PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – The Barbadian duo of Worldwide Grasp Orlando Husbands and Ladies’s Fide Grasp Hannah Wilson created historical past right here on Thursday by successful the Subzone 2.3.3 Open and Ladies’s Chess Championships 2025, respectively, to qualify for the 2025 World Cup.
In doing so, the 28-year-old Husbands and the 16-year-old Wilson grew to become the primary chess gamers from the English-speaking Caribbean to qualify for the World Cup in its new format.
The highest-ranked Husbands received the Open division after enjoying unbeaten, scoring 7.5 factors out of a attainable 9, with six wins and three attracts.
Needing to keep away from defeat in his remaining spherical sport in opposition to Jamaican Fide Grasp Joshua Christie to say the title, Husbands earned an important draw with the black items to e book his spot on the World Cup, which is scheduled to be held in New Delhi, India from October 31.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Worldwide Grasp Vishnu Singh was shut behind in second on seven factors, ending forward of Suriname’s Jason Yeung on the tiebreak.
Fide Masters Ryan Harper, Joshua Johnson, Kevin Cupid of Trinidad and Tobago, and Emar Edwards of Barbados shared fourth to seventh after all of them completed on 6.5 factors.
Barbados carried out brilliantly within the Ladies’s division to say the highest two positions, with Ladies’s Candidate Grasp Chanon Reifer-Belle putting second.
With Wilson an entire level forward heading into the ultimate spherical, she performed an excellent sport with the white items to defeat fellow Ladies’s Fide Grasp Polina Karelina of the Bahamas to finish on eight factors from her 9 matches, together with her solely loss being to Reifer-Belle in spherical six.
The 16-year-old Reifer-Belle, who was in good place to win the match till her loss to Karelina within the penultimate spherical, needed to battle tooth and nail to safe a draw in opposition to Suriname’s Victoria Kaslan within the remaining spherical, which earned her the silver medal and a Ladies’s Fide Grasp title.
High seed Ladies’s Candidate Grasp Ysvett Hermoso Rodriguez of Trinidad completed third on six factors after her final-round victory over Chelsea Wahid of Saint Lucia.
