Chess Federation set to crown league champions
Saturday, 29 October 2011 Written by Phillip Corry
The curtains will be drawn on the National Chess League tomorrow at Hotel Africana with the 15thand final round games as leaders Mulago Kings take on Kireka Chess Club in a game in which they need only half a point to clinch the much coveted title.
Second placed City Chess Club who slipped 4.5 points off the pace after the last league encounters will be up against UCU Knights as third placed Uganda Chess Academy play Mulago Rooks.
While the first four positions have almost certainly been decided already by the difference in points, the real battle for positions starts with the 5th, 6th and 7th placed teams Makindye Chess Club, Mulago Rooks and Aviation Chess Club which are separated by only a few points.
Makindye Chess Club plays Makerere University in the last round and will be hoping for a good result to stave off competition from Mulago Rooks whom they lead by only 1.5 points. Similarly, 7th placed Aviation, which plays Mulago Queens has a chance of upstaging Mulago Rooks for 6th place if the later faulters in the last round.
Likewise, the teams from 10th to 15th position are separated by only 2.5 points and could easily swap positions in the last round depending on how the results turn out. That sets up some tough battles in the games between Mengo Chess Club versus Enkabi Chess Club and the highlight of that game being a potentially explosive tie between Mengo’s Bob Bibasa and Enkabi’s Elijah Emojong.
Barclays Bank plays Mulago Pawns as Mulago Knights take on bottom placed Bank Of Uganda.
Immediately after the last round, which will be played on Sunday morning, a Blitz Chess tournament will be held in the afternoon ahead of the closing and awards ceremony that will be held at 4:30 pm to mark the award of trophy to the 2011 National Chess League champions.
The Federation urges players interested in participating in the Blitz Chess tournament to declare their intentions by registering on Sunday morning. The time control for the Blitz games will be 5 minutes per player with an increment of 2 minutes. The difference between Blitz games and conventional chess games is that the Blitz games are much shorter, lasting about 10 minutes per game as opposed to conventional games which go on up to 4 hours, per game.
After the league, the next event on the Federation’s calendar is the National Chess Championship that kicks off on Saturday 5th November 2011 at Hotel Africana.
Source: http://www.kawowo.com
How strong are they?