Chess in Paradise: FM Alisa Melekhina’s Impressions From the Orjan Lindroth Memorial

FM Alisa Melekhina’s photo report depicts her week at the Hotel Breezes resort in Nassau, Bahamas where she was one of several Americans competing in the Orjan Lindroth Memorial Open chess tournament, held from June 5 through 12, 2024.

Imagine celebrating a chess victory, or escaping from a devastating loss, by soaking up the Caribbean sun steps away from the beach. This rare experience is made possible by the new Orjan Lindroth Memorial Chess Open, organized annually in early June by the Bahamas Chess Federation and the Bahamas Chess Institute. Only in its third edition, this hidden gem of a tournament is about to be uncovered.

Photo courtesy Alisa Melekhina

Photo courtesy Alisa Melekhina

For players staying on-site, the Hotel Breezes Bahamas Resort and Spa offered everything one would expect from an island vacation: all-inclusive meals, drinks, 80+ degrees Fahrenheit weather, sprawling pools, pickleball and tennis courts, and prime beach access. The popular Grand Hyatt Baha Mar resort and casino was steps away, offering its own upscale dining and shopping options. Whereas a nine-round FIDE tournament with norm possibilities would usually necessitate around-the-clock chess preparation and analysis, the beach weather and accommodations beckoned IM Raja Panjwani and myself to turn this into a hybrid vacation.

Alisa — More views of Breezes and proof the author got some pool time between rounds (Photos courtesy of the author)

After Panjwani’s positive experience last year as part of his quest for a 2500 FIDE Rating (Panjwani has earned all three GM norms), I decided to resurface from semi-retirement and play in my first nine-round event since the pandemic (see my prior recap article on the Seville Open). I was pleasantly surprised at the proximity of Nassau from the east coast: it was an easy three-hour flight from Philadelphia, much like flying to Miami.

Despite the proximity, same time zone, English language, and even one-to-one currency rate, there were not as many American players as I would expect. Among the U.S. contingent were grandmasters Enrico Sevillano and Praveen Balakhrishnan. Panjwani was joined by fellow Canadian FM Mike Ivanov. The two top seeds in the tournament were Cuban GMs Omar Quintana Almeida and Elier Mesa Miranda. The Open section was rounded out by local Bahamian players, including organizer FM Cecil Moncur, and a full-fledged team from Jamaica that also came out in full force in the parallel U1800 section.

From left: Cuban GM Elier Miranda, the battle of the GMs between Sevillano and Almeida in round two, and GM Praveen Balakhrishnan (Photos courtesy of Bahamas Chess Federation)

Due to the top-heavy nature of the relatively small Open field, the tournament effectively became a Round Robin after the first few rounds. I played three out of the four GMs, holding down a key final draw against GM Omar Almeida in the final round that paved the way for the top three finishers with 6½/9: GM Elier Miranda, IM Raja Panjwani, and GM Enrico Sevillano. Miranda ultimately won on tiebreaks, while the three winners split the cash prizes for a nice payday of $3,500 each for their efforts.

The tournament winners (Photo courtesy Alisa Melekhina)

The tournament winners (from left): Sevillano, Miranda, and Panjwani (Photo courtesy Alisa Melekhina)

With 4½ points, I came away with the top female prize and split the top FIDE U2200 for a total of $1,500, making this one of my more successful Open tournaments in terms of placement (as rusty as I was!).

Alisa and Raja finishing in the money (Photo courtesy Alisa Melekhina)

The Open section prize fund was $18,000, with an additional $3,500 prize fund for the Under-1800 section. The U1800 section was swept by impressive performances from the Pride family, including siblings Chika, Curtis Jr., and Avian Pride.

Arbiter Angel Pride and Avian Pride (National Junior Chess Champion) Photo: Bahamas Chess Federation, 2023

Arbiter Angel Pride and National Junior Chess Champion Avian Pride (Photo courtesy Bahamas Chess Federation, 2023)

The generous tournament and class prize structure was made possible due to the tournament’s impressive array of sponsors. Scotia Bank contributed $10,000 this year.

Other benefactors included the estate of Orjan Lindroth, the namesake of the memorial tournament who was an ardent long-time supporter of chess in the Bahamas, Breezes Superclubs for sponsoring the venue, and FIDE which allotted a grant for developing chess countries. This is certainly a worthy cause: the island-nation of the Bahamas has a population just north of 400,000. I saw firsthand what a difference it made to bring top-level chess to local players and rising junior talent who would not typically be exposed to events and foreign players of this caliber. Curtis Pride Sr., the president of the Bahamas Chess Federation said during the opening ceremony that, “Chess transcends mere recreation. It is both art and science, shapes character, and teaches invaluable life skills.”

