Africa Chess’ biggest online chess tournament so far on LiChess #AfricaChess

Last night (Thursday, 24 August 2017) we had our biggest online chess tournament on lichess.org so far at the Africa Chess Arena. 62 players took part in the blitz tournament. Several African countries were represented. In less than a week since we started this Pan African Chess initiative (#AfricaChess), we are truly amazed by the incredible appetite for chess across Africa. People want to play chess! It’s as simple as that.

The tournament last night was 80 minutes long with the time control set at 3 +1 which is 3 minutes and an increment of 1 second. Yesterday’s tournament was won by Brian Mung’andu (Hanamaila) who was in incredible form and checkmating one opponent after another. In second place was Santi Mala (santimala) who had a wonderful resurgence towards the end of the event. Third place was Keith Khumalo (keithonisky).

The BIG Day

SATURDAY, 26 August 2017 is the big day. People play for the single top prize of US$50. ENTRY TO EVENT IS FREE. We predict that at least 100 chess players will make the event.

The Africa Chess Whatsapp Group is now full and Telegram Africa Chess group is fast approaching 100 members. I predicted that by end of September, the Telegram will be bigger than the Whatsapp group. We have set broadcast channels for Africa Chess on both Whatsapp and Telegram to keep our members in the loop.

I did not take part in this event preferring to help with marketing, organizing and watching from the sidelines.
What started out as an online chess adventure with Ogunsiku Babatunde of Nigeria and Douglas Randy Mwale the Chess Zealot of Zambia is just becoming bigger and bigger. I have never met Ogunsiku or Douglas but our love and passion for the game of chess has brought us together. Thank you gentlemen, let’s take chess to the next level Africa.

The massive support of the players

The Chess players have been amazing. Their enthusiasm for chess inspires us to keep going, to find better and more effective ways of promote the game. In a space of a week more than 10 online tournaments have been organised by the Africa Chess group and this is only the beginning.

Let’s promote chess on our continent like never before

Hopefully our chess group and online tournaments will play a bigger role in not only uniting our continent but raising the standard of the game in Africa as well. If we can’t beat the rest of the world, we will use tech to bridge that gap. There are interesting times. #AfricaChess

Join the Africa Chess community on Telegram


Why not get involved and play in our chess tournaments. Download the Telegram app and join the Africa Chess community. Here is the link to the Africa Chess Telegram Group.

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