SOME of the kingdom’s top chess players will be putting their ‘royal game’ prowess to the test and aiming to make the right moves to become king or queen for the day.
The Riffa Views Social and Cultural Committee is organising the second Riffa Views (RV) Chess Tournament at the Riffa Views International School (RVIS) Innovation Hub tomorrow at 10.30am.
“The Covid-19 pandemic marked a revived interest in chess that continues to be seen in our community, and we are hoping to further nurture this passion,” one of the organising committee members Dr Burhanuddin Khaled Alawadhi told the GDN.
During the first chess tournament conducted by Riffa Views last March, approximately 40 players participated, with ages ranging from six to 60. Registration for the latest board challenge closed last night.
Since at least the 15th century, chess has been known as the ‘royal game’ because of its popularity among the nobility. The rules of chess emerged in Europe at that time, with universal acceptance by the end of the 19th century. Today, chess is one of the world’s most popular games played by millions of people.
For the uninitiated, chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces, with the objective to checkmate the opponent’s king.
Chess is regarded as ‘a sport’ because the game requires immense skill, mental acuity, strategic thinking and even lasting physical endurance required to remained focused for the duration of matches
Players will be divided into two categories for tomorrow’s tournament based on age – under 16 and 16-plus / adults.
The competition will be played according to non-eliminating Swiss-system rules, which features a fixed number of rounds of competition.
The winner will be the competitor with the highest total points earned in all rounds.
International Chess Federation (FIDE) chess master and Bahrain chess champion Zeyad Janahi, who has been playing chess for 38 years, has helped organise the latest tournament.
Chess has seen a surge in popularity over the last few years. Mr Janahi attributes this to the international TV series Queen’s Gambit, which centred on a fictional story of a female chess grandmaster playing her way to the top of the game. He also attributes its growing appeal to the Education Ministry’s support.
“We are currently holding the event for RV residents and attendees of RVIS, but we hope to eventually expand the tournament to all of Bahrain,” Dr Alawadhi added. “As is famously said, there are a greater number of chess positions than there are atoms in the universe! The sheer amount of strategy and versatility of play has kept chess timeless,” Dr Alawadhi added.
The GDN reported last year that the Education Ministry plans to integrate training, workshops and national-level tournaments into the curriculum. This was followed by two national level editions of the Khalid bin Hamad Chess Championship.
RVIS also plans to conduct an inter-school chess tournament on November 21, with the participation of three schools in the kingdom.
“We have seen more interest from students, like my son, who finds the game more intellectually stimulating than video games,” organiser Zainab Javid added.
naman@gdnmedia.bh
&uuid=(email))