Curtis Pride Sr. opening the tournament (Photo courtesy of Bahamas Chess Federation)

The opening ceremony kicked off with an exhibition game by two young players of the Pink Pawns program, a non-profit dedicated to empowering Bahamian female chess players co-founded by sisters Arbiter Angel Pride and top local female player Chika Pride.

Pictured are Chika Pride (13) and D'anae Whymms (9), who learned to play chess from the Pink Pawns program (Photo courtesy of Bahamas Chess Federation)

The organizers and arbiter staff treated the event with the utmost professionalism, which led to a smooth event from start to finish. Head Arbiter IA Andre White previously served at chess Olympiads. The tournament clearly took a page out of the European playbook: DGT boards and clocks provided, arbiters regularly monitoring games and recording results, players’ name cards dutifully set up for each round, super-quick pairings, requiring electronic devices to be checked, and, perhaps most importantly, rounds beginning on time. In fact, I joked that sometimes the pairings went up on chess-results so quickly that I didn’t even have time to reflect on the game that just passed 30 minutes ago.

A personal bonus was that the playing hall was held in the conference space of the hotel. One of the drawbacks of European tournaments is that they are often held in public spaces offsite, which requires a commute to and from the rounds. Here, we had the convenience of a U.S. tournament with European conditions.

The author at work (Photo courtesy Alisa Melekhina)

As a growing tournament, the organizers took feedback to heart. Issues such as the room temperature being too cold were addressed throughout. An innovation we can look forward to in future editions are potential side events, such as blitz tournaments on days with only one round. The playing schedule included three days with double rounds and three days with one evening round at the time control of game in 90 minutes with a 30-second increment beginning on move one.

The playing hall. A nice touch was a tea and coffee station in the back set up for each round. (Photo courtesy Alisa Melekhina)

The mixture of double-round and single-round days ended up suiting me well. One of the reasons I can’t compete in nine-round events as often is that they drag on when there are single daily rounds; I would have to max out my corporate vacation days for one event. Yet, if the tournament is stacked with double rounds, it can be draining. Due to accommodating local working schedules, two single evening rounds fell on consecutive finals days after a weekend of three double-round days.

As the tournament continues to grow and attracts more professional players, perhaps the schedule will shift to alternating between double and single-day rounds to provide for a more restful schedule. Another idea to make this a fully immersive experience is to build in an additional, full free day to allow players to step out of the resort and try one of the local excursions.

Venturing to the neighboring Baha Mar (Photo courtesy Alisa Melekhina)

As usual with “chess-cations,” it is difficult to find the balance between over- and under-preparing. Once we were in the thick of the tournament, we were fully in “chess mode,” and it would have been easy to fall into the trap of staying inside the entire time. I purposefully kept the balcony window open, which overlooked the pool, to get the full blast of live music and pool games while looking up my opponent’s games.

Another incentive to leave the hotel room was that the scheduled blocks for included meals cajoled us out, at which point we would meander between the resort’s offerings and connecting Cable Beach access with the Baha Mar. As live music at Breezes was in full swing every day in the evenings (even if we lost!), we were jolted out of our chess funk upon exiting the serious conference space and finding ourselves in the middle of 80’s rock covers by the house band.

Highlights from around the resort include Jenga and ping pong warm-ups in the game room, dessert breaks at the lunch buffet, live music, water runs at the pool bar downstairs, and nightly swims.

Can you spot the hidden Raja? (Photos courtesy of Alisa Melekhina)

Overall, this tournament exceeded expectations. It was the perfect chess-cation. I look forward to future “paradise” tournaments. The organizers are intent to keep their labor of love running, assuring that, “We will keep going as long as we can.”

For more information and to find out about next year’s tournament, visit the Bahamas Chess Federation website and/or email Click here to show email address.

FM Alisa Melekhina is a World Team Championship gold medalist and long-time competitor in US open tournaments and women’s national and world team invitational events. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law school in May 2014 and is currently practicing as a corporate litigation and eDiscovery partner in NYC. She previously wrote a popular CLO article on balancing law school with chess, along with coverage of the NYC Corporate Chess League, which she co-founded.