Turkmenistan's chess players had a successful start at the Asian Championship among schoolchildren in Tashkent.
The competition involves 330 athletes from 17 countries of the Asian and Australian continents, including such chess powers as India, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, who are competing for championship awards in Rapid (fast chess), classical version of the game and Blitz (speed chess) in age categories up to 7, 9, 11, 13, 15 and 17 years old.
The Asian Championship, held for the 17th time among schoolchildren, started with a rapid tournament, in which our compatriots won two medals in the oldest age category - up to 17 years. Recall that in this type of chess, each player is allocated 15 minutes for the entire game with the addition of 10 seconds for each move. In the competition among girls, Lala Shokhradova, a student of the 10th grade of secondary school № 31 of the Dyanev etrap of the Lebap velayat, won silver, and Amanmukhammet Khommadov, a high school student of Ashgabat school № 117, achieved bronze success in the competition of boys.
Having scored 5 points out of 7 possible, Lala was one point behind her Uzbek peer Umida Omonova, who became the world champion in the same category a month earlier in Batumi (Georgia). The third line with 5 points was taken by Kashthuri from India, who lost the second place to L. Shokhradova on additional coefficients.
But Amanmukhammet Khommadov, who scored 5.5 points out of 7, was unlucky with the additional coefficients. They placed him in the third place, letting Russian Alexander Khripachenko to the second place with the same number of points. The first in this age category was Hishigbat Ulzihishig from Mongolia, who scored 6.5 points out of 7 possible.
For Amanmukhammet, this medal is the first one won at international competitions in a "live" format, that is, at the board (unlike online competitions).
Another Asian Championship medal could go to 10-year-old Alikhan Batyrov from Mary. In the age category up to 11 years, in which 32 chess players played, he shared the first five places with four other participants with a score of 5.5 points. However, according to the additional coefficient, Alikhan was in 4th place, passing ahead of bronze medalist Suleiman Akhmet (Kazakhstan), silver medalist Shahzod Islamov (Uzbekistan) and champion Vinuk Wijerathna (Sri Lanka).
Turkmenistan is represented at the Asian championship among schoolchildren by 12 champions – one in each of the age categories, as well as several additional players.
The next set of medals of the Asian Championship will be played by schoolchildren in chess with classical time regulation.
