Ishaq, Amna grab top chess honours
dubai — Fide Master (FM) Master Saeed Ishaq and Women’s International Master (WIM) Amna Nouman walked away with the top awards at a felicitation held by the Dubai Chess and Culture Club at the club’s Shaikh Saeed bin Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum Hall.
The other players, mostly upcoming talent in the country, to be awarded with special mementos were junior players Ali Abdul Aziz Al Fahimi, FM Ahmad Fareed Faisal Ali Al Abdouli, International Master (IM) Ibrahim Sultan, Abdullah Ali, Majed Al Abdooli, Khalid Ahmed, Shaima Nouman, Jawaher Obaid, Misfer Almisafri, Mahmoud Abdullah Al Awadhi, Rashed Al Hajjaj, Anoud Ahmed and Ahlam Rashed.
The event celebrated Dubai Chess Club’s impressive results in the previous season wherein it was adjudged the top performer among the government-supported chess clubs in the UAE.
Khalid Al Madfaa, assistant secretary-general, Public Authority for Sports and Youth Welfare; Saeed Mohammed Hareb, secretary-general, Dubai Sports Council; and Ibrahim Mohammed Al Bannai, chairman, Dubai Chess Club and Arab Chess Federation, distributed the awards.
Saeed Ishaq, an engineer with the RTA who took part in the 2016 Baku Chess Olympiad recently, said: “Unlike other countries, chess has enjoyed strong support from the Dubai Government and from our leaders themselves. I believe the impressive results we have achieved in recent years are the fruit of the government’s continued support to the club’s programmes.”
The recent performances taken into account before finalising the awards list included the show at the Asian Cities Chess Championship for the Dubai Cup in Colombo where Al Fahimi won the individual gold medal on board four, while Fareed collared the silver medal on board two.
Fareed also registered successful campaigns elsewhere, capturing a silver medal in the U-18 category of the first Arab Chess Olympiad in Morocco and a bronze in the U-16 category in the Arab Age Group Individual Chess Championships in Abu Dhabi. Al Abdouli won the U-14 championship while Sultan, Ali, Al Abdooli and Ahmed caught the limelight when they lifted the Group Team championships.