Nicholas Lei­ba topped a field of 53 novices with a per­fect score of sev­en points in the re­cent One Day Rapid Play Ju­nior chess tour­na­ment or­gan­ised by the T&T Chess Foun­da­tion at St Mary's Col­lege au­di­to­ri­um. Vic­to­ry for the Holy Name Prepara­to­ry school­boy was spe­cial be­cause he on­ly be­gan train­ing with the Foun­da­tion last year.

The tour­na­ment is the first of five ju­nior events in prepa­ra­tion for the an­nu­al Caribbean Chess Car­ni­val to be held at Queen's Roy­al Col­lege in Au­gust. The oth­er four con­tests come off in the next four months.

T&TCF pres­i­dent Edi­son Raphael said he was pleased to see so many novices tak­ing part in the tour­na­ment and hoped they would not on­ly par­tic­i­pate in the Foun­da­tion's com­ing events but al­so pro­ceed to en­joy a pro­duc­tive ca­reer in the sport from which they would gain sev­er­al ben­e­fits for life.

Tak­ing sec­ond place be­hind Lei­ba were San­jeev Sookhoo and Malai­ka Kerr on five and a half points each. Sev­en young­sters fin­ished half a point be­hind them: Dy­lon Han­nock, Zachary Ramkissoon, Joseph Dun­can, Matthew Soogrim, Ne­r­ia Charles, Jen­ni­ka Lynch and Nicholai Clif­ford.

The novices sec­tion was boost­ed by the par­tic­i­pa­tion of nine play­ers from forms one to five of Pen­te­costal Light and Life High School, Scar­bor­ough.

This is the first en­try of To­ba­go ju­niors in a tour­na­ment in Trinidad for sev­er­al years and is a re­sult of the in­ter­est gen­er­at­ed by the Rhand Scholas­tic Chess Chal­lenge launched for­mal­ly about two months ago.

The PLLHS group was ac­com­pa­nied by teacher Joel Pe­ters who wel­comed the chess chal­lenge as he felt the sport would as­sist To­ba­go stu­dents in their so­cial and aca­d­e­m­ic de­vel­op­ment.

St Mary's Col­lege boy Dim­itri Pacheco, a con­sis­tent per­former, won his first tour­na­ment by top­ping the Un­der-1800 cat­e­go­ry.

Pacheco scored four points from five rounds, with Daniel Bho­la and Si­mon Ram­dath tak­ing sec­ond and third places with three and a half and three points, re­spec­tive­ly.

Sean Year­wood en­hanced his promise as a ju­nior by an un­beat­en per­for­mance in the five-round Un­der 1400 sec­tion. The Trin­i­ty Ju­nior stu­dent con­ced­ed one draw to his broth­er Syl­van who placed third on three points. Sean Bridglals­ingh of Na­pari­ma Col­lege took sec­ond place with four points.

An­oth­er un­beat­en run came from St Mary's Col­lege stu­dent Savio Fournil­li­er who fin­ished on six and a half points in the Un­der 12 cat­e­go­ry con­test­ed by 11 play­ers.

Be­hind him were Ky­ron Agos­ti­ni on five and a half and Chris­t­ian Ali on four.

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