GEORGE­TOWN – The Guyana Chess Fed­er­a­tion (GCF) will host the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed CARI­COM Clas­sic Team Chess tour­na­ment for the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year at its of­fi­cial venue, the Pe­ga­sus Suites and Cor­po­rate Cen­tre.

Play­ers from across the re­gion will com­pete in a nine-round Clas­si­cal Swiss for­mat, which will run from June 30 to Ju­ly 7.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, a com­pe­ti­tion for Un­der-16 play­ers will run along­side the main event.

It will be the sec­ond year for the team tour­na­ment, which was first held in 2024 to co­in­cide with CARI­COM’s 50th an­niver­sary and fea­tured teams from Suri­name, Trinidad and To­ba­go, Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica, Do­mini­ca, St. Lu­cia, Ba­hamas, and the Cay­man Is­lands.

Trinidad and To­ba­go won the in­au­gur­al tour­na­ment, while Guyana came sec­ond and Bar­ba­dos placed third.

The GCF’s goal is to es­tab­lish the CARI­COM Clas­sic as a bi­en­ni­al event, strate­gi­cal­ly held in the years be­tween Chess Olympiads.

This year, the GCF has cho­sen to host the com­pe­ti­tion (the next CARI­COM tour­na­ment is ear­marked for 2027) as the next Chess Olympiad is sched­uled for 2026.

CMC