Chess championship gets new date

The secretary of the Chess Federation of Nigeria, Bidemi Akintola, has revealed that the 31st edition of the Nigeria Breweries Limited (NBL)-sponsored Chess Championship, which was earlier scheduled for September 22, will now be held at the Indoor Sports Hall of the National Stadium, Lagos, from September 14 to 19.

Akinola told NEXT Sports that the competition’s sponsors requested that the tournament, which is in five categories, be shifted forward because of a clash in its calendar.

“The sponsors sent us a request for a change in the date because the championships clashed with one of their programmes.

“It is fine with us since it does not affect the initial plan; there are still the under 14 male and female categories, the veterans, ladies, FM and SWAN categories,” said Akinola.

He noted that the 36 states’ chess associations were informed of the change of date.

“All the states of the federation got the letter of invitation we sent and when the date was changed we had to inform them. This we have done and thankfully there have responded,” he said.

Meanwhile, Bunmi Olape, a player and coach from Oyo State, says he was notified of the change last week by email.

The chess National Master, who won victory for Nigeria on board number 1 at the 35th Chess Olympiad in Slovenia, said: “Oyo State has 12 players competing in the championships,” adding that the competition is currently the biggest chess championship in the country.

Drought in competitions

Olape, who won a gold medal at the 2003 All African Games in Abuja, said: “When I started playing chess in 1991 there were a lot of tournaments.

“There was the Concord Open sponsored by Late Chief Moshood Abiola, the Newswatch Chess League, the 7up Chess Cup and the Nigeria Breweries Limited (NBL) competitions.

“Now, apart from the ‘Friends of Chess’ organised competitions, we have only one locally organised competition in a year and that is the NBL Championship and players just have to make do.

“The standard of chess in Nigeria has fallen over time. Right now, we have no Grand Master and given our population, that is over 147 million, it so sad.

“It is sad because the materials are there but there are no sponsors.”

It would be recalled that at the 30th edition [of the championship] winners in each category went home with N50,000 cash while the overall winner was given N140,000 for her efforts.