Heroes Cup won by Shabalov

GM Alexander Shabalov (USA) and Gilles Suez-Panama (Martinique)
Photos from barbados.org.

Alexander Shabalov won the Heroes Day Cup with an impressive 7.5/9 losing only to fellow-GM Alonso Zapata who came in second. The Latvian-born, US citizen combined tactical alertness with positional understanding to outpace a field of 14 players from ten different countries. This was an ground-breaking event for the Barbados Chess Federation and Allan Herbert continues his aggressive plans to make the Caribbean a region hosting top-level tournaments. Bermuda and Curacao have already made a mark and Trinidad and Jamaica have hosted similar tournaments with GMs.

In the Candidate’s Section, Gilles Suez-Panama of Martinique won on tiebreaks over Equitable Brown of Jamaica. Both players went undefeated on 7/9 drawing their encounter.

In the diagram, Brown has a dominant position and it appears as if he would score a nice victory, but in the end he was unable to score the full point. Check out the game here.

This tournament was a single round-robin format with three nations represented. This served as a good opportunity for local players to qualify for FIDE ratings and to increase exposure.

Final Standings (Master’s)

1st: Alexander Shabalov, 7.5
2nd: Alonso Zapata, 7.0
3rd: Rainer Buhmann, 6.5
4th: Martin Neubauer, 6.0
5th-6th: Augusto Moran, Ryan Harper, 5.0
7th: Mauricio Uribe, 4.5
8th-9th: Kevin Denny, Delisle Warner, 4.0
10th: Jomo Pitterson, 3.5
11th-12th: Nazi Paikidze, Warren Elliott, 3.0
13th: Bengt Hammar, 2.5
14th: Terry Farley, 1.5

Games (PGN format)

Final Standings (Candidate’s)

1st-2nd: Gilles Suez-Panama, Equitable Brown, 7.0
3rd: Lyndell Halliday, 6.0
4th: Demetrio Moore, 5.5
5th-6th: Karl Loic Rapon, Dwyane Gilkes, 5.0
7th: Othniel Harewood, 4.0
8th: Trevor Griffith, 3.0
9th: Raymond Marbot, 2.5
10th: Juanita Garnett, 0.0

Games (PGN format)

Coverage: The Chess Drum