Record prize money anticipated for Soyinka chess tourney

Record prize money anticipated for Soyinka chess tourney

By Ifeanyi Ibeh
July 13, 2010 11:30PM

Promoters of the Soyinka International Chess tournament scheduled for July 10-17, 2011, are projecting prize money of $50,000.

Soyinka turned 76 yesterday, and his friends and associates plan to stage a tournament to commemorate his next birthday. The tournament is likely to hold at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja.

Former world champion, Boris Spassky, a personal friend of Soyinka, has already signified his desire to be present at the event’s opening ceremony where he plans to give a simultaneous exhibition.

The tournament will be divided into two categories – Masters and Open – with the tournament billed to be the highest pay of any chess competition in the country, if the organizers are able to finalise arrangements on the proposed $50,000 prize money.

Jubril Ayinla, a retired naval admiral, who was among those present in Lagos on Tuesday to make the pronouncement, recalled that “very little is known about Wole Soyinka and chess but it was only recently, through the hard work of the International Coordinator of the Nigeria Chess Federation, Kunle Elegbede, from his base in Houston, United States, that we got to learn that Wole was of kindred spirit.

Match of the century

“Like every true chess player, Soyinka was to learn from his days at Leeds that chess was indeed very absorbing and time consuming. He was to later follow with keen interest the famous (Bobby) Fischer-Spassky World Championship match in 1972.”

That game, which came to be known in the annals of chess as the “match of the century” was played at the height of the cold war between the flamboyant American challenger Fischer and the relatively benign champion Spassky of the then Soviet Union.

“In the coming weeks and months leading up to this event, the organizing committee will reach out to friends, associates and admirers of Professor Soyinka, as well as lovers of the intellectual game of chess, both within and outside our shores, for sponsorship of this championship, as a perpetual reminder of his exemplary life and virtues,” Ayinla said.

Source: http://234next.com