This years International Awale Tournament hosted at the 32nd International Festival des Jeux in Cannes south of France featured for the first time a Bltiz and Rapid Championships in addition to players from Germany and Russia.
The tournament took place over two days the 23rd & 24th of February and was managed by a five round Swiss system. There were 11 players representing in total seven countries. For the first clocks were used to manage both competitions, five minutes for each player for the blitz competition and 10 minutes for the rapid competition.
On Friday the 23rd of February 2018 the first ever International Awale Blitz Championship commenced with eleven players representing six countries: Antigua & Barbuda, Cameroon, Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Each player had 5 minutes to make all their moves in a game. The player who won 25 seeds first won the game. Whoever ran out of time without acquiring 25 seeds lost the game. A match was decided on a best of three basis. Due to time constraints a five round Swiss system was employed to manage the championship.
The first round pairings saw the two to players pitted against each other: September Christian Grandmaster player from Antigua & Barbuda against Serik Aktayev Master player from Kazakhstan. The results was in no doubt a foregone conclusion with September Christian winning two straight. New comer Anastassyia Foos from Kazakhstan proved to be the surprise player of the competition clocking a well deserved sixth position, quite a feat for a player new to the game.
This competition also saw the return of George Doughty our elder Oware player from the UK who traveled all the way from Bognor Regis by train to participate in this competition. The last time he participated was back in 2007.
At the end of five rounds the positions stood as: 1st September Christian, 2nd Serik Aktayev, 3rd Maxat Shotayev. the full results can be viewed at: http://www.oware.org/event_results.asp?id=131