French School, ICAO to host Muscat school chess league

Sports Tuesday 16/January/2018 16:38 PM
By: Times News Service
French School, ICAO to host Muscat school chess league

Muscat: The French School of Muscat together with the International Chess Academy of Oman (ICAO) will organise the first Muscat School Chess Champions League for under-14 players.
The competition will take place on French School of Muscat premises in Muscat Heights on February 28.
According to the organisers, invitations have been sent to 15 international schools of Muscat to participate in the first edition of the tournament.
Each participating school will field a four-member team in the tournament, in which the matches will be played under the Swiss system and International Chess Federation (FIDE) rules.
The League will be organised in two stages with the qualifiers taking place on February 28. The top four teams from qualifiers will make it to the semifinals. The semfinals and the finals will take place on March 14.
Speaking about the tournament, Ameer Abdullah Al Raisi, chairman of the International Chess Academy of Oman, said: “It very nice to see a professional platform emerging where kids can compete against each other as per the international standards. The International Chess Academy of Oman will provide all the material needed: wooden boards, digital chess clocks, international arbiters, live broadcast of the results and of course the support of our team which have been organising many events in the past five years, including visits of Garry Kasparov (2014) and Vishy Anand (2016).”
“We would like to thank the Ministry of Education for their support and for what they have been doing to promote the ‘Royal Game’ in the four corners of the Sultanate,” he added.
Meanwhile, Yves Martel, Principal of the French School of Muscat, said: “It’s an honor for our school to host the first edition of the Muscat Chess School Champions League. The game of chess is wonderful tool to develop the analytical skills, creativity, calculation, focus of all students and what better way than a competition to push themselves to the utmost while having fun!”