Africa Zone 4.2 Championships
Cairo, Egypt
For their splendid displays in the zonal qualifiers, Haruna Nsubuga (rated 2125) and Joyce Kabengano (rated 1595) are scheduled to represent Uganda in the Zone 4.2 Africa Chess Championships scheduled for 2014 in Cairo, Egypt.
“Uganda Chess Federation (UCF) will paying for the players’ tickets and Visa fees while the hosts are catering for their accommodation and upkeep” an official statement from UCF reads.
Nsubuga emerged victorious in the male category after shaking off opposition from Micheal Mawanda, Simon Gonza, Farouk Fauza and Raphael Buti. Kabengano emerged best in the ladies category.
Uganda Chess Federation took an executive decision to exclude Olympians and former Olympians from the 2014 zonal qualifiers so as to grant high level tournament exposure to other rated players who have never been to the Olympiad.
Indeed, the eventual winner and representative Nsubuga is a perennial contender who has always come so close to qualifying for the Olympiad and other big events in the past.
“He is a talented attacking player who now has a chance to display his skills against much fancied opposition at the zonal, which includes Egyptian International Masters among others”, the statement reads further.
Zonal events are a good hunting ground for titles. Uganda’s sole IM Elijah Emojong first attained his first FM title and eventually IM title from the zonal championships.
Winning the event or registering a score above 66.6 percent grants an IM title, while a 50 percent score grants a FIDE Master title and 35 percent Candidate Master.
Uganda is scheduled to host the 2015 Zone 4.2 Africa Chess Championship in April 2015 in Kampala.
Hosting the event is an enormous challenge given the need to cater for official players’ accommodation and upkeep in the ladies and male categories on top of providing hefty cash prizes.
It however presents lots of opportunities including the provision for the host to field up to 5 players thereby increasing on the rating and title chances for local talent.
Countries in Zone 4.2 include Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Seychelles, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda.
