Chess duo deserts Championships

Two of Botswana Chess Federation (BCF) top players Fide Master (FM) Phemelo Khetho and Candidate Master (CM), Barileng Gaelafshwe abandoned participation at the 2018 Botswana International Open Chess championships held in Gaborone this past weekend. The two national team players returned from the 43rd Chess Olympiad staged in Georgia Batumi early this month. Khetho emerged the biggest winner amongst the local team scoring 6.5 from the 10 games played. His ratings also increased by a staggering 48 Elos. As for Gaealafshwe, he managed to bring home four points from the nine games he played. The weekend international tournament sponsored by Debswana Mining Company was the BCF national team’s first assignment since the Olympiad. However Khetho and Gaelafshwe pulled out during the tournament. “We are still waiting to hear their reasons as to why they decided to pull out,” BCF Secretary General Tingwane Mokwadi said this week. However, when reached, both Khetho and Gaelafshwe confirmed that they were not fit to play on the day. “There were a lot of things happening to me that day and I resorted to pulling out,” Khetho said. Olympiad exhaustion maybe? “Yes that and other things, just like in a race, when the body is not responding, an athlete cannot bring out desired results,” he said.As for Gaelafshwe, he noted that he was failing to concentrate on the game. “I was dealing with personal issues that made it hard for me to focus,” Gaealafshwe said. Mokwadi shared that going into the tournament, chess queen Women International Master (WIM) Onkemetse Francis had excused herself. This meant that they were already a limping lot. BCF expected that all the other national team players would be present on the day to boost chances of winning the tournament. He was confident that the team has the right energy levels from the just ended games in Batumi and all geared up to dethrone Zambia. Zambia has always been a pain in the neck, not easy to penetrate and dominating the tournament in the past years. “They are some of our strong players and having them in the team would have increased our chances of winning more medals,” Mokwadi said.Meanwhile, International Master (IM) Providence Oatlhotse of Botswana won the prestige section while Women Candidate Master (WCM) Constance Mbatha of Zambia is the ladies section champion. Botswana ‘s Innocent Bosane won the open section. The tournament defending champions Women Fide Master (WFM) Lorita Mwango and IM Daniel Jere from Zambia did not participate at the 2018 games.