Chess breaks eight-year wait for league
Calistus Kolantsho | Friday March 2, 2018 16:19
The league is sponsored by Debswana for P127, 800 and will run over seven months. The total sponsorship amount is P511, 200 over a four-year period.
Botswana Chess Federation (BCF) public relations officer, Kutlwano Tatolo said all is done and set for the start of the competition.
“We are expecting at least 12 out of 20 clubs to be ready to compete in the league. We might get more than the expected numbers though. The league would run for six months,” she said.
Tatolo said each club would field one team. At every game, a club would have a team of eight players.
Boards one up to four are open to all players, board five is reserved for a woman of any age, board six is reserved for an Under-21 player of any gender, board seven is reserved for an Under-16 girl and board eight is reserved for Under-16 boys.
David Mooketsi of En Passent Club said it has been a long wait for the league. The last edition was played in 2010 and the club finished in third.
“We were a new club back then. Today we have some of the strongest players in the country and we are going in to win the championship,” he said.
Some of the players expected to win the title for En Passent are FIDE Master Thato Olebile, Candidate Master (CM) Thabo Gumpo, Woman International Master (WIM) Kgalalelo Botlhole and Woman FIDE Master, Besa Masaite.
“Chess is an individual sport where each player trains on their own. But we have weekend training sessions as a team. One of the areas we cover during the sessions is analysing previous games,” Mooketsi said.
CM Thuso Mosutha of Black Bishops said the league is a welcome development and it means they would always be active unlike previously.
“We used to take a long time without action. That affected our strengths as players, but things are going to change,” Mosutha said.
He said in the past they used to struggle against Poisonous Snakes, but they have worked on their weaknesses. He admitted that En Passent boasts of strong players.
But Mosutha said they are not scared of any team, as all they want is the championship.