By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA –
THERE were mixed fortunes for Zambia at the ongoing World Chess Olympiads in Tromso, Norway as women’s team kept up their winning form while the men were flattened in round four games.
Zambia’s women team defeated neighbours Botswana 3-1 while the men were defeated 3.5-0.5 by Qatar.
With these round four results, the Zambian men team led by Stanley Chumfwa and the women captained by Lorita Mwango have each won twice and also lost on two occasions.
In the women section, Mwango led by an example when she rolled over Boikhutso Mudongo while Constance Mbatha did the same against Tsepiso Lopang.
The two defeated Tswanas were both brandishing Women International Master (WIM) titles.
On board three, Linda Hamoonga’s game ended in a stalemate against Onkemetse Francis with that same result also posted by Yvonne Saina against Thapelo Francis.
In the next round, Zambia plays South Korea where Mwango will face Chengjia Wang while Mbatha will be challenged by Hakyung Lim while Hamoonga and Sain will be up against Yeonhee Cho and Cho Garam, respectively.
For the Zambian men, who had two Qatar Grand Masters (GM) to deal with, lost a match they looked like winning.
Stanley Chumfwa, on board one, started strongly against GM Mohammed Al Modiahki and when tides changed midway, he fought off for a draw, the same late fight did not work for Daniel jere who was beaten by another GM, Mohammed Al Sayed.
The third International Master (IM) on the Zambian camp in Chitumbo Mwali was beaten by Hussein Aziz while the most hurting defeat came on board four where Kelvin Chumfwa was defeated by Hamad Al Tamimi.
Despite the Zambian being in a strong position and actually turned down a draw offer but when he got into time trouble, he made one mistake which cost him the game.
The Zambia men’s team will in the next round meet Kyrgystan with a shuffled line up which sees Mwali take a rest and replaced by Richmond Phiri, who missed the last two rounds.
Stanley will play Semetey Tologontegin while Jere has Asyl Abdyjapr with Phiri playing B. Takyrbashev while Kelvin up against Melis Mamatov.
