Adri­an Al­lum was crowned Un­der-10 cham­pi­on of the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Youth Chess Fes­ti­val at the Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel, St Ann’s held from Au­gust 21-26.

In so do­ing, he at­tained his Can­di­date Mas­ter ti­tle, a huge achieve­ment for a nine-year-old.

Al­lum was joined on the podi­um by T&T’s Nicholas McLetchie, who placed third in the boys U-10 cat­e­go­ry. In sec­ond place was Darel Bermudez of Cu­ba.

The tour­na­ment boast­ed 230 play­ers from 15 coun­tries in­clud­ing T&T, Ja­maica, Bar­ba­dos, Cu­ba, Guatemala, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Hon­duras, Guyana, Suri­name, The Ba­hamas, Haiti, St Lu­cia, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and Pana­ma, who came to fight for norms and ti­tles such as Can­di­date Mas­ter, Fide Mas­ter and In­ter­na­tion­al Mas­ter.

Al­so ex­celling for T&T was Kael Samuel Bis­nath, who topped the Open U-14 cat­e­go­ry.

Al­so among the top fin­ish­ers for T&T were Caleb Har­ry, Alexan­dra Ku­mar, and Joshua Med­i­na. Har­ry and Ku­mar placed sec­ond in the U-8 Open and U-12 Fe­male cat­e­gories, re­spec­tive­ly, and Med­i­na took third spot in the U-16 Open com­pe­ti­tion.

T&T’s top 3 fin­ish­ers

1st place U-10 Open - Adri­an Al­lum

1st place U-14 Open - Kael Samuel Bis­nath

2nd place U-8 Open - Caleb Har­ry

2nd place U-12 Fe­male - Alexan­dra Ku­mar

3rd place U-10 Open - Nicholas McLetchie

3rd place U-16 Open - Joshua Med­i­na