Sri Lanka to organise West Asia’s biggest Online Chess Championship
The Chess Federation of Sri Lanka (CFSL) is gearing up to organise one of the biggest online events, the Western Asian Online Youth Chess Championships with the collaboration of Asian Chess Federation (ACF).The event will be held from September 18 to 20 through the Tornelo Platform, with over 1000 players from 15 Western Asian countries set to take part.
The three-day competition will be under 12 age category events, beginning from the Under-8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18 for boys and girls. ACF, the conductors of the event, has categorised, South Asia, Arab and the Russian speaking countries of Asia as Western Asian countries. So far more than 1000 players from 15 countries have fielded their entries to participate in the event.
India has fielded the biggest contingent with 378 players while Sri Lanka also will field more than 300 players for the competition. Iran also will field team of 161 players. Other countries who have registered for the event are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives, Oman, Kuwait, Palestine, Jordan and the UAE.
The Sri Lankan team will include the newest Under-10 Girls Online World Chess champion and the eligible players from the Online Olympiad Chess team with the players who have performance at the CFSL Online Youth Chess Championship 2021.
“The championships will be conducted on the Swiss System in nine rounds, having three games a day. The newly approved FIDE Online Chess regulations will be followed and the time control is 15 minutes per side with a 10-second increment for each move played. Only laptop and desktop computers are allowed while players will be closely observed by the arbiters via zoom technology. Players should have two cameras, one camera and a webcam to directly observe the player while other will be to see the surrounding as a side camera,” Lakshman Wijesuriya, the president of CFSL said.
The virtual opening ceremony will be held on September 18 at 11.00 am, Sri Lanka time via zoom technology and the Minister of Sports, Namal Rajapaksa, is expected to make his presence as chief guest with his Sheikh Sultan Bin Khalifa Al Nehyan, the President of ACF.