Primary school chess heats up

St Winifred’s and St Gabriel’s are in the hunt to dethrone Charles F Broome A for the 2025 Barbados Primary Interschool Team Chess Championship.

Tied on three wins each after Thursday’s first day of competition at the Providence Elementary School, the schools will press their advance on Friday in the final two rounds of the five-round tournament.

St Winifred’s quintet of Zane Ward, Maximus Gonzalves, Caleb Medford, Gabriel Da Costa, and Jonah Hart triumphed over The Rock Christian Academy, Providence A, and Big Little Academy.

St Gabriel’s squad of Oliver King, Ian Harvey, Jasper King, Benjamin Luciene, Ahmali Corbin and Nathan Arthur-Banfield were victorious against St Patrick’s Roman Catholic, Warrens Primary and St Luke’s Academy.

Also tied in first but officially third on the tiebreak, Charles F Broome A whose team consists of Janiyah Browne, Nathan Culpepper, Kymani Gayle, Nia Snow Clarke, Liam Byer and Akeli Grazette defeated the Charles F Broome B team, St Giles A, and St George Primary A.

Browne, last year’s Central American and Caribbean Under-10 female chess bronze medallist, has so far enjoyed a perfect individual record as a result of her three wins. Her teammates Gayle and Byer also won all of their games.

Hart, Da Costa, Medford, and Gonzalves of St Winifred’s won three of three, as well as Mario Robertson and Aaron Tash of St Giles A.

Harvey and Luciene were also perfect in their play. Only two other players of the 105 entrants won all three games – Amari Forde of St George Primary C and Jeremiah Farley of The Rock Christian Academy.

Farley, an 11-year old chess prodigy, recently became the youngest player to qualify for the Barbados National Chess Championships to be staged later this year.

Farley was third with 5.5 points out of a possible seven in the recently held Second Qualifier named after top local player Kevin Denny.

Browne also participated in the 2025 Kevin Denny Open, placing fourth with four points.

Trailing the top three schools are St Giles A in fourth, St George Primary A in fifth, and St Giles B in sixth.

The chess tourney attracted 20 teams from 13 schools with Charles F Broome, Providence, St George Primary, and St Giles submitting multiple teams.

President of the Barbados Chess Federation Allan Herbert underscored the importance of the primary school event, a staple on the chess calendar which lost its momentum during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Sports brings that respect for fairplay, for being considerate to your opponent. Even though it is a competitive thing, it still reinforces congratulating your opponent for what they did. For us as a federation without three, four years of competition, that is like an entire Class 1 to 4 that has missed out the opportunity [to play]. We now have to rebuild the pipeline,” said Herbert who was pleased with the registration numbers.

“The turnout has improved. We have more schools — it is an increase on last year, our second year since COVID, so it is on the build back but we know we can do more. There is still a lot of room for growth; it can be even bigger. The biggest challenge we would have is the venue. Venue is going to be a critical hurdle for us as we grow this sport.”

rohansonnwaithe@barbadostoday.bb