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GORILLA FARTS # 11 – WHO WILL WIN THE 2024 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP?

December 6, 2024

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GORILLA FARTS # 11 – WHO WILL WIN THE 2024 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP?

Report by – Mehul Gohil aka ‘Gorilla’

Time has come for the Gorilla to do his traditional thing and smell and sort out his farts from the other aromas of the world and predict who will win the car and the 2024 National Championship this year.

Yours Truly with car number 1. From the 2019 Kenya National Chess Championship. Photo credit Kim Bhari,

Mehul Gohil aka 'Gorilla' the proud winner of the 2022 Kenya National Chess Championship posing with the car that he won as the first prize. Photo credit Kim Bhari. — Yours Truly with car number 2. From the 2022 Kenya National Chess Championship. Photo credit Kim Bhari,

Having won the dastardly and difficult and nerve-wrecking event three times, I am pretty qualified to say what it takes to win a National Championship. It will take a minimum 8/9 pts to win the thing. This is no arbitrary minimum score I have come up with. In the last 4 national championships I finished either 1st or 2nd. And I scored 8/9 in each one of them. That is only 2 draws or only 1 loss as a margin of error.

It thus takes certain special qualities to win a national championship. I could mention boring things like extended training period, mental focus, intrinsic stamina etc. But I decided to get a little more analytic with my predicting by introducing a brand new Gorilla fart-measure known only as MAGARI.

I distilled the 6 most important components required to drive off with the national championship title:

M – Mugorokiness: One has to be a little cuckoo in some way to get 8/9pts.
A – Theory of Andolovity: A show of dominance over others over a period in the year.
G – Good Lucking: There is no way you get everything your way over 9rds. Luck needed.
A – Anabolic Chessoids: You have to have built sizeable chess biceps vis a vis the rest.
R – Reliability, Resourcefullness & Raruaness: Ability to not crack; have killer instinct.
I – iChess: How much of a Kifaranga Cha Komputa are you?

Scoring each MAGARI component out of 10 for the various possible players who could win it, I have come up with a shortlist of the top candidates. As follows:

CLEAR FAVOURITES

Ben Magana 48/60

Ben Magana had the highest MAGARI score with a standout 48/60. He is thus the FAVOURITE TO WIN THE 2024 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP. Indeed, it would not be appropriate if this legendary player ended his chess career without a car. Let us take a look at how his MAGARI score breaks down:

M – (Mugorokiness) – 6/10: Magana is relatively level-headed. Maybe a whiff of arrogance uplifts his score ever so slightly from the average mark.
A – (Theory of Andolovity) – 9/10: There is no doubt that Magana has been dominant in the past (his record of Alpha-Male status eclipsed only by Andolo) and this year has regained that form. His supremacy at the Wadi Degla Championships was a major result. To say nothing of his Kenya No.1 status in the Fide ratings as at end November.
G – (Goodlucking) – 7/10: “A good player is always lucky.”- Capablanca. Magana scores reasonably well in this metric.
A – (Anabolic Chessoids) – 10/10: After his masterful play at the Wadi Degla Championships there is little doubt that Magana has the deepest understanding of the game in Kenya.
R – (Reliable/Resourceful/Raruaness) -10/10: Magana is the original chess assassin. Once he has the advantage, you are dead. Furthermore, his play is solid yet dynamic, and super efficient relative to rest of Kenyan players.
I – (iChess) – 6/10: He still employs his old-school openings. No real change here. He is no Kifaranga Cha Komputa though he may play with some digital chess toys now and then.

CM Ben Magana in action at the 2024 Nairobi County Chess Championship. Photo credit Kim Bhari.

Robert ‘Fischer’ McLigeyo 46/60

The other clear favourite is former prodigy Robert ‘Fischer’ McLigeyo. He scored 46/60 in the MAGARI measure:

M – (Mugorokiness) – 5/10: Nothing eccentric about him. A polite young man with normal mental equilibrium. Thus he scores only an average mark for this metric.
A – (Theory of Andolovity) – 6/10: Whilst he has excelled in the Final Phase round robin formats and was the best performing Kenyan player at the Budapest Olympiad, he has won no local tournaments. Lacks a dominating chess persona.
G – (Goodlucking) – 6/10: He is not known for being a Houdini in bad positions. Perhaps this accounts for his lack of local tournament success. But his sound chess style elevated him slightly above average in this metric.
A – (Anabolic Chessoids) – 9/10: McLigeyo certainly does sport one of the biggest pair of chess biceps on the local scene.
R – (Reliable/Resourceful/Raruaness) -10/10: McLigeyo has efficient technique once he gets an advantage. One of the cleanest finishers on the local scene. This was especially apparent in his Budapest Olympiad performance.
I – (iChess) – 10/10: Robert was the pioneer of improvement via iChess. It can safely be claimed he is the first Kifaranga to emerge from the Komputa.

Robert Mcligeyo in action during the 66th Nairobi Chess Club Championship. Photo credit Kim Bhari.

