Women’s FIDE Master Deborah Richards captured the award for Best Female Player at the UMADA Chess Cup which took place August 14-19 at the Cascadia Hotel, Port of Spain, Trinidad.

Richards represented Jamaica as the national female champion at the event where over 70 of the top players from 15 countries in the Central American and Caribbean region congregated under the patronage of World Chess Federation (FIDE) president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.

Despite suffering a second-round loss to Jeremy Ammon of Trinidad and Tobago, she recouped with thrilling victories in the successive four rounds. This included a brilliant victory over Daniela Hurtado of Venezuela in her ‘pet-line’ English Opening, where Richards demonstrated superb technique in slowly strangling Hurtado in a ‘zugzwang’ bind.

Her electrifying winning streak continued until the seventh round when she drew with travelling Honduran challenger Juan Carlos Hernandez. With a closing final-round victory to secure six points from a possible nine, Richards reaffirmed her dominance as the top female chess player in the English-speaking Caribbean and made a statement as one of the best female chess players in the region, having placed ahead of the higher rated Women’s International Master Adena Castaneda of El Salvador.