Kyle Couchman won his final two matches to complete the 36th Pan American Youth Chess Festival as Guyana’s leading player, scoring five points in the standard competition in Medellín, Colombia.
The Guyanese Open Under-18 competitor placed 34th after a campaign which included four wins, two draws and three losses. Couchman defeated Colombia’s Sebastian Velez in the eighth round before closing with another victory over Juan Ramirez on Saturday.
The 1962-rated player also recorded victories against Emmanuell Chaurra and Simon Carrillo. One of his strongest results was a draw against Mexico’s 2217-rated Miguel Lopez. He also held Mexico’s Ronaldo Hernandez to a draw and finished with a performance rating of 1955.
Women’s Candidate Master Aditi Joshi narrowly followed Couchman in Guyana’s overall scoring with 4.5 points. She finished 27th in the Girls’ Under-16 tournament after winning twice and drawing five of her nine games.
Joshi defeated Colombia’s Salome Acevedo and Ecuador’s Eva Nunez. Her drawn matches included encounters with Colombia’s Daniela Bohorquez, Jamaica’s Melieka Palmer and Ecuador’s Mariangel Zambrano.
Abel Fernandez and Aiden Tinnie were the other Guyanese players to reach four points.
Fernandez finished 97th in the Open Under-14 division after ending with three wins from his final four matches. He beat Colombia’s Andres Ruiz and Gerard Montes before defeating Peru’s Santiago Medina in the ninth round.
Tinnie placed 73rd in the Open Under-12 category. His four victories came against Venezuela’s Jose Barrera and Colombia’s Jose Chinchilla, Guyana’s Jeremiah Jacobs and Colombia’s Nicolas Gaviria.
Alek Ubaldo-Singh scored 3.5 points in the Open Under-14 competition. His results included wins over Colombia’s Juan Pena, Trinidad and Tobago’s Caleb Campo and Colombia’s Emmanuel Vera.
Seven Guyanese players finished on three points. They were Mark Defreitas, Vir Narine, Jeremiah Jacobs, Divya Persaud, Rebha Lachhman, Alexander Zhang and Emma John.
Defreitas ended his Open Under-10 campaign with a victory over Colombia’s Carlos Barney. Persaud closed the Girls’ Under-12 competition with a draw against Puerto Rico’s Ariana Florian, while Lachhman received a final-round bye in the Girls’ Under-14 section.
Zhang scored two victories and two draws in the Open Under-16 competition. John, meanwhile, secured one win and four draws in the Girls’ Under-16 event.
Pranav Suman finished with 2.5 points in the Open Under-8 section. Sanjay Suman and Amaya Sharma scored two points each, Arian Tinnie earned 1.5, and Jordon Jacobs completed the tournament with one point.
The Guyanese delegation featured 17 players across the Open and Girls’ divisions from Under-8 to Under-18.
The nine-round standard tournament was played from July 27 to August 1 at the Coliseo de Combate Guillermo Gaviria Correa. It used the Swiss system and an international rating format, with each player receiving 90 minutes and a 30-second increment per move.
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