Guyanese duos 12 year old Chelsea Juma and 14 year old Sasha Shariff on their 2nd international tournament appearance will be expecting to reach their FIDE (World Chess Federation) ratings after competing their required seven (7) games against rated players from Carifta Championships in Paramaribo, Suriname to this challenging and unpredictable tournament. At the CAC, Chelsea’s performance rating was 1113 and Sasha’s was 1022 and will be expected to take Guyana’s total amount of FIDE Rated Women to six (6) behind WFM Maria Thomas (1739), WCM Sheriffa Ali (1363), Jessica Clementson (1203) and Nellisha Johnson (1123). Chelsea Juma is now Guyana’s youngest player to be receiving a FIDE rating!!
Participants
From the nine (9) rounds Chelsea Juma finished on 1.5 points while Sasha Shariff finished on 1 point. Being the only unrated players at the event our girls battled their way through the rigorous tournament against top females from Barbados, Trinidad, Suriname, Netherlands Antilles and Costa Rica. The local players should have accumulated more points for example when young Juma missed a “threefold repetition” draw and turned down many draw offers by her opponent while over confidently pushing for a win. However, a notable game was Chelsea Juma win against three (3) time Guatemalan olympiad and WCM Julissa Figueroa, who will be playing for Barbados at this year 43rd World Chess Olympiad.
Playing the Black pieces, WCM Figueroa turned to the “tricky” Paulsen Variation of the Sicilian Defense but due to a possible “blind spot” left a Bishop undefended which young Juma was keen to capture thus making her opponent resign and sending a shockwave through out the tournament hall.
While Sasha Shariff got some better positions and winning advantages in alot of her games but failed to convert these advantages into a full point. Her notable game was Round (1) and eight (8) which she should have definitely won but fail to find the winning combinations to receive full points. During the tournament, both Sasha and Chelsea received some training via post analysis and pre analysis of their games from Barbadian IM (FIDE International Master) Orlando Husband and Lawrence Depradine. The tournament and training is all part of Ms. Shariff planned training before she represents Guyana at the 43rd World Chess Olympiad scheduled to be held in Batumi, Georgia from Sept 23 – 6th October, 2018.
