Na­tion­al chess cham­pi­on, Rav­ishen Singh will be­gin the de­fence of his ti­tle as the num­ber one play­er in T&T on Sun­day when the Na­tion­al Chess Cham­pi­onship Fi­nals be­gin at the John Don­ald­son Cam­pus of UTT, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, from 3 pm. The an­nu­al cham­pi­onship, a gru­elling 11-rounds round-robin tour­na­ment, is or­gan­ised by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Chess As­so­ci­a­tion (TTCA) and is part­ly spon­sored by Na­tion­al Lot­tery Con­trol Board (NL­CB). It will end on No­vem­ber 22. New pres­i­dent of TTCA, Quintin Cabralis will make his maid­en speech at the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, while Bhisham Soon­dars­ingh, first vice pres­i­dent, be the tour­na­ment di­rec­tor.

Singh, a law stu­dent, de­throned FIDE Mas­ter Ryan Harp­er last year putting his name on the Prime Min­is­ters Chal­lenge Tro­phy for the first time. He is look­ing for a re­peat per­for­mance against the 11 chal­lengers, all of whom earned a place in the fi­nals from the four qual­i­fi­er tour­na­ments held ear­li­er this year in North, East, South and To­ba­go. Singh's biggest threat will come from two for­mer na­tion­al cham­pi­ons - (fm) Harp­er, who has won the tour­na­ment on four oc­ca­sions and (fm) Chris­to Cave, who has won the cov­et­ed tit­tle for a record 13 times. The three oth­er FIDE Mas­ters Mario Mer­ritt, Michael Pouchet and Frank Yee have been knock­ing on the door for some­time and can up­set the favourites. But even more so the two young­sters, 14-year- old Keron Cabralis and 21-year-old Mar­cus Joseph, both came very close last year and will be hop­ing to go one bet­ter this time around.

The go­ing will be tough for the four oth­er fi­nal­ists, Kishore Ra­mad­har, Leonard Dun­can, Mar­cus Cob­ham and first-timer ju­nior play­er Jayson Paul, all of whom played bril­liant­ly to make it among the 12 top lo­cal play­ers. FIDE ar­biter (fa) Rus­sel Smith will pre­side as the tour­na­ment ar­biter. The fe­male na­tion­al fi­nals will be­gin a week af­ter on Oc­to­ber 24 at the same venue. Adi­ti Soon­dars­ingh will again be de­fend­ing her ti­tle as the top play­er in T&T. Soon­dars­ingh, who has won the cham­pi­onship four times, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2008, will start as favourite. Her biggest chal­lenge will come from fe­male na­tion­al Un­der-12 cham­pi­on Ja­van­na Smith and fe­male na­tion­al Un­der-14 cham­pi­on Mel­lis­sa Pereira. Two oth­er play­ers in with a chance are the ex­pe­ri­ence Camille Chung and Lyn­dy-Ann Giusep­pi. Rawl­son Paul is the tour­na­ment ar­biter.

Al­so be­gin­ning on the same day is the 'TTCA Open' tour­na­ment which is open to all chess play­ers oth­er than the Fi­nal­ists. All play­ers in­ter­est­ed in play­ing in the 'TTCA Open' can pre-reg­is­ter on the open­ing day.