It went right down to the wire and in the end Yeshua Hill upstaged CARIFTA silver medallist Vanessa Greenidge to emerge as the national Under-12 chess champion yesterday.
Hill finished with five and a half out of the maximum six points to edge No. 1 seed Greenidge and Tequon Pinder by half-point in a keenly contested two-day championships at The St Michael School.
As the two top seeds, Hill, a student of Harrison College, and Greenidge, who attends Queen’s College, were surprisingly paired for the first round when the competition started on Saturday and the former won the contest to claim an early advantage in the championships that attracted 37 entrants.
The only game Hill failed to win was his fourth-round contest that ended in a draw with Under-10 champion Jaydn Gill of Charles F. Broome.
Gill was the leader on the tie-break going into the fifth and penultimate round but suffered an upset defeat against Jamani Bowen to end his hopes of winning a second national title in the space of two weeks.
Hill went into the last round half-point ahead. He took his time before overcoming Christian Stuart-Jackman to win his first national title.
Greenidge, who won silver at this year’s CARIFTA Championships in Jamaica and placed fifth at the Central American and Caribbean Youth Festival in Panama, had to settle for second place on five points, the same as third-placed Pinder of Milton Lynch Primary while Gill took fourth place with four and a half points.
The tight nature of the championships was reflected by six players finishing on four points – Bowen (fifth) of Harrison College, Kimarhi Holder (sixth) of Milton Lynch, Stuart-Jackman (seventh) of Queen’s College, Jalia Linton (eighth) of Lawrence T. Gay, Alesha Lovell (ninth) of Ellerslie and Erin Mahon (tenth) of Queen’s College.
The Under-8 championship, which was contested as part of the Under-12s, was won by Hannah Wilson of People’s Cathedral. She finished with three points. (HG)
