Ciel Clement and Aditi Joshi each scored a win during their Round Four matches with European territory, Guernsey, at the Chess Olympiad in Budapest, Hungary, while the men’s team, paired against Palestine, were unsuccessful.
Marie de Carteret (unrated) of the island nation conceded defeat to Guyanese Clement (1454) after 31 moves in a weak position, losing her queen earlier to Clement.
Joshi (1535) defeated another higher-rated opponent, Julie L. Denning (1741) in 36 moves after an intense fight.
Joshi advanced her Rook, Knight and Bishop and surrounded her opponent’s King to execute checkmate on the 36th move.
Meanwhile, Guyana’s Candidate Master (CM) Taffin Khan (2066) resigned to his Palestinian opponent CM Mohamed Allam (2053) on the 50th move as Mohamed made gains and strengthened his position for a final assault on Khan’s King.
FIDE Master (FM) Anthony Drayton (1964) was engaged in a marathon confrontation with International Master (IM) Christian D. Michel Yunis (2220) that ended in 83 moves.
The match reached the endgame with Yunis’ only pawn left on the board, heading for promotion which determined the outcome and loss for Drayton.
Former Junior Champion Keron Sandiford (1755) conceded to his opponent Ahmad Abdel Wahab (1995) in an endgame dominated by Wahab’s two extra pawns heading for promotion, posing a dire threat to his opponent.
Unable to avoid the outcome, Sandiford resigned on move 49. Sachin Pitamber (1715), paired against CM Baha Miswadah (1957), ended their match on move 53 in favour of Miswadah.
Miswadah gained a three-pawn advantage with his superior Rook battling Pitamber’s Knight.
More matches are scheduled as Team Guyana faces off more countries in the epic biennial event with the participation of almost 200 chess-playing nations.
The 45th Chess Olympiad ends on September 23, 2024, after 11 Rounds of competition. So far, Guyana has faced the host nation Hungary, as well as teams from Denmark, Jordan, Palestine, Guernsey and sister CARICOM states Grenada and St. Vincent.
The pairings are computer generated based on the scorings of the teams participating.
