Says not being able to hold his nerves may have cost him

Nelson Pleased With Overall Results…

By Timothy Jaikarran

After travelling to Colombia to participate in the XVII Juegos Deportes Universitarios Centro Americanos y Del Caribe Colombian Mayo 20-26 2019, Sidney Nelson of the University of Guyana Chess team was able to bag three bronze medals after competing in the Classical, Rapids and Blitz categories.

Nelson an avid chess, was able to amass a total of 2 valuable points in the classical senior male team category to take the team to 6 points thus securing them third place in the competition. His no retreat, no surrender attitude led him to dig deep, pulling out all the stops earning him important draws and wins in the Rapids and Blitz categories to hand his team two more bronze medals. In an exclusive interview with Guyana Times Sport when asked of his performance nelson said, “Myself along with team mates Andre and Davion were presented three medals a piece for finishing third across three categories, Classical, Rapids and Blitz. While I’m pleased with the overall results (we medaled in all sections) I’ll be the first to say there is room for improvement. Looking at the competition, they seemed to have nerves of steel. They displayed great positional understanding and in depth knowledge of the game. Playing at such a level for the first time it goes without saying that it’s going to be very difficult battling the nerves.”
Nelson also went on to state that while there is much improvement needed in his game, he was particularly pleased about the one game he played and lost, after leading the matchup for most of the game. He noted that the game he lost, he was up two major pieces as well as having one minute and twenty-four seconds on the clock, while his opponent only had seventeen seconds. Nelson related to this publication that because of the pressure he played an illegal move awarding his opponent two extra minutes on the clock. The pressure then got to him again thus resulting in him playing yet another illegal move and practically handing his opponent the win.
According to the FIDE rules 2018 “7.5.5 After the action taken under Article 7.5.1, 7.5.2, 7.5.3 or 7.5.4 for the first completed illegal move by a player, the arbiter shall give two minutes extra time to his opponent; for the second completed illegal move by the same player the arbiter shall declare the game lost by this player. However, the game is drawn if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves.”
In closing Nelson said, “I believe that was my biggest challenge, and ended up losing a game against an opponent I was completely crushing because I couldn’t hold my nerves. That corrected I’m convinced that we will come away with better results next time.”