Luke Ana­tol was award­ed the ul­ti­mate cham­pi­on prize at the Mind War­riors Chess Fes­ti­val, held in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Valkyries Chess Club on the week­end of Ju­ly 19-20 at two venues - Fa­ti­ma Col­lege in Port-of-Spain and Val­park Plaza in Val­sayn.

Ana­tol earned the ho­n­our for his con­sis­tent­ly high per­for­mances through­out the Chess Fes­ti­val, win­ning the Rapid-Open and the Blitz 960 in the two-day event which brought to­geth­er chess en­thu­si­asts of all ages, from six to 71, and skill lev­els.

Joshua John­son, Mind War­riors Acad­e­my founder and lead train­er, ex­pressed his im­mense sat­is­fac­tion with how the events un­fold­ed, say­ing: “The suc­cess of this chess fes­ti­val so heart­ens me. All key as­pects fell in­to place as planned. We al­so had the right re­sources at the right time. The lev­el of sup­port in­di­cates that chess con­tin­ues to cap­ti­vate play­ers and bring the com­mu­ni­ty to­geth­er. Thank you to all who sup­port­ed in var­i­ous roles!”

On Ju­ly 19, the ac­tion kicked off at Fa­ti­ma Col­lege with the Rapid Open and Rapid Novice tour­na­ments, which saw 52 par­tic­i­pants com­pete.

Ana­tal won the Rapid-Open on 6.5 points, fin­ish­ing ahead of Si­mon Ram­dath in sec­ond on 6 in the sev­en-round event. Fide Mas­ter (FM) Ryan Harp­er, Can­di­date Mas­ter (CM) Kael Samuel Bis­nath and CM Rav­ishen Singh, shared third to fifth af­ter they all fin­ished on 5.5 points.

In the fe­male cat­e­go­ry, Adaya John­son was best with 4 popints, fol­lowed by Sand­hya Ram­sa­roop (3.5) and Bre­an­na Joseph (3), re­spec­tive­ly.

In the Rapid-Novice com­pe­ti­tion, Je­lani Mar­ryshow won on 7 points ahead of sec­ond-placed Kr­ish Ram­sub­hag on 6 points and Makhaya Har­ry, in third, on 5. Oth­er play­ers tied on 5 points were Kameron Men­doza, Zelig Williams, Isa­iah Hamil­ton, Lu­cas Mitchell, Azai Wil­son and Ish­mel Scott.

The ex­cite­ment con­tin­ued the fol­low­ing day, In­ter­na­tion­al Chess Day, at Val­park Plaza, with the in­no­v­a­tive Blitz 960 event and the clas­sic Blitz Open. Shop­pers and spec­ta­tors at the plaza were treat­ed to thrilling match­es that show­cased both speed and cre­ativ­i­ty on the chess­board.

In the Blitz 960, which ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from Mind War­riors, was that this was the first time a chess com­pe­ti­tion us­ing the 960 (Fis­ch­er-Ran­dom) vari­ant in Trinidad and To­ba­go was held, and the nov­el­ty gen­er­at­ed wide­spread ex­cite­ment.

There was a three-way tie for first in the Open cat­e­go­ry with 4.5 out of 5 points.

The fi­nal rank­ings based on the tie break as they all fin­ished on 4.5, Ana­tol was first, in sec­ond place was FM Kevin Cu­pid and in third was Enen-Sa-Tefa Ab Khafra. In the fe­male cat­e­go­ry Sand­hya Ram­sa­roop placed first and Eliz­a­beth Khan, sec­ond af­ter they fin­ished on 3.

Win­ning the Blitz Open was FM Kevin Cu­pid on 7 re­spec­tive­ly ahead of FM Harp­er (6) and CM Rav­ishen Singh (6).

A to­tal prize fund of $10,000 along with tro­phies and medals were award­ed.

Mind War­riors Acad­e­my, in the re­lease, ex­tend­ed grat­i­tude to its part­ners in­clud­ing Artemis En­er­gy Lim­it­ed, Mem­o­ry Bank Com­put­ers, ICONS Co Ltd, Val­park Plaza, Oliv­er Signs Ltd, and Sun­shine Snacks Ltd and al­so thanked Cindy-Ann John-Ser­rette, Prop­er­ty Man­ag­er-Val­park Plaza, who as­sist­ed in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of prizes.

They al­so ac­knowl­edged the of­fi­cials, which in­clud­ed Chief Ar­biter-FM Joshua John­son, Deputy Chief Ar­biter Dr Sean Nedd (To­ba­go), Ar­biters: Jesse Ma­haraj, Enen-Sa-Tefa Ab Khafra and CM Sean Year­wood, Mas­ter of Cer­e­monies for the chess fes­ti­val-WIM Gabriel­la John­son, Chaya John­son-so­cial me­dia and re­fresh­ments su­per­vi­sor, Mar­tin John­son, who served as PA sys­tem sup­port and DJ and Son­ja John­son, Chief Or­gan­is­er.

Re­sults

Ju­ly 19

Rapid-Novice

1 Je­lani Mar­ryshow 7

2 Kr­ish Ram­sub­hag 6

3 Makhaya Har­ry 5

Top Fe­male

1 Ix­ia As­tor

Top U-10

1 Gabriel Sankar-Ramkissoon

Top U-8

1 Kaiden Springer

Rapid-Open

1 Luke Ana­tol 6.5

2 Si­mon Ram­dath 6

3 FM Ryan Harp­er 5.5

4 CM Kael Samuel Bis­nath 5.5 Tied for 3rd

5 CM Rav­ishen Singh 5.5 Tied for 3rd

Fe­male

1 Adaya John­son 4

2 Sand­hya Ram­sa­roop 3.5

3 Bre­an­na Joseph 3

U-20

1 Saqiv Williams 5

2 Caleb Cam­po 5

3 Za­y­den Singh 5

U-16

1 Kaveer Soom 5

2 Reaz Ali 4.5

3 Gary Flana­gan 4.5

U-12

1 Eli Lal­la 4

2 Zachary Nel­son 4

3 Ejaz Ma­haraj 3.5

50+

1 Ri­car­do Steven­son 5

Ju­ly 20

Blitz 960

Open

1 Luke Ana­tol 4.5

2 FM Kevin Cu­pid 4.5

3 Enen-Sa-Tefa Ab Khafra 4.5

Fe­male

1 Sand­hya Ram­sa­roop 3

2 Eliz­a­beth Khan 3

U-20

1 Caleb Cam­po 4

50+

1 Paul Browne 4

Blitz Open

1 FM Kevin Cu­pid 7

2 FM Ryan Harp­er 6

3 CM Rav­ishen Singh 6

Fe­male

1 WCM Shemi­lah James 4

2 Sand­hya Ram­sa­roop 4

U-20

1 Luke Ana­tol 5.5

2 Reaz Ali 5.5

50+

1 Paul Browne 5