Hillside Chess Champs registration opens

Ricky Zililo, Senior Sports Reporter
REGISTRATION for the fourth edition of the Hillside Chess Championships set for February 21 at Hillside Teachers’ College opened yesterday and closes on February 19.

The Bulawayo Chess Association (BCA) organised competition has five sections, Open, Ladies, Junior A (Form 4 to 6), Junior B (Form 1 to 3) and development (Grade 7 going down).

Participants in the Open and Ladies’ categories will pay a registration fee of $5, with the junior and development players parting with $3.

BCA director of information Moses Mutipforo said they are expecting more participants drawn from the junior and development categories.

BCA introduced the development section in September 2017 at the Milton Open and this year they play host to primary school learners for a third time.

“The introduction of the development section was introduced to create excitement among aspiring chess players. We expect most of the participants to be drawn from school clubs because by the end of the year we saw an increase in terms from primary and secondary schools clubs participating at our events. We are also expecting participants from Mutare, Hwange, Gwanda, Filabusi, Plumtree, Gweru and here in Bulawayo,” said Mutipforo.

“After the season’s opener (Hillside Chess Championships), we will have monthly competitions, which will run up to December. These competitions are important to players because they are used for ranking purposes.”

Stiff competition is expected in the Open category which has Nkulumane’s Tapiwa Jele, Castro Sibanda of Nust Chess Club, the ZRP Bulawayo Chess Club trio of Tarcisio Chikandi, Maxwell Masare and Benson Chinodyanama.

Winter 2018 Open winner Russel Dzete of Bulawayo Chess Club, Titans Chess Club’s Mzingaye Hadebe, Spencer Moyo from Filabusi Chess Club and Phakamani Sithole of Nkulumane complete the list of top players vying for the championship.

— @ZililoR