Watch how young chess knights and princesses from Turkmenistan fight at the World Cup in Egypt Orient

Watch how young chess knights and princesses from Turkmenistan fight at the World Cup in Egypt

20.10.2023 | 00:40 |

The World Chess Championship among boys and girls up to 8, 10 and 12 years old, which opened on October 16 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, gathered more than 500 participants from 67 countries, including Turkmenistan.

Our country is represented by three girls – Dunya Ruslanova (up to 8 years old), Pervana Serdarova (up to 10 years old) and Nebahat Muradova (up to 12 years old), and three boys Maksat Avlyakuliyev (up to 8 years old), Alihan Batyrov (up to 10 years old) and Rauf Yusupov (up to 12 years old).

Nebahat Muradova, a pupil of the Lebap school, started successfully. Despite the big difference in the Elo rating (the method of calculating relative strength in games for two players), Zumrat Achilova’s ward was able to win her strong rivals Aylin Zarkym from Kazakhstan and Kiss Inez from Hungary in the first two rounds.

With this, Nebahat proved that ratings are just numbers. But in the third round, she lost to another athlete from Kazakhstan, Maria Khalyavko, and so far has 2 points out of 3 possible.

Rauf Yusupov started no less well. In the first and third rounds, Rauf, whose Elo rating is 1500 points, won against strong rivals from the Czech Republic Mick Thomas (Elo rating – 1944) and from Mexico Flores Martinez (Elo rating – 1777). In the second round, he still lost to his opponent from Russia Ruslan Minhajdarov (Elo rating – 1905).

Alihan Batyrov also has 2 points in the asset. Rauf and Alihan are studying with the Honored coach of Turkmenistan Ejegyz Yalkanova.

The rest of our participants – Dunya Ruslanova, Pervana Serdarova and Maksat Avlyakuliyev go with a 50% result, having 1.5 points out of 3 possible.