Guyana names strong team for CARIFTA Hybrid Chess Championship

More than 30 Guyanese chess players will compete in the 2026 CARIFTA Hybrid Chess Championship, which will be staged on July 11 and 12 at Olympic House, Liliendaal.
The nine-round Swiss-format tournament will be played through the Tornelo online platform, with participants competing under the supervision of officials at the venue. Play will run from 10:30h to 17:15h on both days in accordance with the International Chess Federation’s online competition regulations.
Guyana will be represented across eight separate competitions: the Open, Women’s, Under-18, Under-16, Under-14, Under-12, Under-10 and Under-8 categories.

The country’s leading players, including Candidate Master Taffin Khan, FIDE Master Anthony Drayton, national champion Candidate Master Sachin Pitamber, national junior champion Kyle Couchman and Keron Sandiford, are among those selected.
Khan, Drayton and Sandiford will compete in the Open section, while Pitamber will contest the Under-16 Open category. Couchman will play in the Under-18 Open division.
National women’s champion Woman Candidate Master Aditi Joshi will compete in the Under-16 Women’s category, while Woman Candidate Masters Sasha Shariff and Jessica Callender will represent Guyana in the senior Women’s section.
Ciel Clement will compete in the Under-18 Women’s category, while Kataleya Sam, the national Under-14 and Under-16 girls’ champion, will play in the Under-14 Women’s competition.

National Under-14 Open champion Abel Fernandez Ciria will contest the Under-14 Open category, while Under-12 champions Aiden Tinnie and Divya Persaud will compete in the Under-12 Open and Under-12 Women’s sections, respectively.
Other members of the Guyana team include Parnita Kishun, Emma John, Alexander Zhang, Nicholas Zhang, Rebha Lachhman, Sana Sreebalakumar, Alek Ubaldo-Singh, Aquilani Swaminadha, Amaya Sharma, Saura Ruplall, Vir Narine and Arian Tinnie.
Malia Thompson and Isabella Shariff will compete in the Under-10 Women’s section, while Mark De Freitas and Avery Munroe will play in the Under-10 Open. Pranav Suman will represent Guyana in the Under-8 Open category.
The age-group competitions, from Under-8 to Under-18, will be completed on July 11, while the Open and Women’s sections will play their nine rounds on July 12.
The tournament will use a rapid time control of 15 minutes, with a 10-second increment added after each move. The competition will also be FIDE Rapid-rated, with FIDE arbiter and Guyana delegate John Lee monitoring the Guyanese team.
Pairings will be managed through Swiss-Manager or Tornelo using the JaVaFo pairing system, while final results will be published after officials review all games.
Guyana will compete alongside players from several CARIFTA territories, including Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Belize, Grenada, St Lucia, the Cayman Islands and the United States Virgin Islands.
The Guyana Chess Federation commended the Confederation of Chess for the Americas and the Hybrid Circuit of the Americas for organising the championship and providing players from across the region with an opportunity to compete. The federation also expressed hope that the tournament will eventually return to its traditional in-person format.