It is safe to say that team T&T did indeed leave its mark at the 43rd World Chess Olympiad, which was recently concluded in Batumi, Georgia on October 5.
T&T had 10 chess players compete at the Olympiad, a team event, which is one of the largest sporting events in the world attracted more than 1,600 players from over 180 countries. Teams played in two categories, the Open Section which fielded 184 teams while the Women Section consisted of 150 teams. During the event, the Open team captain was GM Zoltan Ribli of Hungary and the Women’s team captain/coach was IM Humberto Blanco of Cuba.
T&T’s Open team of FM Joshua Johnson, FM Kevin Cupid, FM Ryan Harper, FM Adrian Winter Atwell and FM Mario Merritt started their bid against the very strong Czech Republic, ranked 13th in the tournament.
Johnson, 19, of UWI and rated 2262, playing on Board one for T&T, rallied for a long time against Grandmaster David Navarra, ranked the No 20 chess player in the World with a rating of 2740. Navarra even remarked in a post-game interview that he did miss one of the plays from his opponent, (Joshua) and admitted that he was lucky that his opponent, was in ‘severe time trouble’. He subsequently recovered.
Johnson, however, left his best performance for the last round, where he defeated, Grandmaster Helgi Dam Ziska from the Faroe Islands rated 2550. This performance, together with the draw on Board two by Cupid against the International Master and the draw by Harper with another higher ranked player, helped T&T secure a draw against the Faroe Islands, ranked 28 places above T&T.
Reference to Johnson’s game against Ziska is even documented by the Daily Telegraph in an article dated October 12, 2018, by Malcolm Pein “The Long March”.
The other members of the team also held their own fairly well against the very strong Czech team. The Open team tied its 2016 performance with 10 match points for its four wins and two draws.
Other creditable performances came from Harper, who played on board three for most of the tournament. He obtained five out of nine points. His significant achievement came in round eight when he beat International master Robert Aloma Vidal from Andorra, rated more than 200 points higher than Harper.
Adrian Winter Atwell, who played board four, earned four out of nine points while Mario Merritt earned 3.5 out of six points and Kevin Cupid on four out of nine points on board two. FM Joshua Johnson played all 11 rounds, which included three Grand Masters and three International Masters.
The T&T women’s team had its best performance to date, with five wins, two of which were against higher rated teams, Honduras and Nigeria, ranked 12 places and 23 places higher than T&T. The women team began the tournament against the very strong Uzbekistan team ranked at No 31. The local girls did hold solid positions for much of their games but eventually yielded to the very strong Uzbekistan team.
Seventeen-year-old Gabriella Johnson, who played on board one for all 11 rounds, had one of the best performances on board one with six out of 11 points.
Other strong performances came from 14-year-old James who earned 4.5 out of eight points. James secured an important win in round seven against Marcella Garcia from Honduras ranked 200 ratings points higher.
Yearwood who played board three secured the only score against a stronger South Africa team in round nine with a draw against Rebecca Selkirk.
Ali, in her first Olympiad, also performed creditably with scores being obtained by some higher rated opponents.
The TTCA president Sonja Johnson, the Official FIDE delegate, was quite happy with the team performances saying: “We were very happy to yet again participate at this Olympiad. There were some teams who under-estimated us and in the end, we gained their respect. Though we still have a great deal to do, the performances at the Olympiad this year shows that Chess in T&T is moving in the right direction.”
The head of the delegation for the teams was Sonia Francis-Yearwood.
In a release, the TTCA thanked Atlantic, Storebay Holiday Resort, Southern Supplies Limited and the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs, for their contributions toward the team’s travel to this major event.
The 44th World Chess Olympiad is scheduled to take place in Khanty Mansiysk, Russia in 2020.
