By RONALD CHAWE –
FRESH from winning the Zone One phase one national team trials  Lusaka based Justin Daka beat the big guns to emerge champion of the 2017 Copperbelt Open which took place at Ndola Central Hospital School of Biomedical Sciences.
Daka emerged winner after forcing a draw against Candidate Master (CM) Godwin Phiri in the final round to gainer 7.5 points in nine grounds at par with International Master (IM) Richmond Phiri but Daka edged him on a tie break.
Daka completed nine rounds of the tournament without tasting a single defeat and recorded six victories and three draws.
Last month, Daka was crowned champion  of the Lusaka qualifiers held at NIPA.
Prior to the final round of the games, Daka one of the coaches at Project Chess Zambia and Godwin were separated by a half point as Daka was standing on seven points while CM Phiri was on 6.5points respectively.
CM Phiri, who led the standings after day two but was relegated to third position after (IM) Phiri beat fellow IM Gillian Bwalya on the final round to grab the second position.
CM Phiri, who finished the tournament with seven points, was joined on seven points by fourth placed Geoffrey Luanja and fifth positioned Kasao Mpanga.
Douglas Munenga and Judah Simulundu were placed six and seventh with 6.5 points each and were closely followed by the influx of other six players that managed to get six points each.
These are IM Chitumbo Mwali, Prince Mulenga, Michael Kaoma, Erik Chinapu, Webster Mambwe and IM Bwalya.
Another IM Kelvin Chumfwa had a bad day at the office and led a list of eight players, who finished the tournament with 5.5 points.
Other nine players managed five points and were followed by eight more players, who got 4.5 points with further nine players getting four points each.