Higgs Wins Bahamas Junior Chess In Upset
The Bahamas Junior Chess Championships 2004, recently held at CC
Sweeting Senior High School, saw Gerald Higgs from COB beating all the
favorites.
The coveted title was fought-over by all the best Junior (under 20) chess
players in a tournament that was full of surprises. The nations three
best-rated junior players, Lemaro Thompson (Scholastic Champion 2003),
Elton Joseph (Junior Champion 2002) and Le Roi Thompson (Junior Champion
2003) failed to live up to their reputations that they had
gained by winning all junior competitions for the past three years.
All three players lost one of the four games of the tournament and
resulted in a dramatic
tie-break between Gerald Higgs (rated 1520) against Lemaro Thompson
(rated 1650)—a rating difference that gives much better chances to
Thompson.
That critical game — which could be called a return match of the deciding
tie-break game that closed the Scholastic Championship in 2004 — saw
Lemaro take a strategic advantage after less than 15 moves. This time,
however, Gerald Higgs held his side of the board under pressure and, by
virtue of making fewer mistakes, won the a scramble in the endgame to be
proudly crowned junior chess kin