About Carifta | FEDAKO

Carifta: A brief history

Sir Austin Sealy (former president of the Amateur Athletic Association of Barbados) inaugurated the CARIFTA Games in 1972 as an annual junior track and field championship meet. Following Athletics, the CARIFTA Aquatics Championships are held since 1985 annually in a similar format. Chess players had to wait until 2012 for the introduction of the noble game in the CARIFTA Championships as an official FIDE event.
Trinidad & Tobago had the honor of hosting the first CARIFTA Junior Chess Championships, which they won.

CARIFTA country prize winners

The following countries were declared overall winners of the previous editions of the CARIFTA Junior Chess Championships.

In 2012 Trinidad & Tobago won in St. Augustine, Trinidad.
In 2013 Jamaica won in Kingston, Jamaica.
In 2014 Trinidad & Tobago won for the second time in Le Lamentin, Martinique.
In 2015 Barbados won in Christ Church Parish, Barbados.
In 2016 Barbados won again in Christiansted, St. Croix, USVI.
In 2017 Jamaica won for the second time in Kingston, Jamaica.
In 2018 Surinam won in Paramaribo, Suriname.

Who wilI be the 2019 winner in Willemstad, Curaçao?

Mascot Carifta 2019

The Mascot for the Curaçao CARIFTA Chess Championships 2019, was designed by Peter Paul Piper. Peter Paul is a talented painter and a regular club chess player in Curaçao. He is known for his typical painting style and owns many creations. The two chess pieces in the mascot are dressed in local folklore costumes.

Curacao @ CARIFTA 2015

Curacao @ CARIFTA 2017

Curacao @ CARIFTA 2018

It was 2015 in Barbados, when Curacao participated at the CARIFTA Junior Chess Championships for the first time. Taqesyah Marcos and Argeenie Pieters played in the female official categories U12 and U16, while David Pietersz and Dylan Mathilda played in the official Open categories U16 and U20. David Pietersz managed to win a gold medal in the age category U14.

Our second time at the the CARIFTA Junior Chess Championships was in 2017 in Jamaica. Dylan Mathailda played in the U20 Open, David Pietersz in the U16 Open, Frederic Simonis in the U12 Open, Taqesyah Marcos and Mariana Sanchez both played in the U16 Female Category. They all had an acceptable performance.
Frederic Simonis won a bronze medal in the age category U10 and Taqesyah finished third in the Official female group U16.

In 2018 Frederic Simonis playing in the U12 category was the only participant from Curaçao at the CARIFTA Chess Championships held in Suriname. Unfortunatly he did not return with a prize, dispite a good performance scoring 5 points out of seven games.

Arbitration Curacao CARIFTA 2019

The CARIFTA Chess Championships will be played according to the Regulations CARIFTA Chess Championships (Download regulation here). Some information in the last available version of this document has to be updated by the CCA. The Chief Arbiter responsible for the arbitration team of the Curacao CARIFTA 2019 is IA Alexander Roose. Mr . Roose is very active internationally as an arbiter. He has been involved as an arbiter every single year since 2002 in the Grandmaster C-group of the TATA STEEL tournament, which is the highest regarded chess tournament in the world.

The FIDE awarded the international arbiter title (IA) to Mr. Roose in 2005.
IA Roose performed as an arbiter at FIDE’s Chess Olympiads in 2012 in Instanbul, Turkey, in 2014 in Tromsø, Norway, in 2016 in Baku, Azerbaijan and in 2018 at the Batumi Chess Olympiad in Georgia.
IA Roose had the privilege to award the first GM norm certificate to the current world champion Magnus Carlsen in January 2004, when Carlsen was only 13 years old.