00:00This is Enen Sartefa Eb Khafra, an unassuming young man who continues to make a name for
00:05himself in chess.
00:06He started playing the game at 14 through friends who were much better than him at Queen's
00:10Royal College.
00:11But as he improved, Khafra started returning the favour.
00:14I used to play jazz, so I was always interested in learning chess, but I hadn't learned it
00:19as yet.
00:19So I saw them playing, Silver, he actually used to play chess, that's one of my best
00:27friends, but he doesn't play chess anymore, and he was playing an ex-guy in school, and
00:32I just learned by watching them, and I went to him and watched YouTube videos and stuff,
00:38and then I was really excited about learning the games.
00:44The 27-year-old recently became a Candidate Master, or CM, as it's more popularly known
00:50in chess.
00:50For someone who learned the game just for fun and not take on tournaments that seriously
00:55at the start, this is considered a major accomplishment.
00:58I used to play for fun.
01:00I only started actually taking tournament play seriously in 2023, and that happened because
01:07I actually, that's the first time I qualified for the national finals, and I didn't even
01:15really intend to.
01:16I was in Tobago, I was living in Tobago, and I just came out to the national qualifier, and
01:23I so happened to qualify for the national finals.
01:26When Khafra became a CM, he was elated, but he never expected to reach that level so quickly.
01:31He's grateful to his coach, who's a FIDE master in chess.
01:34But what's Khafra's ultimate goal?
01:36Well, yeah, you know Joshua Johnson, he's my coach, by the way, so he has really greatly
01:42assisted me to get this title, and well, of course it doesn't stop at CM.
01:49We are all aiming to do our best to see how we can become grandmasters and what we can
01:54really have.
01:54Khafra is married and also has one daughter.
01:57He focuses on chess full time with his family, encouraging him 100%.
02:01He works with coach Joshua Johnson, who's the man behind the Mind Warriors Academy.
02:07Their main function is to introduce the sport to the future generation.
02:10We have many different initiatives, so we are liking a lot of the different, mainly primary
02:16schools at the moment.
02:18We are using chess as a tool to help the young generation learn important skills in terms
02:27like discipline, focus, we host a lot of tournaments, we even have some schools in Tobago as well.
02:34Khafra is also looking forward to representing TNT at the Chess Olympiad in Uzbekistan in the
02:39month of September.
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