Oman Chess players gear up for Asian Amateur Chess Championship in Muscat

Muscat: With less than ten days to go, the national chess squad is under an intensive training preparatory program ahead of 2021-22 Asian Amateur Chess Championship which will run in Muscat during September 29 until October 6 at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex in Bausher. As many as twenty players from national chess team began their final preparatory program in Al Amal club under watchful eyes of the Yemeni head coach Basheer al Qudaimi. The training camp will end on September 27.

“The training sessions are open for all the team members including: junior, senior and women categories in the evening session. Each session will last for a period of four hours daily. The goal of the training program is to enhance the technical performance of the players. Also, to assist them in developing critical thinking capacity of the squad members and solve the common mistakes which may

occur in the games,” the head coach said. The camp witnessed practicing the players on different techniques and strategies. The head coach focused in the previous session on providing a detailed analysis on the player’s performance during the previous participation in the regional and international events.

“ Our objective in this camp is to train the players on long games which are played in an international events. This step will help the players to upgrade their technical level and to be adapted with international level practices,” the Yemeni coach concluded

As many as 186 players from 21 countries confirmed their participating in the Asian Amateur tournament which is under orgnisation of Oman Chess Committee (OCC) in corporation with the Asian Chess Federation. The Participating players are from Bahrain, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Palestine, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and the hosts Sultanate of Oman.

The first-ranked is Kyrgyzstan Asan Kushof, the Lebanese second-ranked is Mahmoud Maasrani and the third-ranked Pakistani, Suhail Junaid, will also participate in the women’s tournament, the first-ranked Emirati Rawda Al-Sarkal, as well as the Palestinian Iman Swan and Salma Al-Khelaifi from Qatar.