OCC all set for Asian Amateur Chess in Muscat

Sports Reporter

Muscat, Sept 27

The Oman Chess Committee (OCC) is all set to organise 2021-22 Asian Amateur Chess Championship which will be held in Muscat during September 29 until October 5 at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex in Bausher.

The organising committee announced that 204 players representing 23 countries will take part in the championship and the players are from: Bahrain, India, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Palestine, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and hosts Sultanate of Oman.

Ahmed bin Darwish al Balushi, Chairman of OCC, affirmed that the organising committee completed all the technical and logistics preparations. “Special thanks to all the committee members and to the officials at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth for their support and hard work towards hosting the Asian chess event. The OCC has been awarded the rights to host the prestigious event after meeting all the requirement of the Asian Chess Federation. Oman have a capable sporting infrastructure, logistics arrangement and the qualified human resources to host the Asian event. We are looking forward to organise a successful edition of the tournament,” he added.

Many top ranking men players will attend in the Asian major chess event including Lebanon’s Mahmood Masarani, Juniad Suhail from Pakistan and Awlad Ihasan from Iran. UAE’s player Roudha Essa al Sarkal will lead the top ranking players in the women’s category. Palestine’s Sawan Eman will be second ranked while Qatar’s Salma al Khalaifi will be third seed.

The chief of OCC said the national team players will compete for the top places. The national chess team who will represent Oman in the event featured 10 players from men and women teams. Salim al Amri, Salim Shamas, Manaa al Kathiri, Ameen al Ansi, Abdulrahman al Zadjali and Anas al Darwashi will be in the men’s squad. The women’s team squad comprised of Anat al Ayessai, Afraa al Balushi and Al Anood al Ghafri.

The national players are currently in domestic preparatory camp under watchful eyes of Iranian and Yemeni coaches Basheer al Qudaimi and Mersad Khuda Shash. The training sessions at Al Amal club focused on raising the technical level of the players and equipping them with updated strategies of attacking. “We are confident of our players to show top performance in the tournament. The event will be great opportunity to develop their world ranking,” he said.

The tournament format will be under FIDE laws of chess and the tournament will be played according to the Swiss system 9 rounds. Each player will have 90 minutes with the addition of 30 seconds per move starting from the first move. Default time is 30 minutes. The final ranking order of the players is determined by the number of points scored.

On the sidelines of the tournament, the organising committee will organise two competitions. The first competition is for the sporting media accounts in social media for the best media coverage of the event. The second competition is a live drawing for a caption in the tournament.