20 Feb 2014

Botswana Chess Federation will this weekend (February 22-13) host the first qualifiers for this year’s Morongwa Junior Schools Individual Chess Championships.

The games, pitting together young chess players from schools, will be held in Lobatse for the southern region and in Francistown for the northern region.

According to BCF public relations director, Keenese Katisenge, the Francistown tournament will be held at Setlalekgosi Junior Secondary School (JSS) while the Lobatse one will be held at Pitikwe JSS on Saturday and Sunday.

She said the tournament would be open to all primary and junior secondary school chess players. “One hundred and twenty young chess players who will display good performance from the qualifiers will be selected for the finals which will be held in Gaborone on 21-22 June 2014,” she said.

She added that the tournaments will be played in a total of seven rounds with a time control of 30 minutes per player.

Katisenge said Morongwa Security, which has been sponsoring the competition for the past four years, is sponsoring this year’s tournament with P22 000, and the funds will be channeled towards prizes for junior individual, junior teams and senior individual finals.

According to Katisenge, the BCF is using Morongwa tournaments series as practice and preparation for the World Youth Chess Championships that will be held in South Africa in September.

After showing complete dominance from round 1 to 7 in the 2013 Morongwa Junior Schools Individual Chess Championships,

Last year the boys’ champion in the Junior Schools Individual Chess Championships was Hulela Kennedy from Sua JSS in Nata, while Motshusi Nchidzi from the same school was crowned the girls champion. ENDS