Promising juniors would gain much-needed exposure at Olympiad
Former world champion Garry Kasparov once said, “Chess clearly shows us the power of why. Every move has a consequence; every move either fits into your strategy or it doesn’t”. What he meant was that if you do not constantly question your moves, you will lose to the player who is playing with a coherent plan. The fundamental lesson to be learned here is that if during the game, you stop, and ask, ‘why this move?’ all of our games will improve.
Over the years I have grown to admire chess players for their insightfulness. The junior players in Guyana are an intelligent lot. They play elegantly, and sharply. I never met Kasparov but I’m familiar with his games. I met, however, Kasparov’s longtime rival and another former world champion Anatoly Karpov. During casual conversations, I concluded that he had an extraordinarily brilliant mind. That is one of the reasons why I am advocating for the Guyana Chess Federation to take a promising male junior to the biennial Olympiad; so he could obtain exposure. He would meet and fraternize with other youthful titled players, even grandmasters. The experience of that player’s first Olympiad would be memorable.
It’s unlikely Guyana would win a medal (gold, silver or bronze) at the Chess Olympiad at this point. Therefore, the GCF should seriously consider giving one of the batons to a promising male teen. The women have their separate championship tournament at home and at the Olympiad, and it is distinctly possible the Guyana women’s chess team for 2022 would consist only of teenage girls.
The ferocious national championship qualifiers are underway. During the top games last week, Anthony Drayton defeated Wendell Meusa and Jessica Callender outplayed Pooja Lam. Taffin Khan and Sasha Sharriff are the men and women’s defending champions and therefore are not required to participate in the qualifiers. They will play in the national championship. The qualifiers end today.