Sept 26th, 2009 : 12 courageous chess players met for the exceptionally difficult tournament "Battle of the MINDS!".
All players played 3 rounds blindfold, which means that they were not allowed to look at the board while making their moves.
They had to visualize the board and keep track of the always changing positions after each move.
Players were calling out their moves and the Tournament Director was recording them on the notation paper and made those moves on the board, so that he could keep track of the game.
Players played round-robin in Quads format. Each Tournament director was assigned to monitor one board at a time.
The final winners from each of the quads are: Alfred Awe, Jamir Sanchez and Joshua Chiang.
Below are the names of the participants:
Stann Creek players: Gilbert Parham, Fitzroy Chan, Kris Sanchez,Rick Pascasio, Alfred Awe
West Cayo Players: Clifford Coleman, Jamir Sanchez
East Cayo:Akeem Jenkins, Joshua and Jeremy Chiang( he was the youngest player of the day- 8 years old!), Carlos Cocom and Richard Beane.
We started teaching kids to play blindfold during the summer camp, but we could not anticipate such remarkable results. Those players continued practicing at home with their coaches or parents.....and the most impressive thing happened, even the young players 8-9 years old were able to hold games for 28-30 moves! Believe me, you will want to witness such a battle of minds! You will have a chance to see one of the kids to play blindfold against and adult on the day of the Chess Symposium, Oct 10th, so do not miss your chance, register for the event at belizechess@cavesbranch.comSpecial Thanks to the Tournament directors of the day : Brian Chun, Carlos Cocom Sr, Richard Beane Sr, Gabriel Baron, David Coombs and Ella Anderson.
