Going back to Africa! Before traveling to Francophone (French-speaking) Africa for the first time, I had to brush off my French instruction books from grad school to brush up on vocabulary, cognates, listening, phrases, and passe compose’. I discovered that there were a lot of videos on YouTube and went through a number of them. […]

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Nigeria has plans to break through to produce their first Grandmaster and an official campaign was launched in February. One of the hopefuls in the Africa’s most populous nation is International Master Oladapo Adu. A long-time national team member, Adu spent a number of years in the U.S. before returning in 2016 to nurture chess […]

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GM Maurice AshleyPhoto by Daaim Shabazz Côte d’Ivoire was Maurice Ashley’s 7th African country, all in a relatively short period of time. This would be the first visit to a Francophone African country and the Jamaican-born GM would put his French skills to use. Ashley took up French in high school with a desire to […]

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The first event of the Grand Chess Tour is officially over and Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire will have in its history and world class chess event. There will be trivia questions such as the players who played, the hotel where it was hosted and that famous icon who was visiting the hotel during the event! All […]

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Congratulations to @MagnusCarlsen for winning Côte d’Ivoire, the first leg of 2019 #GrandChessTour with 2 rounds to spare!! pic.twitter.com/xbEc8RCkTo — Grand Chess Tour (@GrandChessTour) May 12, 2019 After the election in the past FIDE election, there was an assertion that the international chess body would be more inclusive. While the Grand Chess Tour is not […]

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Former World Champion Veselin Topalov with Daaim Shabazz in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. Photo by The Chess Drum. Veselin Topalov has seen a thing or two in chess. Known as a tremendous fighter and the master of the exchange sacrifice, he has playing many a scintillating game. However, he is a bit more relaxed and is […]

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When one thinks of the Ivory Coast, several things come to mind including their world-famous cocoa, but one unmistakable characterization is that the land of 23 million is a football-crazy nation. During the lead up of the Grand Chess Tour, there were a lot of promotional content including photos of Grandmaster Maurice Ashley interacting with […]

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The Grand Chess Tour has begun! Ten of the world’s top players have assembled in the capital of Cote d’Ivoire to launching the first event of the season. World Champion Magnus Carlsen will headline the 2019 Rapid and Blitz field after having had a blistering first half of 2019. This event is also important because […]

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All chess roads lead to Africa! On Tuesday, May 7th, ten of the world’s strongest players will gather in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire for the Grand Chess Tour Rapid & Blitz. It will feature the resurgent World Champion Magnus Carlsen who recently won his third straight supertournament by winning the Grenke Classic in fine style. Now […]

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It is rare that one gets a perfect score in a chess tournament. The most famous example is Bobby Fischer’s 11/11 at the 1963-64 U.S. Championship in New York City. As a result, he got an interview on the cover of Life magazine. Spencer Masango of Zimbabwe will have to settle for coverage in African-oriented […]

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Sharif Waswa Mbaziira beams during the 2018 World Junior Chess Championship for the Disabled in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Photo by Dora Martinez Chess is seen as a rather quiet game, but its beauty attracts millions of adherents far and wide. The game has traversed the entire globe as an enjoyable pastime and it has […]

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On March 16th, the New York Times ran a story on Tanitoluwa Adewumi, a Nigerian boy whose family migrated to the U.S. for a better life. The story generated more than 400 comments. A follow-up story generated another 400 comments. “Homeless,” “refugee,” and “chess champion” are an unlikely combination of search words indeed, but the […]

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When it was announced that Africa would be one of the hosts to a leg of the Grand Chess Tour (GCT), there was a bit of a celebration throughout the continent’s chess community. Magnus Carlsen will compete May 8th-12th in the Rapid and Blitz event in Abijdan, Cote d’Ivoire. He shall be the first sitting […]

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About 14 years ago, a little girl in Katwe, Uganda followed her older brother who was increasingly occupied with an activity after school. After seeing him disappear inside of a building, she wandered inside and found the Sports Outreach Institute, a sports club where there was a chess club meeting being held. Little did she […]

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Jessica Wamala Hometown: Milford, New Hampshire Education: B.A. Villanova University (2013), M.A. Villanova (2014), MPhil Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford (2016) Peak Chess Rating: 1790 (USCF) Chess Accolades: Massachusetts Junior High co-champ, U.S. Open “C” champion Activities: Phi Beta Kappa (honor society), Rhodes Scholar, Villanova varsity women’s basketball, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. (Upsilon […]

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Tanitoluwa AdewumiPhoto by Nicholas Kristof Nigeria has long been one of Africa’s most heralded chess countries with an ambitious goal of producing the next generation of chess masters. Having already produced a number of International Masters, the country has recently launched a fundraising campaign to produce the first Grandmaster in history. There is a wealth […]

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Africa is a massive continent with approximately 1.2 billion inhabitants. It has an incredible amount of natural resource and breath-taking natural beauty. The 54 countries that represent the continent are diverse in their makeup and span a spectrum of many religions, cultures, languages and traditions. One tradition that has remained stable is friendly competitions. The […]

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Kolade Onabogun being interviewed by Tania Sachdev after round three.Photo by John Saunders (Gibchess) Die-hard chess players have an idea of the elite tournaments around the world, but there are few in which amateur players can brush shoulders with the elite brass. Besides the Olympiad, the Gibraltar Chess Open is one of the tournaments that […]

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Djibouti at 2018 Chess OlympiadPhoto by Federation Djiboutienne de Jeu d’Echecs Africa continues to expand and add more countries to the community of chess nations. Djibouti, a country of 9.5 million bordering Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, has reemerged from a long hiatus of almost 20 years. The federation registered three players to the 2000 Olympiad […]

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We have not written on Burkina Faso since 2014 shortly after they joined the community of chess-playing nations in FIDE. Comité National Burkinabé des Echecs has been very active since 2014 and held national championships in the past three years with Oumar Briba winning in 2016 and Clément Guissou winning in 2017. Gissou successfully defended […]

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