10 foreign nations to send players for Africa Chess event in Uganda
Xinhua, July 14, 2016 Adjust font size:
A record ten nations will send players to take part in the 2016 Zone 4.2 Chess Championship that will be hosted by Uganda July 17-26 in Kampala.
Vianney Luggya, President of the Uganda Chess Federation (UCF) told Xinhua on Wednesday that they are confident the event will be success having already held a fruitful Zone 4.2 last year.
The event will attract over 60 top chess players from host nation Uganda, Egypt, South Africa, Algeria, Ghana, Somalia, Angola, Sudan, Zambia, Nigeria and Eritrea.
"Top seeds from the open section comprise of highly ranked players including; Grand Master (GM) Adly Ahmed (2607), GM Shoker Samy (2489) and GM Essam El Gindy (2431) all from Egypt as well as Algeria' s GM Haddouche Mohamed," explained Luggya.
He said that the ladies category will feature WGM Mona Kaled and WGM Wafa Shrook both from Egypt who are likely to face competition from South Africa' s Woman International Master (WIM) Denise Frick and WIM Anzel Laubscher.
Team Uganda will be led by IM Arthur Ssegwanyi, Fide Master (FM) Patrick Kawuma, FM Harold Wanyama, Farouk Fauza and Simon Gonza in the open category while the ladies will feature WFM Goretti Angolikin, Christine Namaganda, WCM Phiona Mutesi, Joyce Kabengano and Stella Babirye.
Players will be competing for a whopping US$20,000 for the top eight in the open section and top seven in the female section, the biggest cash prizes to be given out in Uganda' s chess history.
Apart from the cash prizes, the chess stars will also be battling for the invaluable Grand Master (GM) and Women Grand Master (WGM) titles that will be awarded by the world chess body (Fide) to the overall winner of each category. Endit