Nigerian chess suggest and Guinness International Document holder Tunde Onakoya has unveiled the Lagos Global Chess Competition, a brand new tournament scheduled for October 2027 that may mix aggressive chess with artwork, type and cultural reports.
Onakoya introduced the pageant on Saturday, October 10, on the Mikano Motors showroom in Lagos, the place he celebrated his birthday and shared his imaginative and prescient of creating the town a gathering level for chess avid gamers and lovers from Africa and past.
The pageant objectives to take chess past conventional tournaments via developing an revel in that displays Lagos’s id and brings the sport to a much wider target market.
“Chess has given me a method to to find my position on the planet, and I need to proportion that. This can be a stunning sport, and it has the ability to carry folks in combination,” Onakoya stated.
The proposed programme features a chess and artwork exhibition, a large-scale match for kids, fits between grandmasters and a star chess match. Organisers additionally plan to introduce a chess and type tournament and a birthday party celebrating Lagos.
One of the crucial proposed actions is chess on a ship, an concept impressed via the town’s waterways and its courting with the encompassing lagoon.
Onakoya hopes the programme will draw in individuals who may now not ordinarily come across chess thru formal festival, whilst developing alternatives for African avid gamers to hook up with the global chess group.
The pageant’s visible id additionally attracts inspiration from Lagos. Its brand combines parts of the Eyo masquerade, a recognisable image of the town, with the form of a rook, one of the most foremost items in chess. The colors mirror Lagos’s vibrancy.
“That is the start line, the visible truth of the primary version. I’m excited, just a little fearful and really curious, however I do know that, like the entirety else we’ve carried out, we need to place confidence in our concepts,” he stated.
Representatives of Mikano, Landmark Africa Workforce, Lufthansa, Hennessy, The Plug International Company and Chess in Slums Africa attended the announcement along different visitors. An intimate dinner at Gräs Lagos adopted the development.
With the inaugural version scheduled for October 2027, the following section will contain creating the proposed actions right into a pageant in a position to attracting avid gamers and audiences from throughout Africa and across the world.
Faridah Abdulkadiri
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