Carl Ja­cobs

Can­di­date Mas­ter Adri­an Win­ter Atwell has con­firmed his emer­gence as one of the coun­try's top chess play­ers by his con­fi­dent vic­to­ry in the FW De­V­er­teuil Memo­r­i­al tour­na­ment, top­ping a field of 48 play­ers, a full point ahead of sec­ond-placed CM Rav­ishen Singh and FM Mario Mer­ritt.

Win­ter Atwell's un­beat­en per­for­mance on six and a half points is his first vic­to­ry in a ma­jor T&T event, one that tra­di­tion­al­ly at­tracts the cream of the na­tion's chess play­ers.

Af­ter learn­ing the game from his fa­ther, Win­ter Atwell be­gan his tour­na­ment ca­reer in 2005 at the age of 18, win­ning the Un­der-20 ti­tle in the same year. He con­test­ed the na­tion­al open fi­nals sev­er­al times, plac­ing third in 2011. He al­so rep­re­sent­ed T&T this year at the Olympiad in Trom­so, Den­mark.

The De­V­er­teuil Memo­r­i­al was launched 22 years ago by Knights Chess Club in trib­ute to the con­tri­bu­tion made by vet­er­an F.W De­V­er­teuil to the sport, par­tic­u­lar­ly the en­cour­age­ment and as­sis­tance he will­ing­ly gave to young as­pir­ing play­ers.

Over the years, the tour­na­ment has ac­quired the same pop­u­lar sta­tus as the Knights Open, of­fer­ing con­sid­er­able cash prizes plus the op­por­tu­ni­ty for play­ers to im­prove their FIDE rat­ing. In win­ning this tour­na­ment, Win­ter Atwell now joins a long list of T&T's most out­stand­ing play­ers.

Al­so, the con­tri­bu­tion made by RHAND Cred­it Union to the pop­u­lar­i­ty of these two con­tests is con­sid­er­able, pro­vid­ing a free and con­ve­nient play­ing venue in the cap­i­tal city for both events.

In ad­di­tion, over the last few years, a unique and very con­struc­tive fea­ture has been in­tro­duced by David May­nard, RHAND's Gen­er­al Man­ag­er, on his re­turn to com­pet­i­tive play af­ter a con­sid­er­able ab­sence. Up-to-date chess­books, pro­duced by the world's lead­ing play­ers and train­ers, are pre­sent­ed to win­ners and promis­ing young par­tic­i­pants as part of the prize-giv­ing func­tion.

DR can on­ly hope the re­cip­i­ents would stu­dious­ly use these in­for­ma­tive books to im­prove their chess skills. While the an­nu­al tour­na­ment saw an in­ex­plic­a­ble re­duc­tion in the num­ber of fe­male play­ers, it was graced by a charm­ing young par­tic­i­pant from Guyana who took the prize for the best fe­male. Yolan­der Per­saud, 24, learned the game from her ge­ol­o­gist fa­ther and sub­se­quent­ly be­came the ju­nior cham­pi­on of Queen's Col­lege and the most out­stand­ing ju­nior in Guyana.

Af­ter sev­en years of le­gal study, part­ly done in Trinidad, she re­turned to the game and ac­com­pa­nied the Guyanese team to the Olympiad at Trom­so where she qual­i­fied as a de­vel­op­men­tal in­struc­tor and FIDE ar­biter. Yolan­der's love for the pop­u­lar mind game is ob­vi­ous and, with her qual­i­fi­ca­tions, she seems sure to be an as­set to the sport in the coun­try she now calls home.

Vet­er­an Car­lyle Singh who presided at the prize-giv­ing func­tion point­ed out that the club's pres­i­dent Louis Wilt­shire was able to take part in the tour­na­ment in­spite of his ill­ness. Singh ex­pressed the club's grat­i­tude to the play­ers, to David May­nard, RHAND's GM and par­ents of par­tic­i­pat­ing young­sters.

Rus­sel Smith, gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Chess for the Amer­i­c­as, briefly out­lined the prob­lems of de­vel­op­ment in the re­gion in­clud­ing the fact that the Caribbean re­gion was not ready for the stag­ing of grand­mas­ter chess events, need­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of more fed­er­a­tions. This ques­tion is un­der dis­cus­sion at the CCA, he added.

Trevor Flower, T&TCA first vice pres­i­dent, an­nounced the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Vish­nu Singh and Ja­van­na Smith, Un­der-20 cham­pi­ons, in the cur­rent CAC Un­der-20 cham­pi­onships in Cos­ta Ri­ca.

The blitz tour­na­ment which con­clud­ed the event was won by FM Harp­er on five with Kevin Cu­pid, Win­ter Atwell, Joshua John­son, Ce­sar Ramos and An­drew Bowles tied for sec­ond place on four.

Fol­low­ing are the Memo­r­i­al prizewin­ners: First: CM Win­ter Atwell, 6.5, $1,500; Sec­ond: FM Mario Mer­ritt and Rav­ishen Singh, 5.5, $1,700; Third: FM Ryan Harp­er, CM Ce­cil Lee, CM Frank Sears, Leonard Dun­can, Mikel Mar­tin, 5, $1,200. Best Ju­nior (Un­der-20): Ger­ard Sealy, Matthew Inkim, Ky­ron Agos­ti­ni, Zachary Al­lum 3, $400; Best Fe­male: Yolan­der Per­saud 3, $200; Best ELO (Un­der 1700): Carl Archer, Car­lyle Singh, Louis Wilt­shire 4, $300; Best Un­rat­ed: David May­nard, Rick­son Thomas, 4, $200; Vet­er­an's Prize: CM Ce­sar Ramos-Caldera, An­drew Bowles, 4.5, $200; Spe­cial Prize: Ray­den Ram­per­sad, 2, $100.