Barbados holds GM Tourney!
Barbados’ Allan Herbert (pictured above right) has announced the Heroes Day Cup which will feature a number of standouts from more than ten federations. The Chess Drum will be covering what is hailed as Barbados first GM norm tournament. In the field are a number of National Champions, past and present. The event is sponsored by RBTT and Digicel and will be held in Bridgetown, Barbados, the capitol.
| Player |
Title
|
Nation
|
Flag
|
ELO
|
|
| Rainer Buhmann | GM |
Germany
|
 |
2582
|
|
| Alexander Shabalov | GM |
USA
|
 |
2569
|
|
| Alonso Zapata | GM |
Columbia
|
 |
2514
|
|
| Martin Neubauer | IM |
Austria
|
 |
2414
|
|
| Mauricio Uribe | IM |
Columbia
|
|
2416
|
|
| Augusto Moran | IM |
Ecuador
|
 |
2393
|
|
| Kevin Denny | IM |
Barbados
|
 |
2354
|
|
| Bengt Hammar | FM |
Sweden
|
 |
2323
|
|
| Nazi Paikidze | WIM |
Georgia
|
 |
2310
|
|
| Elliott Warren | FM |
Jamaica
|
 |
2265
|
|
| Jomo Pitterson | FM |
Jamaica
|
|
2242
|
|
| Terry Farley | FM |
Barbados
|
|
2241
|
|
| Delisle Warner | FM |
Barbados
|
|
2209
|
|
| Ryan Harper | FM |
Trinidad
|
 |
2241
|
CANDIDATES
| Player |
Title
|
Nation
|
Flag
|
ELO
|
|
| Equitable Brown |
Jamaica
|
|
2159
|
||
| Yohnel Medeuf |
Martinique
|
 |
2057
|
||
| Giles Suez-Panama |
Martinique
|
|
2032
|
||
| Lyndell Halliday |
Barbados
|
|
2024
|
||
| Karl Loic Rapon |
Martinique
|
|
2416
|
||
| Othneil Harewood |
Barbados
|
|
1933
|
||
| Dwayne Gilkes |
Barbados
|
|
1861
|
||
| Rashida Corbin |
Barbados
|
|
1971
|
||
| George Perez Borrero |
Puerto Rico
|
 |
2310
|
||
| Juanita Garnett |
Jamaica
|
|
unr.
|
||
| Trevor Griffith |
Barbados
|
|
unr.
|
||
| Demetrio Moore |
Barbados
|
|
unr.
|
International Arbiter Rohan Waithe is the Chief Arbiter for the Masters and FIDE Arbiter Kelvin Daniel for the Candidates.
Herbert, who chairs the Organizing Committee, stated:
The Masters will be the 1st Grandmaster Norm Tournament in Barbados. It is going to be a very historic event and the strongest tournament ever held in Barbados… Things are going to start coming fast and furious.
We’ll be watching!
Barbados Chess Federation: https://barbados.org/chess
This is nice to hear about.
What a wonderful tourney… I wish I could follow the games live!! Kudos to the caribbean chess federations! Seems that you have finally have a good groove going…. Keep this up guys, I may just make a comeback … you guys would surely not want to see a fiery me back in action, would you?? (LMAO)
Daaim, Thanks for posting!!
Totally agree, every Caribbean-Caribbean game has drawn! Still an impressive tournament with many rounds to go…
Ashley invented this??? I thought it was Silvio Danailov (Topalov’s manager)?
Nice torny! yall my brothers i didnt know you could organize such a tourny or at least thats what they say, we gunna have black people all over the world runnin events! Wow! Harper rd.4 the black chess ok im seeing. OOh and GM Shabalov you testin out the “Black Chess” what happen Shabalov i thought we didnt know anything? That African Science is something when it hit you in the head huh? Hey Shabby if you see Invanchuck and the boys pleases let them “im watchin them watchin me watchin them” hehe!
Cool, Ashley is quite a monumental figure in chess. Good stuff.
Hi Guys,
I wanted to say that I think the Caribbean can really benefit from holding some Open tournaments, even if they are smaller than Foxwoods or the World Open in magnitude. I believe such tournaments can be self-sustaining. The beauty of the place and its proximity are great selling points. Especially if structured in a way such that players have time to take their significant others to see the tourist attractions and other places of interest. The thing is, not enough advance notice is given(though the Trinidad tournament last year did give some advance notice). Generally about three months notice is needed, as people have to save for the airfare and arrange leave at work for both themselves and any friend they may take with them. This Jamaica tournament has a lower section, but word of it got out the week before the tournament started.
Hi Daaim,
Thanks for the fantastic coverage.
I hope that your comments will not fall on deaf ears. The caribbean will always suffer from lack of exposure to GM level players because we are semi- pros with lives outside the game. The pursuit of chess excellence (or attempt to be magnificent!) is reduced therefore to the four or five weeks vacation period once a year and these events which are held at home and require no vacation leave. It is therefore a very focused and hungry player that should be facing these visiting GM’s but….
Having a big open tournament is one of our goals.Trinidad did it in 1999 The Caribbean Open.There were GMs from USA,England, Germany and Peru.Also Nakamura( he was very young of course!!) played as well. The island of St Martin also had big money open tournaments.It is something that I think we can do.
I’ll forever remember that Caribbean Open, GMs Urday, Conquest, Ward et al, Denny… and a young Nakamura who challenged me at blitz (that was funny)… It was a fantastic tourney put together by Edison and crew! I sometimes wonder if now GM Nakamura would recall playing me at blitz, he was only about 10 or 11 at the time, so you know as an aspiring FM I had to kind of show him my blitz prowess. I still think i was one of the best blitz players in the english-speaking Caribbean, but use to marvel at Denny giving opponents 5 minutes and taking only 1 minute for himself!! I wonder if Denny still does that or even remember those days!!!!
Hi Grantel,
How are you doing? Congratulations on your FM title, I do believe it was a first for Jamaica and shows you kept on playing better and better after we first met in T&T that summer of 1988. I wonder if you remember me from the late eighties! I want to take this opportunity to communicate with all the Caribbean chess organisers including Allan Herbert(whose home hosted me for the 1987 Barbados Open), Edison Raphael (who along with his good buddy Kurtis Chong and Mr Fitzpatrick used to ferry us around and make sure we were in comfortable accomodations in numerous T&T tournaments) and the indefatigible Mr Ian Wilkinson whom I met a few times in the States. Also anyone else in the Caribbean who might be interested. Please contact me to talk seriously about setting up a tournament in the various islands on a one or two per year basis, rotating across the Caribbean where we could have a large Open section. I am willing to try but need help. This is my attempt at giving back to chess the joy and fun I have derived from it.
Hi Andy,
If my memory is right! and that’s a stretch… you played for Guyana, but man, that was a long time ago and my memory ain’t what it used to be. 1988, was the year I memorised the entire periodic table… now I don’t even remember the first 10 elements!! LOL… I live in Canada now but I have a US # which is 215-550-5586. Feel free to drop me a line! Regards…
It has been a terribly long time since being intrigued by Chess. The Pitterson game with the WIM Nazi – I agreed had a lot more play. Jomo was always a draw addict. Sometimes I wished he attacked more like Gibbo especially since he invests a lot of time in preparation and theory.
Gibbo – you need to go get that IM. These guys were too friendly with the draws. You would have laid it out there until your opponent was vanquished – or you succumbed. Hail to the Gibbo!!