Serbia’s Dejan Antic has been rated as the number one seed in the ongoing Lagos International Chess Classics, as Main Organising Committee (MOC) listed 145 players in the senior category.
With the foreign players dominating the seeding list, five Nigerian players led by Bunmi Olape were also listed among the top 10 seeded players in the championship.
As the only grand master in the tournament as well as the highest world rated player in the competition, Serbia’s Antic is seeded number one and he is followed by Egypt’s duo of Mohammed Ezat and Abdelrahman Hesham who are both seeded number two and three respectively.
The only international master in Uganda, Elijah Emojong is seeded number four while Egypt’s Walaa Sarwat is fifth on the seeding list.
The highest ranked Nigerian player in the world, Olape is number six, while giant-killer, Chukwunonso Oragwu is seventh in the rating. Other Nigerian players seeded among the top 10 are Adeyinka Adesina, Oladapo Adu and Bomo Kigigha.
According to the chief arbiter of the tournament, Eugene Akhiwu, the turnout of players was impressive but said that the tournament being the flagship of Nigeria’s chess competition has quality players.
“I want to say that this tournament might be the best in term of turnout of players but when you talk of quality of players, I can conclude that this is the flagship and we are indeed happy that this is happening for our players to get good rating,” he said.
The international arbiter added: “I want to say that the presence of the Serbian grand master will indeed add glamour to the championship while it will afford our players to cause upset to be able to get good rating just like what Oragwu did at the last World Chess Olympiad in Turkey, where he beat a lot of grand masters to improve his world rating. We should not rule out that to happen in this competition and this will help the players to get astronomical rise in their world rating.”
Molade Okoya-Thomas Hall of the Teslim Balogun Stadium in Lagos is hosting the N3.5million prize money championship.
Players will compete in two events – open and U-14 divisions, while the winner in the open event will get $5,000 as star prize.
