Guyana women ranked 116 after seven rounds at Chess Olympiad

Oct 02, 2018 Sports

The Guyana men’s chess Olympiad team went down 3 – 1 against Malta in round 7, while the women favoured better against Mauritius with a 3 – 1 win.
The women took their second match win with 2 wins and 2 draws to secure a three games to one victory against the lower rated Mauritius chess team. Surprisingly, female national champion Varona Thomas had to settle for a draw against the lower rated A. Beekhy who was surely winning the game. Same must be said for young Sasha Shariff who got a draw as well against A. Dindoyal who was the exchange up in a clearly better position.
However, Women Candidate Master (WCM) Sheriffa Ali and Nellisha Johnson secured wins to make sure Guyana took the match. First, WCM, Ali, demolished Uvika Essoo’s Scandinavian Defence with some fine tactics, while Nellisha Johnson in a losing position won her opponent’s C. Andhin Queen after a mistake when she played (25.f4). But as the saying goes in chess, the loser is always the player who makes the last mistake which in this case was the Mauritius player.
Meanwhile, the Guyanese men went down 3 – 1 with the only win coming from Candidate Master (CM) Anthony Drayton who turned to the sharp Paulsen Variation of the Sicilian Defence. CM R Zerafa of Malta misplayed the opening and allowed Drayton to gain early control of the center and active play which was more than enough for him to force a win. However, his fellow teammates did not have such lucky fate as they all lost to Malta chess players who were rated over 2000 ELO. CM Taffin Khan lost with the White pieces in a very unorthodox Queen’s pawn (d4) opening to the highest rated Malta player CM Colin Pace (2132).
Loris Nathoo continues to have a rough tournament this time losing to J Darmanin (2069) after misplaying the Ruy Lopez Closed variation, while Glenford Corlette with the white pieces went for the Exchange variation of the French Defence that his opponent CM C. Psaila (2002) choose to respond to e4. Glenford went for the isolani d4 pawn position but didn’t gain control of the crucial d5 square and at no time was able to use the positional dynamics of the isolani pawn.
Both men and women’s team have accumulated 7 points from 28 games, however the women’s team are higher on their standings at position 116 from 151 teams, while the men are at 160 from 185 teams with 4 more rounds to go.
Please see Guyana’s full round seven results below.
Malta                                     3 1          Guyana
CM Zerafa, R. 2085 0-1         CM Drayton, A. 2024
CM Pace, Colin 21 32        1-0      CM Khan, Taffin 1900
Darmanin, J. 2069          1-0            Nathoo, Loris 1665
CM Psaila, C. 2002           1-0          Corlette, G. 1653

Mauritius68 1 3           Guyana
Beekhy, A. 1397    ½-½       WFM Varona-Thomas 1739
Essoo, Uvika                     0-1           WCM Ali, Sheriffa 1365
Andhin, C.                        0-1    Johnson, N. 1123
Dindoyal, A.                  ½-½                Shariff, S.

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