At the zonal championship that ended in Dushanbe, international master Saparmyrat Atabayev finished third. Zone 3.4 is one of the eight zones belonging to the Asian Chess Federation, and includes five Central Asian countries and Afghanistan.

Immediately three chess players with 6.5 points out of 9 possible shared the first place in the open (men's) tournament. These are Uzbek grandmaster Nodirbek Yakubboev (FIDE rating – 2630), international master from Kazakhstan Alisher Suleimenov (2471) and Turkmen Saparmyrat Atabayev (2433). According to the additional coefficient, the Olympic champion from Uzbekistan was on the first line, and Saparmyrat had to settle for third place.

Unfortunately, Saparmyrat is only a small step away from qualifying for the World Cup, which starts at the end of July in Baku. Besides him, Turkmenistan was represented in the men's category by his brothers-grandmasters Maksat and Yusup Atabayev, as well as FIDE master Azat Nurmammedov. All of them finished the tournament with 4.5 points out of 9.

Other famous grandmasters also took part in the tournament, including Rinat Dzhumabayev (2590) and Murtas Kazhgaleev (2506, both from Kazakhstan). In total, 26 best chess players of zone 3.4 took part in the men's category.

In the world ranking of chess federations as of June 1, the men's team of Uzbekistan is on the 18th place (3rd in Asia), Kazakhstan is on the 45th, Turkmenistan is on the 67th, Kyrgyzstan is on the 75th, and Tajikistan is on the 90th.

In the women's category of the tournament, our country was represented by Lala Shokhradova, Meryem Agadzhanova and Ogulsuray Bayrambaeva. Here, the complete dominance was demonstrated by athletes from Kazakhstan, who were in the first 6 lines in the final position of the tournament.

Despite her first experience in the international arena, Ogulsuray Bayrambaeva showed the best result among our participants, who scored 5 points out of 9 possible and took 9th place. She was also able to raise her Elo rating by 40 points.

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