After a setback in round two where the Open and Female teams were unable to add to their overall score, the Guyana Chess teams overcame Seychelles and Hong Kong to register their first match wins at the 44th FIDE Olympiad in Chennai, India.
Anthony Drayton at the 44th Chess Olympiad
In the Open section, Candidate Master (CM) Taffin Khan and Ethan Lee scored wins for the Guyana side, with Roberto Neto earning a half point from his drawn game to make the Open Team the overall winners of their round three matches. Unfortunately, FIDE Master (FM) Anthony Drayton was unable to score against FM Andre Stratonowitsch. Drayton’s game was seemingly heading to yet another victory or at least a draw when a miscalculation on move 62 (giving up a bishop for a pawn in the end game) sealed his fate and secured the win for his opponent.
In the Women’s tournament, Guyana recorded a 3-1 match victory over Hong Kong. Round three’s success came from excellent performances by Pooja Lam and Jessica Callender, who won their games while Nellisha Johnson added to the team score with a point by default. Sasha Shariff battled valiantly against her opponent but was unable to score.
Round four continues today with Guyana’s CM Khan, FM Drayton, Neto and Loris Nathoo taking on a tough Jamaican side in the Open category, and Lam, Shariff, Johnson and Callender taking on Haiti in the Women’s tournament.
Play starts daily at 15:00h Indian Time (05:30h Guyana Time). Links to live games can be found on the Guyana Chess Federation (GCF) website: www.guyanachess.org.
