Young Marape shines again at Lusaka meet

The Botswana youth chess team ended the year on a good note with an impressive performance at the African Youth Chess Championships held in Lusaka Zambia from 05-13 December 2015.

The African Youth Championships brought together 230 youth chess players from all over Africa ranging from ages 6 to 17 years, with powerhouses such as Egypt and Algeria fielding some of the strongest in the game.

Botswana sent a contingent of 12 players of different age categories ranging from 8 to 18 years, where Botswana’s youngest Woman Candidate Master, 9-year old Naledi Marape won a silver medal in the Under 10 girls’ group which was pronounced the group of death.

Marape proved to be the toughest contender as she dominated the group and  checkmating her opponents with ease while winning very complicated games. At the end of the rounds Marape tied on points with woman candidate master Chabane Lina of Algeria with both accumulating 7out 9points.

The head to head tiebreak gave the gold medal to the Algerian with the local star settling for silver.

In the under 14 girls’ category, Besa Masaiti of Botswana was equal to the task netting a bronze medal in a group that was won by another Algerian chess prodigy.

The entire Botswana team showed massive improvement with most of the players missing medal positions after losing in the last rounds. The team returned home this week.