As many as 204 players began their competitions at the 2021-22 Asian Amateur Chess Championship on Thursday. The Chairman of Muscat Municipality, Eng Ahmed bin Mohammed al Humaidi, made the first move to inaugurate the championship officially at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex in Bausher.
The opening round of the tournament took place on Thursday evening and lasted for few hours. The Asian event, which is under organisation of the Oman Chess Committee (OCC), will run until October 5. The opening round of the event featured tough competitions among the participants.
More than 204 players from 23 countries are vying to clinch the titles in different categories and the players are from Bahrain, India, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippine, Palestine, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and the hosts Sultanate of Oman.
The technical meeting unveiled all the tournament details in a meet earlier on Thursday at Al Marooj Grand Hotel in Muscat. The tournament director, Abdulrahim Mahdi, headed the meeting in presence of the technical committee members.
During the meeting, the chairman of technical committee revealed all the technical details of the event. The playing system format is 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.
The Asian major event in Muscat featured attendance of many top ranking players 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 category. Palestine’s Sawan Eman will be second ranking player while Qatar’s Salma al Khalaifi will participate as third ranked player.
