Posted in Africa, Tournaments on Sep 10th, 2011 15 Comments »
Despite some technical problems forcing a late start, the All-Africa Games is at the midpoint. There is not much coverage, but there are reports being uploaded to cover the daily events. Zambia vs. South Africa at All-Africa Games.Photos from http://www.chessa.co.za/. The games have attracted one of Africa’s top players in GM Ahmed Adly, but he [...]
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Posted in Africa, Ghana on Sep 4th, 2011 1 Comment »
This article was posted by Abby Emmanuel Alo for monroi.com. We have all heard of “chess diplomacy”. Alo appears to believe in a new concept of chess for human enlightment. It is not clear from the essay what the plan is but a plan involving the youth must be given some consideration. I contacted him [...]
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The 10th All-Africa Games will take place in 2011 in the capitol-city of Maputo, Mozambique. Maputo’s hosting will be only the third time the games will have been held in the southern part of the continent. The 2009 All-Africa Games was held in Algiers, Algeria. The awarding of the games comes after Zambia and Ghana [...]
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The recent cover of New in Chess shows the changing of the guard as both Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin are featured. The two are the most prominent “prodigies with Carlsen being the top-rated players and Karjakin still the record-holder of making Grandmaster (12 years, 7 months). The new issue has some interesting articles including [...]
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Posted in Africa, Zimbabwe on Aug 15th, 2011 28 Comments »
IM Robert Gwaze is not the only Zimbabwean who can win nine games in a row in an important tournament. Rodwell Makoto won the Zimbabwean National Championship with a perfect 9/9. This dominance follows his credible showing at the African Individuals back in June. His strong showing may identify him as a rising talent in [...]
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Dewain Barber with co-champs Michael Brown & Justus Williams. Photo by Melinda Matthews. Justus Williams shared joint 1st with Michael Brown at the K-8 Championship during the U.S. Open in Orlando. Justus finished on a sparkling 5.5/6 to push his USCF rating to 2265. He beat Cadet champion Arthur Shen in an exciting game. According [...]
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Posted in Africa, Egypt on Jul 28th, 2011 7 Comments »
Going into the 2011 World Team Championship, Egypt may have had modest goals against a strong field. What ensued appeared to be disastrous, but the tournament had a high point for Egypt. First, each player on the Egyptian team would face Grandmasters (GMs) every single round. It is rare that players from Africa have an [...]
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Posted in Africa, Kenya on Jul 24th, 2011 5 Comments »
GM Dmitri Reinderman arrived in Kenya on yesterday to give a chess clinic including lectures and exhibitions. He held a simultaneous exhibition of 35 players and today is holding a blindfold session. It will be the first time a Grandmaster has visited Kenya since Nigel Short’s visit in 2005, but the first training session since [...]
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Posted in Armenia, Azerbaijan, China, Egypt, Hungary, India, Israel, Russia, Tournaments, Ukraine, USA on Jul 23rd, 2011 No Comments »
Armenia has garnered great success in the past several years in team play and hope to continue the trend today as the 2011 World Team tournament goes into its final four rounds. The Olympiad champions from 2006 and 2008, Armenia has always had tremendous team chemistry which helps when trust is needed in crucial moments. [...]
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Nigeria Chess Federation has a big vision to hold a strong international tournament… on the grandest stage. They had even enlisted the appearance of former World Champion Boris Spassky before he was felled by a debilitating stroke. Since then, they have had to postpone the event until November, but they are moving forward with the [...]
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Posted in Africa, Ghana on Jul 18th, 2011 2 Comments »
Schoolgirl from Ghana who I plan to send a chess set. Last month, I traveled to Ghana, West Africa for the second time. Thirteen years ago, I was a doctoral student attending a technology conference and interviewing subjects for my research. Ghana was a bustling place with a lot of pedestrian traffic. I remember being [...]
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Posted in Armenia, Asia, Azerbaijan, China, Egypt, Hungary, India, Israel, Russia, Tournaments, Ukraine, USA on Jul 15th, 2011 51 Comments »
The bienniel World Team Championships will commence with round one on Sunday, July 17th. The ten teams are comprised of host China, Russia (defending champion), Ukraine, Israel Hungary (2010 Olympiad finishers), Azerbaijan, Egypt, India, USA (the continental champions) and Armenia (nomination from FIDE President). The field will prove to be very challenging and represent some [...]
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Posted in Africa, South Africa on Jul 10th, 2011 9 Comments »
Kasparov’s “African Dream” by Jackie Ngubeni Garry Kasparov, the world undisputed greatest chess player of all time, visited South Africa to deliver the key-note address for the IBM business convention. I caught-up with him at famed Soccer-City, ground-zero of the 2010 FIFA World-Cup spectacular, just at the outskirt of Soweto. He listened attentively to my [...]
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Graham Jurgensen has written a report on ChessBase about the ongoing Commonwealth Championship taking place in Ekurhuleni, South Africa. The tournament began June 25th and has drawn over 700 participants including top-seed GM Nigel Short and a strong Indian contingent. There are fifteen countries represented at the event with 309 South Africans, 24 from India [...]
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GM Ahmed Adly Egypt is famous for a city called the “Valley of the Kings”. In Maputo, Mozambique an Egyptian was not on the king of the tournament, but also reigned as the queen as well. GM Ahmed Adly and WGM Mona Khaled won the 2011 African Individual Championship continuing the dominance of Egypt in [...]
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Posted in Africa, FIDE, Libya on Jun 13th, 2011 2 Comments »
Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi greets FIDE President. In what will prove to be a controversial move, FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov recently visited Colonel Muammar Qaddafi in Libya’s capitol of Tripoli. ChessBase ran a brief with an accompanying video clip from the local media. What makes the visit surprising is that Libya is currently in a [...]
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Posted in Africa, Ghana on Jun 9th, 2011 18 Comments »
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah Ghana’s rich history goes back to the powerful kingdoms to its rise as the first sub-Saharan nation to gain colonial independence. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was a highly-regarded leader in the fight against colonialization. He sought Pan-African unity, a optimistic goal that is relevant even today. The Chess Drum’s Daaim Shabazz will visit [...]
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The 2011 African Individual Championships are currently being held in Maputo, Mozambique from June 3rd-14th. There are three remaining spots at stake for the World Championships qualifier and top seed Ahmed Adly will lead the charge to challenge defending African Champion, Bassem Amin. Egypt actually has the top five contestants followed by IMs Kenny Solomon [...]
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Posted in Africa, Nigeria on May 31st, 2011 4 Comments »
On 30 May, FIDE President arrived on a working visit to Nigeria, where in Abuja city he participated in the ceremony of inauguration of newly elected President of Nigeria Jonathan Goodluck. The same day Kirsan Ilyumzhinov met with Mr. Asishana Okauru, General Director of Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF). During the meeting the leaders discussed the [...]
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Posted in Africa, Botswana, Zambia on May 31st, 2011 10 Comments »
MONKAGEDI GAOTLHOBOGWE Staff Writer (Mmegi-Botswana) Tuduetso Sabure led Botswana women to victory. Botswana women gave their Zambian opponents a 15-5 thumping in a friendly chess match played in Kasane on Saturday. The two teams played four rounds. In the last round, the Zambians were walloped 4-0 as Keitumetse Mokgacha, Onkemetse Francis Thapelo Francis, and Tuduetso [...]
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