AS Guyana’s performance at the 42 Chess Olympiad continues to improve, Maria Varona-Thomas and Sheriffa Ali scored wins as the women’s team picked up a 4 – 0 victory over Tanzania, and drew 2 – 2 against Aruba, and a win by Su Haifeng help the men to a 2 – 2 draw against the Fiji team, when the battle of wits continued in Baku,Azerbaijan yesterday.Now four rounds in, four of the five players on the women’s team have already picked up at least one win, while on the boys side only two players are yet to score a point.
Leading the points standing on the Guyana team is Varona-Thomas with 2.5 points, she is followed by Sheriffa Ali and Haifeng, whom have 2 points each. Candidate master (CM) Taffin Khan (1877 ), Jessica Clementson and Yolander Persaud all have one point each, while CM Anthony Drayton has 0.5 point.
Still to get in some points are Candidate master Ronuel Greenidge (1723), who was featured in three of the four rounds, and Roberto Neto, who lost the only game he played in round four.
After opening with a disheartening 0 – 4 losses for both the male and female side, as the teams went down against teams from Macedonia and Singapore, respectively, Guyana has since seen nothing but encouraging developments.
Following her initial lost, Varona-Thomas rebounded superbly showing that she could really hold her own in the midst of international competition. In her next three matches the 47 year old player assembled two wins and a draw.
With a FIDE rating of 1775, and rating performance (rp) of 1884, the women’s candidate master won against Tanzania’s Fammie Vida Joseph, and Aruba’s Stacey Caton (1605). Her greatest achievement however was playing to a draw against the higher ranked Woman FIDE Master (WFM) Olivia Smith (2002), while playing the black pieces, when the team came up against Wales.
In her opening match, Varona-Thomas suffered a lost against Singapore’s Qianyun Gong (2262), in a game where she played the black pieces.
The unrated Sheriffa registered a win against unrated players Aruba’s Monica Bremo, in round four, and Martha Fredy Anawa of Tanzania, in round three. She did not play in round two of the competition, where only four of the team’s five players can play per round. In round one she lost to Kai Xin Siew (1607).
Jessica (1233) took a win in the third round when she faced off against Fena M Gwamwamba, in the same round Persaud (1151) won against Aida Lalika.
Playing in all four rounds for the men’s side, Haifeng with his two wins had just as many losses, but fared impressively against higher rated players. Haifeng has an FIDE rating of 1800, and a 1986 rp, and triumphed over Guatemala’s David Giron, FIDE rating 2174, and CM Noel A Adricula (1656) of Fiji.
Overall the Guyana’s men team had, up until round four, played Macedonia, Guatemala, Fiji, and Ghana, respectively. The team finished 1.5 – 2.5 against Guatemala, but also lost 0 -4 against Ghana. They are next scheduled to play Qatar in round five, the Guyana women will also play the Qatar women today.
(Tamica Garnett)