MINOR FAVOURITES

Hawi Kaloki 45/60

Hawi Kaloki has been the star of 2024. He will soon break the record of being the youngest Kenyan ever to be Kenya No.1 (breaking McLigeyo’s record). It is no surprise he goes into the 2024 National Championships as one of the favourites. He scored a high 45/60 in the MAGARI measure:

M – (Mugorokiness) – 3/10: Hawi is a polished young gentleman who is very sane. He thus scores low in this metric.
A – (Theory of Andolovity) – 9/10: Hawi has been in dominating form this year. Having amassed over 400 elos in one calendar year (another national record), crushing everyone and everything in the junior scene, going on a killing spree in the national league, destroying plus 2000 elo players in the international arena etc.
G – (Goodlucking) – 7/10: Hawi has reasonable powers of escapism as was shown by his ability to wriggle out of some tough spots in some games.
A – (Anabolic Chessoids) – 8/10: Whilst not having the biggest of chess biceps, his are growing rapidly by the month.

R – (Reliable/Resourceful/Raruaness) -8/10: There are still some aspects of his technique that are lacking thus not allowing him to be a killer or assassin in the class of McLigeyo or Magana. That said, he has competent finishing off skills.
I – (iChess) – 10/10: A chess player born, brought up and still living in the digital and World Wide SpiderWeb realm.

Gabriel Njuki 42/60

Gabriel Njuki has emerged as one of the most promising vifarangas from the komputa. His ultra-sharp, Shirovian style has proven tough to handle even by the most hardened of top dinosaurs. He is certainly a favourite. And he is very hungry to prove something. He scored a high 42/60 in the MAGARI measure:

M – (Mugorokiness) – 8/10: Njuki brings to the board and tournaments an appropriately radical passion to destroy the opponent. He digs deep and is not afraid to calculate hard and take play into some of the most hair-raising adventures seen in recent Kenyan chess.
A – (Theory of Andolovity) – 3/10: Despite the OTB danger Njuki poses, he has yet to show the tournament results to back his ambitions.
G – (Goodlucking) – 7/10: His Shirovian style and fondness for dynamics enables him to sneak out of bad situations reasonably often.
A – (Anabolic Chessoids) – 7/10: Njuki has big but unbalanced chess biceps. His tactical biceps are probably the third biggest after Methu’s and Magana’s. But his positional ones are rather flabby currently.
R – (Reliable/Resourceful/Raruaness) -8/10: Njuki is very dangerous once he has a clear initiative. He handles the initiative with accuracy and aplomb. But on occasion he can overreach himself.
I – (iChess) – 10/10: His style of play is entirely Komputa. It does have to be verified by tech experts but Njuki is probably an AI.

Gabriel Njuki in action during the 66th Nairobi Chess Club Championship. Photo credit Kim Bhari.

THE DARK HORSES

The following three players whilst not the favourites, can be considered dangerous and if the chess gods are with them they could take the title. They garnered the next highest scores in the MAGARI measure. Without going into the exact details (which I have expanded on for the favourites) of MAGARI, they are:

Joseph Methu: 41/60

Speaking from my own experience, as reigning champion you have an inbuilt map of how to go about playing a national championship in the marathon and mammoth 9 round format and this helps you in the very next edition. After winning two on different occasions, I managed to finish 2nd in the following ones. Former champions Victor Ng’ani and Martin Njoroge both came close to retaining their titles in the subsequent editions too. Methu may not have had a good chess year but as I have pointed out, he knows the map.

Joseph Methu in action during the 2019 Kenya Open. Photo credit Kim Bhari.

Cartoon on Joseph Methu by Yours Truly when he won the 2016 Olympiad Qualifiers Event. 2024 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP — Cartoon on Joseph Methu by Kim Bhari when he won the 2016 Olympiad Qualifiers Event.

Brian Irungu: 36/60

Irungu is on the Dark Horses list primarily because of his 10/10 score for the iChess metric. He is still developing into a strong player but make no mistake, he can knock out the best in Kenya if it is his day. As they say: kila Kifaranga ako na siku chake.

Ian Mutuge: 35/60

Like Irungu, Ian is another Kifaranga who scored 10/10 for the iChess metric. He produced a reasonable solid Olympiad performance. His play is based on deep and meticulous calculation.

If the nature of the position is dynamic or tactically complex there are good chances Mutuge will outplay his opponent. However he has a tendency to sometime lose nerve or not understand certain positional nuances.

Ian Mutuge in action during one of the past Nairobi Chess Club Championships. Photo credit Kim Bhari. 2024 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP — Ian Mutuge in action during one of the past Nairobi Chess Club Championships. Photo credit Kim Bhari.

THE SUICIDE BOMBERS

The 2024 National Championship is most likely going to be won by one of the seven players mentioned above. The main obstacle they will face is getting beaten by a suicide bomber. Kenyan chess has undergone a revolution over the last few years, largely because of the vifaranga vya Komputa. We now have a large

number of players who can on their day beat just about anybody in a tournament. They may not win the tournament but they sure can suicide bomb the chances of one of the favourites. I count myself in this group for this edition of the championship. There are easily some 40 other players who could be classified as suicide bombers who will be playing. Thus it will make things very exciting and the eventual winner will have truly gone through a baptism of fire.

Good luck to all playing on the 2024 National Championship.

2024 Kenya National Championship. — Poster for the event.

About Mehul Gohil

Mehul Gohil is a three-time Kenya National Chess Champion (2014, 2019, and 2022). He has won several major events in the country, including the 66th Nairobi Chess Club Championship.