Muscat – The Oman Chess Committee (OCC) is all set to organise the Asian Amateur Chess Championship which will be held in Muscat from September 29 to October 5 at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex in Bausher.

A total of 204 players representing 22 countries – Bahrain, India, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Palestine, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Yemen – besides the hosts have confirmed their participation in the championship.

Ahmed Darwish al Balushi, Chairman of OCC, affirmed that the organising committee has completed all the technical and logistics preparations.

“Special thanks to all the committee members and to the officials at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth for their support and hard work towards hosting the Asian chess event,” said Al Balushi.

“The OCC have been awarded the rights to host the prestigious event after meeting all the requirements of the Asian Chess Federation. Oman have a capable sporting infrastructure, logistics arrangement and the qualified human resources to host the Asian event. We are looking forward to organise a successful edition of the tournament,” he said.

A number of top-ranked men players including Lebanon’s Mahmood Masarani, Juniad Suhai from Pakistan and Awlad Ihasan from Iran will compete in the event.

UAE’s Roudha Essa al Sarkal is the leading player in the women’s category. Palestine’s Sawan Eman is ranked second, ahead of Qatar’s Salma al Khalaifi. 

The OCC chief highlighted on the national team’s players to compete on the top places.

“The national chess team who will represent Oman in the event featured ten players from men and women teams. Salim al Amri, Salim Shamas, Manaa al Kathiri, Ameen al Ansi, Abdulrahman al Zadjali and Anas al Darwashi will be in the men’s squad. The women’s team squad comprises Anat al Ayessai, Afraa al Balushi and Al Anood al Ghafri.

“The national players are currently in domestic preparatory camp under watchful eyes of the Iranian and Yemeni coaches Basheer al Qudaimi and Mersad Khuda Shash,” he said.

“The training sessions at Al Amal club focused on raising the technical level of the players and equipping them with updated strategies of attacking. We are confident on our players showing top performance in the tournament. The event will be a great opportunity to develop their world ranking.” he added.

The tournament format will be under FIDE laws of Chess and the tournament will be played according to the Swiss system 9 rounds. Each player will have 90 minutes with the addition of 30 seconds per move starting from the first move. The default time is 30 minutes. The final ranking order of the players is determined by the number of points scored.