Thursday, September 20 2012

NATIONAL women’s chess champion Aditi Soondarsingh pulled off a major upset when she defeated Iraq’s high rated Women International Master (WIM) on the top board-1 at the just concluded World Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, Turkey.

Aditi’s victory in the 9th round against Iraq’s (WIM) Iman Al-Rufaye was T&T lone win, with Gabriella Johnson pulling off a draw on board-3 as T&T went under 1.5 – 2.5. Adit has become the first TT female player to defeat a WIM in an international tournament.

She is the second female player from the English speaking Caribbean to have won against a WIM at the World Olympiad, the first being Jamaican Deborah Richards who defeated Marisa Zuriel of Argentina in year 2006 in Turin, Italy and Karolina Nadya Ortiz of Columbia in 2010 at Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia.

Aditi, who returned from Turkey with the national teams last Tuesday, will be back in action over the weekend in the annual Paladins Republic Day Chess Tournament. She will be coming up against her brother Dev, a national finalist in this year’s national championship. Veteran Andrew Bowles, Prince Prince and Hermes Mentor will also contest the senior division for the Cyril Bernard challenge trophy.

Bernard, a former Senior Superintendent in the Special Branch and a foundation member of Paladins, will also be sponsoring the trophy and medals for the under-16 and under-12 categories.

Najarah Rahaman of South-East PoS Secondary School will have to overcome Sadiqah Razark of Couva Government Secondary and Tyler-Marie Mungal of Bishop Anstey’s High, PoS to claim the U-16 title.

In the under-12 category Shemilah James, St Ursula’s, will be looking to reverse tables on schoolmate Danielle Cadogan and Zaakir Razark of Exchange Presbyterian Primary for top prize. The tournament begins on Saturday from 2pm at the ALGICO plaza, Port-of-Spain.