The Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport has confirmed that it will host an inter-schools chess competition during the last quarter of this year. Three students, comprising males and females, will make up a team from each school.
The Guyana Chess Federation has launched a weekend chess drive to prepare students for the competition by teaching the game to schools from scratch. Schools wishing to learn to play the game are requested to contact the Secretary of the Guyana Chess Federation Irshad Mohamed on tel. 664—1650.
Schools will be given special incentives for participation, the details of which will be released in due course. And in this first instance, no more than 16 schools can participate in the competition.
In international news, President of FIDE Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has announced that the world championship challenger match between grandmasters Veselin Topalov ( Bulgaria ) and Gata Kamsky ( USA ) will take place in Lvov, Ukraine in November. President Ilyumzhinov has guaranteed a prize fund of US$ 750,000 from his personal finances for the match.
In the meantime, tickets have gone on sale for the world championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik at US$55 per round and VIP tickets at US$438 per round. The match will be held in October in Bonn, Germany.
The prize fund for the match is US$2.35 million. Twelve games will be played under classical time control.
The event will take place under the patronage of Germany’s Finance Minister Peer Steinbruck, who is himself an enthusiastic chess player.
