Team Kenya got off to a rocky start yesterday at the 2017 Zone 4.2 Individual Chess Championship which started on 26th March and runs to 3rd April 2017 in the historic city of Jimma, Ethiopia.
Peter Gilruth, Ricky Sang, Sanjana Deshpande all registered victories while Sumit Deshpande, Vasanth Ramesh and Gwen Jumba lost their respective games.

The Open section has 30 players from 7 seven Federations; Kenya, Egypt, Uganda, Sudan, Djibouti, Seychelles and hosts Ethiopia.

The highest ranked players in the Open section are Egyptians GM Essam El Gandy at 2448 followed by IM Ameir Moheb at 2409. The 3rd ranked player is Ugandan star FM Patrick Kawuma who is 130 Elo points lower at 2279 followed by Nadir Semir of Sudan at 2196.
Nadir Semir was the board 1 player when Sudan held the fancied Bulgaria to a 2-2 draw during the 2016 Baku Olympiad.

Peter Gilruth of Kenya is ranked 5th at 2186.

The Ladies section has 17 players from 4 federations; Kenya, Egypt, Uganda, Seychelles, and host Ethiopia.

Top ranked and clear favorite in this event is WIM Wafa Shahenda of Egypt who is rated 2092 while her compatriot WIM Elsasary Eman is 1900.

An interesting observation is that both Egyptian stars IM Ameir Moheb and WIM Elsasary Eman have played in Kenya during the 7th FASU Games held in 2015.
