31st Kenya Open Chess Championship kicks off with a bang

The 31st edition of the Kenya open Chess Championship entered day two of five at the Sarit Expo Centre, Nairobi, attracting a total of 374 players from 19 countries namely United States, Russia, India, Egypt, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Somalia, South Africa, Malawi, Azerbaijan, Latvia, Ghana, Nigeria, England and Germany.

The field has a record seven Grandmasters (GM) and three Women Grandmasters WGM), the highest ever in Africa in an open event. It is also the first time grandmasters are featuring in this event since its inception in 1979 when it was known as the Panpaper Open which was sponsored by the defunct Webuye-based Panafrican Paper Mills.

After two rounds on day one pre-tournament favourite Uzbekistan-born American grandmaster Timur Gareyev leads on tie-break with maximum two points sharing with 60 others in the 9-round event. The open section has 290 players while in women there are 84 players, the highest ever. The other grandmasters in the open section are Pavel Ponkratov from Russia, Eltaj Safarli from Azerbaijan, Nikita Meshkovs from Latvia, Fawzy Adham and Hesham Abdelrahman both from Egypt and Sriram Jha from India. GM Gareyev also holds the world blindfold chess simultaneous record of 48 games set in 2017, where he won 35, drew 7, lost 6.

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In the ladies section pre-tournament favourite WGM Josefine Heinemann of Germany is in the lead on tie-break with maximum two points along with 21 others. The WGM Egyptian sisters Shrook Wafa and Shahenda Wafa lie second and third respectively. Top Kenyan seeds Woman FIDE Master and reigning national women champion Sasha Mongeli is also at two points lying 6th currently.

The upset of this section was board nine where Kenya's Francisca Kagwira rated (1257) beat South Africa's WIM Anzel Laubscher (1752).