Huge turnout for Zubair U-16 chess championship

The second edition of the Zubair International U-16 Classic Chess Championship witnessed a great turnout from participants across all nationalities. This was after the opening of registration that took place recently for this tournament, which will run from July 11 to 14. The number of participants has reached more than 50 participants so far. The registration is still open until July 10.

This tournament stems from the framework of The Zubair Corporation’s adoption of the activities of the Oman Chess Committee. This is to encourage talented youths, develop them and enhance their chess abilities, through their interaction and participation in various local and external competitions. In addition, it motivates and supports them to do more through participation in such competitions.

The tournament has been approved and implemented virtually via the lichess.org website, taking into account the prevailing health conditions. Players wishing to participate in the tournament must have an account on the lichess.org website, provided that all final stage players are monitored via ‘Zoom’. Those wishing to participate must register via the link: https://forms.gle/McGTAcr5zcS7AqEL8.

The tournament’s system follows the regulations and laws of the International Chess Federation for remote Internet tournaments. Each players’ pairing will be merged through the Swiss Manager Programme. Nine rounds will be played according to the Swiss system, giving each player five minutes with the addition of two seconds after each move in the qualifying stage. The top 40 players will qualify for the finals.

Commenting on the launch of the second edition of this tournament next week, Hilal Al Siyabi, Chief Corporate Services Officer at the Zubair Corporation said, “We are extremely pleased with the high turnout of participants in the second edition of the tournament, which is a positive indication of the wide popularity of chess among young members of the society. At The Zubair Corporation, we aim to support young talents in chess, especially the outputs of the Zubair Chess Centers. This way we can contribute to raising the spirit of competition and enthusiasm and raising youth awareness of the importance of these activities in enhancing commitment and raising their IQ. This support is aligned within the framework of The Zubair Corporation’s strategy to adopt several sports, cultural and community initiatives in order to serve the local community through its partnerships with many government and private entities.”

Ahmed Darwish al Balushi, Chairman of the Oman Chess Committee, said, “The tournament is a continuation of the cooperative efforts with The Zubair Corporation, in order to discover young Omani talents in chess, who are capable of achieving advanced positions in local and external competitions. We would like to highlight that participation is open to all players of all nationalities and we look forward to benefiting Omani players from this competition and achieving advanced results.”

The first edition of this tournament witnessed the participation of nearly 60 male and female players from 6 countries (Sultanate of Oman, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Yemen, India and Pakistan), including 23 internationally ranked players. The first three are the Indian international player Arberry Armstrong with a rating of 1551, our national junior team player, Hammoud Al Busaidi, with a rating of 1453 and the Qatar national team player Irfan Mohammed, with a rating of 1255.

The Zubair Chess Centers are spread in various governorates of the Sultanate. There are 10 centres located in the governorates of Al Dhahirah, Ad Dakhiliyah, North and South Al Batinah, Muscat, Musandam, South A’Sharqiyah, Dhofar, Al Buraimi, and Al Wusta in Duqm.