Nine-year-old Sean Yearwood has left a unique record among the 120 players who took part in the Caribbean Chess Carnival held at the Queen’s Park Oval last week.
The Trinity Junior School student is the only player to finish the seven-round tournament with a perfect score, topping the 16 players in the Under 10 group with seven points.
In second and third places, respectively, were LeBron Alfred on six and Kyron Agostini on five.
This win enhances the string of victories that Yearwood has scored over the last two years and reinforces the position he has earned as the country’s leading under-ten chess player.
Earlier this year he led the Under 11 group in the Pan Am Scholastic Championship at the Hasely Crawford Stadium. In 2011 the Trinity Junior schoolboy emerged the Under 8 National Champion and took the Under 10 title in the following year.
Among his several other victories was his success in the Under 10 category of the Carifta Games.
Yearwood learned the game from his father and developed under various coaches including leading player Alex Winter Roach.
FM Keron Cabralis made an impressive return to the sport by topping the Under 20 group, finishing on five-and-a-half points.
Behind him by half a point was Orlando Husbands of Barbados with Vishnu Singh taking third place on four-and-a-half.
Yu Tien Poon of Barbados played unbeaten to lead the Under 14s on six and a half. Joshua Johnson finished a full point behind him with Anviti Adhin of Suriname placing third on five.
Pierre Chang of the Netherlands also played unbeaten among the Under 12s, scoring six, half a point ahead of Carlos Javier Castro Bello of Cuba and Mikel Martin.
The Novices group saw the largest entry, 24 players, and the keenest competition with three players topping on six points each, requiring a tie-break separation—Shev Nagir, Matthew Surajbally and Isiah Mondesir.
The tournament, organised by the T&T Chess Foundation and sponsored by First Citizens Asset Management Ltd, attracted 120 players from the region, including Barbados, Cuba, Suriname, the Netherlands and the Dominican Republic.