By Gilbert Wandera
The Kenya National Chess Championships final phase was held last weekend at Oshwal Academy — Nairobi Primary with 96 players taking part.
Eight players in each category from the Under-8 to Under-18 had been short listed from the first phase, which was held at the Brookhouse International School in Nairobi on February 27.
Gilliane Otieno (girls under-8), Penyala Ritvik (boys Under-10), Sharanya Kishan (girls Under-10), Sita Shah (girls Under-14 and Peniel Weru (boys Under-16) dominated their categories collecting maximum points with a performance of 100 per cent and were duly crowned national champions.
Anish Sukumar won the boys’ Under-8 title with Minesh Yash finishing second as Maxwell Wambua took third position.
Rebecca Waweru won the girls’ Under-16 category while Duncan Orina (boys U-18) and Maryanne(girls U-18) outclassed their opponents to bag the national titles this year.
It was, however not smooth sailing in three categories as there wasn’t outright winner’s and the default tiebreak system couldn’t separate the players who had tied.
This prompted the organiser’s to apply a play-off to find the winners with games played using an initial accelerated 10-mintue time control.
After some tense moments, which saw tears flow freely among some of the players, the tie-breakers saw boys Under-12 having Kais Mussa ranked top ahead of Ankur Phadke and Hardiv Karania.
In girls’ Under-12, Riya Shah was the best ranked ahead of Shefali Kachra while in boys Under-14 Gowtham Vigneshwar edged out Srinjay Mukhopadhyay and Subham Rai. All the champions booked a place in the national team that will represent the country at the World Youth Chess Championship, in Maribor, Slovenia in November.
Players ranked second and third respectively in each category will also be considered to travel for the global youth showcase annual event.
The event was very well organised by the Interim Chess Kenya Committee (ICKC), a show of commitment towards developing the sport in the country.
Kenya Open International Chess Championship will be the next event at Kenyatta University in June. The event will be contested in the general and open categories and will be the first phase qualifier to pick the national teams for the World Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, Turkey in August.
