Christopher Farrugia, 21 year old of Mellieha, left, clinched first place at this year’s national chess Preliminaries played at Stella Maris College in Gzira. Farrugia finished joint first together with Ivan Attard, both at 5 ½ points however his tie-break score was superior. Attard, on his part, took second place and made this his third successive qualification into the second phase of the national championship which is the Candidates competition.

In third place was the national title holder of the U16 category Jake Darmanin. Darmanin managed 5/7 with two loses, one at the hands of Farrugia in round one and the other in round three to Attard

The other three qualifiers were veteran chess player Ron Sammut, Braden Borg and Alexander Farrugia. Sam Herd tied sixth with Farrugia however he failed to qualify to the Candidates at his first attempt after a long spell away from competitive chess.

The competition, organised by the Malta Chess Federation, saw also some young players leaving their mark. Christian Schembri managed a 50% score with three wins and an interesting draw against the winner of the competition in a game he should have won had he been more experienced.

Gabriel Farrugia, on his part, had a good win against the more knowledgeable Stephen Attard and together with the Luca Schembri ended the competition with 2/7, a relatively good score considering their young age.

At the end of the competition, Stephen Farrugia, on behalf of the Malta Chess Federation, thanked Bro David Mizzi, director of Stella Maris College for hosting the event. He thanked all participants for their good show and congratulated the six qualifiers.

Next event: U18 Easter Open at St Ignatius College in Federico Maempel Square Qormi. Date of the one day event is 16 April 2011 at 9am sharp.