, the celebrated mind game could well develop into another of Tobago's tourist attractions.