Jamaica teams head for Chess Olympiad

THE JAMAICAN NATIONAL Chess teams will leave the island today to participate in the 37th Chess Olympiad being held in Turin, Italy.

The teams will take part in thirteen rounds of competition with the first round commencing on Sunday, May 21 and the final round scheduled for June 4. One hundred and thirty-nine countries have registered for the Open section where Jamaica is ranked at 95, while one hundred and one are down to take part in the Women's tournament where Jamaica is ranked 73.

STRONGEST EVER TEAM

Jamaica's team for the Open section is the strongest that has ever been sent to the Olympiad, it consists of FIDE Master Warren Elliott, National Masters Shane Matthews, Jomo Pitterson, Duane Rowe and Russel Porter and National Master elect Equitable Brown. The Women's team includes Women's National Master Deborah Richards, Camile Casserly, Zhu Hui and Vanessa Thomas. The teams will be accompanied by non-playing captains National Master Robert Wheeler for the Open team and Ian Wilkinson for the Women's team.

The teams' participation this year was made possible through the assistance of a number of sponsors including the Office of Utilities Regulation, Newport Mills, Carib Cement, Dehring, Bunting and Golding and the Liguanea Chess Club.

SURPASS MINIMUM GOALS

While not expected to be in the runnings with top teams such as Russia and most of Europe, where the top players eat, sleep, drink and earn a handsome living from chess, Jamaica will be seeking to significantly surpass certain minimum goals.

One goal is to improve on its performance in previous Olympiads in the Open section by scoring at least 50%, the highest previous percentage was 48.2% registered in 1988. In that year, the Jamaican team scored 27 points from 56 games (the winners Russia secured 40.5 points to take gold). This year there will only be 52 games, hence the minimum target score will be 26 points.

The defending Open champions are Ukraine who won for the first time last year and in the process broke a 24-year run at the top by Russia.

Of the 36 Chess Olympiads held to date, Russia (or USSR) have won 24 times, USA five times, Hungary three times and Poland, Germany, Yugolslavia and Ukraine once each.