Carl Ja­cobs

A num­ber of prob­lems re­main in the wake of the re­cent Carif­ta Chess Games held at UWI-SPEC. They are large­ly the sub­ject of com­plaints made by Quintin Cabralis, for­mer pres­i­dent of the T&T Chess As­so­ci­a­tion, which Dou­ble Rooks ex­pects will be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly by the present T&TCA ex­ec­u­tive. The two ma­jor is­sues high­light­ed by Cabralis stems from the lev­el of dis­tur­bance at the open­ing round of the tour­na­ment and the al­leged­ly un­con­sti­tu­tion­al use of ad-hoc as­sis­tants by the As­so­ci­a­tion to per­form a num­ber of fun­ca­tions at the tour­na­ment. The cause of the first com­plaint, that is the noise and dis­tur­bance prob­lem, led to the shock with­draw­al of 16-year-old FM Keron Cabralis who found him­self aban­don­ing a sec­ond ma­jor tour­na­ment this year for the very same rea­son. So frus­trat­ed is the young chess star, in fact, that he is se­ri­ous­ly think­ing of quit­ting the sport en­tire­ly, an out­come that would cer­tain­ly be a ma­jor tragedy for chess in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Cabralis, play­ing in the Un­der-20 sec­tion of the Games, ac­cept­ed a quick first-round draw against the Bar­ba­di­an Kemp Lynch and prompt­ly with­drew from the tour­na­ment af­ter his com­plaints to of­fi­cials about the noise dis­tur­bance ap­par­ent­ly failed to have the nui­sance abat­ed. Cabralis, on board one, was seat­ed close to the main en­trance to the play­ing hall and was con­stant­ly dis­tract­ed by peo­ple en­ter­ing and leav­ing. "There was con­stant chat­ter with per­sons ask­ing for di­rec­tions and in­struc­tions." Cabralis se­nior not­ed. "No one was post­ed at the en­trance to en­sure that did not hap­pen." Cabralis snr re­port­ed. "Young chil­dren, in par­tic­u­lar, were scam­per­ing through­out with no con­trol, in­clud­ing up and down the stairs to the stands." A num­ber of par­ents who Dou­ble Rooks con­sult­ed af­ter­wards con­firmed the facts of Cabralis' com­plaint. Af­ter his son re­port­ed his dif­fi­cul­ty in con­cen­trat­ing, Cabralis said he spoke to the di­rec­tor and deputy di­rec­tor of the tour­na­ment who were ap­par­ent­ly un­able to as­sist. "It was a con­stant chal­lenge telling peo­ple to be qui­et, re­mov­ing peo­ple from be­tween the aisles, try­ing to pro­tect the play­ers in a ter­ri­ble sit­u­a­tion," he stat­ed in a sub­se­quent com­plaint to the As­so­ci­a­tion.

"There is a fun­da­men­tal rule that must ap­ply to any chess tour­na­ment," the ex-T&TCA pres­i­dent point­ed out. "And that rule is si­lence! It is not a new rule. It is not an un­rea­son­able rule. It sim­ply means that the or­gan­is­ers must se­lect an ap­pro­pri­ate venue, giv­en the unique re­quire­ments of chess. Then they must ap­ply the mea­sures that will al­low the re­quired con­di­tions to pre­vail. "It all has to do with plan­ning and ex­e­cu­tion," he added. The fact that the Carif­ta Chess Games at­tract­ed more than 90 young­sters, in­clud­ing 33 from oth­er parts of the re­gion, most of them ac­com­pa­nied by par­ents or guardians, should have alert­ed or­gan­is­ers to the need for stricter con­trol at least over the play­ing area. Or so it seemed to Dou­ble Rooks. But then it al­so ap­peared that the As­so­ci­a­tion was hav­ing prob­lems of its own. Its in­suf­fi­cien­cy of ex­ec­u­tive man­pow­er be­came fair­ly ob­vi­ous as it had to en­gage par­ents and two to­tal strangers to per­form a num­ber of stage func­tions at the tour­na­ment, from the open­ing to the clos­ing func­tion. It seems un­for­tu­nate that Keron Cabralis, the youngest FIDE Mas­ter in the Caribbean, finds him­self again se­ri­ous­ly de­mo­ti­vat­ed fol­low­ing three in­ci­dents oc­cur­ring in tour­na­ments pre­sent­ed by the As­so­ci­a­tion this year. The high­est rat­ed ju­nior play­er in T&T aban­doned the first na­tion­al qual­i­fi­er af­ter com­plain­ing about the noise of cadets in prac­tice drills at the venue, St George's Col­lege, Barataria.

Then he had to set­tle for be­ing joint Un­der 20 na­tion­al cham­pi­onship when a tie with Vish­nu Singh could not be set­tled by a play­off be­cause such a mea­sure had not been in­clud­ed in the stip­u­lat­ed tour­na­ment reg­u­la­tions. It would be a ma­jor set­back for chess if Cabralis de­cides to quit the sport com­plete­ly. A young­ster of his abil­i­ty and ac­com­plish­ments is still rel­a­tive­ly rare in T&T, hav­ing car­ried much of the coun­try's hope on his shoul­ders even from a ten­der age. DR be­lieves every ef­fort should be made to keep the 16-year-old chess star play­ing and striv­ing for the high­est ho­n­ours.

Now what re­al­ly is hap­pen­ing in the T&TCA? Res­ig­na­tions from the ex­ec­u­tive fol­lowed by sus­pen­sion of the trea­sur­er ap­pear to have left the As­so­ci­a­tion some­what strapped for man­pow­er. The sit­u­a­tion be­came so ob­vi­ous at the Games that the ex- pres­i­dent Cabralis was moved to ob­serve that "a non-elect­ed clique" had hi­jacked the As­so­ci­a­tion. In fact, Cabralis felt that the T&TCA pres­i­dent had act­ed un­con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly since, ac­cord­ing to the con­sti­tu­tion, "the man­age­ment com­mit­tee must first ap­prove any sub-com­mit­tee se­lect­ed be­fore they can le­git­i­mate­ly func­tion on be­half of the T&TCA."

As far as DR is con­cerned, all this is most un­for­tu­nate. The de­vel­op­men­tal needs of chess, par­tic­u­lar­ly among the coun­try's young peo­ple, are enor­mous and yet to be tack­led through a com­pre­hen­sive na­tion­al pro­gramme. The As­so­ci­a­tion should be the agency ac­tive­ly pro­mot­ing and pur­su­ing that ob­jec­tive. In its present state of weak­ness, how­ev­er, that quest seems as dis­tant as ever.