Jayden Pierre, on 31 August 2025, became the youngest and first home-grown Grenadian Junior player to receive a rating (1691) from the International Chess Federation (FIDE), the world governing body for chess.
A FIDE rating is a numerical value which represents a chess player’s skill level. It is calculated based on the player’s performance in FIDE-rated tournaments. FIDE’s minimum rating is 1000. Pierre, who turned 16 in August, was the most outstanding Grenadian player at the recently concluded FIDE World U-16 Chess Olympiad in Barranquilla, Colombia, from 16–23 August 2025. Out of his 9 games, he won 6, drew one, and lost 2.
Pierre’s FIDE rating flowed directly from his outstanding performance at the Colombia Chess Olympiad, in which a Grenada team participated for the first time. Back in February 2025, Pierre, a student at the Grenada Boys’ Secondary School (GBSS), demonstrated his mettle when he emerged the winner of the Under 16 category of the first-ever Independence Chess Tournament, winning all his 6 games. On its website, FIDE posted a rating of 1691 for Pierre in the “Rapid” Category, adding the limited list of rated players in Grenada to 4 — most Grenadian players are unrated. Pierre has now joined Renniel Gilbert, Gennard Roberts, and Vladimir Mendez, coincidentally the top 3 players in last year’s first-ever National Open Chess Tournament (May 2024).
FIDE ratings fall into 3 categories — Standard, Rapid and Blitz — based on the time controls of the game, which determine the speed of the game. Rapid falls between Standard, the longest format of the game, and Blitz, the fastest format.
At the 45th FIDE Chess Olympiad (for all age levels) in Budapest (Hungary) in September 2024, National Chess Champion Renniel Gilbert, then 17 years, became the first home-grown Grenadian player to earn a FIDE title — FIDE Master — after scoring 7 1/2 points out of a possible 10. It was the first time, then, that Grenada was fielding a team in the Olympiad. Gilbert was an unrated player before the Budapest Olympiad.
Achieving a FIDE rating is an important step towards earning FIDE titles such as Candidate Master, FIDE Master, International Master and, ultimately, Grandmaster, the highest ranking in Chess.
On 13–14 September 2025, the GCF will be staging the National Junior Chess Championships. Pierre, who still qualifies as a Junior (a player attaining the age of 16 after January 1, 2025), enters that tournament as the favourite.
GCF
