Henry Chilufya Memorial Chess Tournament
Mirror, Mirror on the wall which is the strongest chess tournament in Africa?
It surely has to be the Henry Chilufya Memorial Chess Tournament. The event started yesterday morning at the Henry Courtyard Executive Lodge which is located in the Zambian town of Mansa. The event which runs to 25th October 2017 is now billed as one of Africa’s premier event for the year.
The GM Norm Section has 10 players with an average rating of a whopping 2415!
Included in this strong field is one of Africa’s top players GM Adly Ahmed of Egypt at 2625 and 2017 Commonwealth Chess Champion GM Abhijeet Gupta of India at 2619.
Other Grandmasters include GM Petr Kiriakov of Russia and GM Alon Greenfeld of Israel.
The event has lived up to its expectation with some interesting games.
IM Arthur Ssegwanyi of Uganda went down to compatriot FM Harold Wanyama in round 2. It is interesting to note how Arthur smokes out Harold’s King who then goes to to become an important fighting piece to win the game.
FM Harold Wanyama v IM Arthur Ssegwanyi
GM Adly Ahmed v GM Abjijeet Gupta
GM Adly Ahmed showed his intent on winning this event when he crushed GM Abhijeet Gupta in their round 2 encounter. Two of Abhijeet’s pieces end up being pinned forcing him into submission.
The Open Section of this event has attracted 44 players with the top player being IM David Sliva of Angola who is rated 2245 and IM Kelvin Chumfwa of Zambia at 2238.
The Ladies Section has attracted 11 players with the top rated player being WFM Lorita Mwango of Zambia.
The event has been supported by the Chess for Peace Kirsan Foundation and the Honourable Dr Chitalu Chilfuya who is the Patron of the Chess Federation of Zambia.
Terrian Chess Academy
Terrian Chess Academy of Kenya provided the DGT e-Boards & DGT 3000 clocks to enable live transmission of the games via their website –Henry Chilufya Memorial Live Transmission.
Brian Kidula the CEO of Terrian Chess Academy had this to say ‘We are delighted to support this event, more so enable the fans follow the games from the comfort of their house. That’s what we endeavor to achieve locally and at the continental level. African tournaments need to be shown to the whole world‘.
Pairing and results of this event can be found here – Chilufya Memorial.
