Ramoutar and James top Chess Association’s awards

YANNICK QUINTAL

INTERNATIONAL Master Alan-Safar Ramoutar and women’s candidate Master Shemilah James were some of the big winners at the TT Chess Association’s (TTCA) awards ceremony, at Presentation College Chaguanans, on Sunday.

Alan Safar-Ramoutar, of Naparima College, earned the male national player of the year award and the male national junior absolute title. St Francois Girls College’s Shemilah James was named the female national player of the year and the under-18 top female award as well.

Ramoutar also finished second in a couple other events. He finished in a 3-way tie for second (winning the tie-break), in the 2019 national absolute title, with Fide Master (FM) Adrian Winter-Atwell and FM Isaiah McIntosh, formerly of Presentation College, San Fernando. FM Kevin Cupid placed first in the event. Ramoutar was also in a 3-way tie for first in the 2019 national blitz title, finishing second based on tie-break to FM Joshua Johnson. FM Cupid finished third.

McIntosh would follow up his second place in the national absolute race with a first place award for the 2019 national Swiss title, with FM Mario Merritt finishing second and FM Ryan Harper finishing third. In the National Youth Championships, Zara La Fleur of St. Augustine Girls’ High School was a standout at the awards ceremony winning the Under 14 Female award, with Anastasia Ramdass of Naparima Girls High School and Vandana Kumar of St. Joseph’s Convent, San Fernando finishing 2nd and 3rd. The Women’s Candidate Master pending La Fleur also finished 2nd in the National Junior title to Bishop Anstey, High School’s (POS) Jennika Lynch. Third place belonged to Kayla Martin of Tunapuna Secondary school and the Tunapuna Police Youth Club.

In the National Senior Chess Championships, Courtney Lee would take home the top prize in the 65 and older category, while Hayden Lee took first place in a 4-way tie break in the 50 and over category.

TT Chess Association president Sonja Johnson, in her opening remarks, started off with a moment of silence for the passing of Dr Jo-Anne Sewlal, co-founder of the Point Fortin Chess Centre.

Johnson spoke on “strategic partnerships” as one of the pillars to the success of the TTCA in 2019, one being with the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs:

“Personally, I think that of the things we really have to appreciate is the enhanced partnership that we now have with the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs. I must say we must highlight the significant helping that we’ve made in the collaboration between our institutions.”

Another partnership is with the International Chess Federation, with which she holds the position of secretary of the planning and development commission of FIDE, the International Chess Federation.

“The other partners that we need to take a look at and recognise is the International Chess Federation, who decided in looking at chess globally and so on, was able and appointed… and I am so proud that they have recognised the work that we have been doing, and gave me the opportunity to become Secretary of the Planning and Development Commission of the International Chess Federation. So that particular appointment, let me tell you what it does. What it does is that it allows TT to get a certain level of profile within the Chess community because we all know that chess isn’t a popular sport within the Caribbean, so it raises our profile within the Caribbean. It also allows us to to network, because as secretary, I am responsible for the funding for 190+ federations throughout the globe. So, we manage a development fund and my team and I are responsible for sharing those funds, and TT was one of the first four recipients of funding in 2019. This is what this appointment did. So we must thank the International Chess Federation for the support that they continue to give to Trinidad and Tobago and to the Chess Association and its community.”

Other partnerships that she spoke on were with the Embassy of the Kingdom of The Netherlands, collaborating with them to help with organizing electronic boards to help with showcasing the talent that TT to the global chess community, thus helping with the increase in the profile of the TTCA’s events. “They do not sponsor people, generally. But they felt that our message and our purpose was worth their collaboration.”

Johnson also spoke on collaborating with the prison systems by having Bulgarian chess Grandmaster Marian Petrov visit the Maximum Security Prison in Arouca to lead a chess training workshop. “We had inmates getting an opportunity to do a simultaneous with the Grandmaster. That was huge for us, of course, raising the profile, because there’s quite a bit of talent within the prison system and we are hoping to continue with that collaboration.”

They are also looking forward to working with the Police Youth Clubs and the Olympic Committee for future endeavours.