ICAO beat French team in Academy League

MUSCAT, NOV 23 - The International Chess Academy of Oman (ICAO) put up an impressive performance to pull off a solid win against the French team of Saint-Ouen in the online match held on the chess platform lichess.org on Saturday. The ICAO players, coached by International Master Ismail Karim, posted a comprehensive win of 158 points against 90 points by the French team. “This win is really a confidence booster for our (ICAO) team. We managed to beat the French team by a good margin,” Karim told Oman Observer. The competition was part of the Chess Academy League played between chess academies across the world. Each team can register 16 players for the League. “Next up, the ICAO team will take on a Spanish team. Date and time will be decided after considering the convenient time for both the teams,” ICAO non-playing captain Karim said. “Matches against academy teams of Malaysia and Bahrain are also scheduled in the coming period,” he added. The Oman academy team is a mixture of Omani and expatriate players. “Among the 16 players, all are under 16 years of age except one adult player,” the international chess master said. The competition was played on November 21 between (7.15 pm to 8.45 pm) with the participation of 36 players from both teams on the world famous chess platform lichess.org, who is hosting weekly millions of games. OMANI TALENT Ibraheem Rao took the first place of the competition followed by Aida Tayebipour in second and Shlok Babariya in third position. All the players are students of International Master Ismail Karim, who has been coaching at the International Chess Academy of Oman since the creation of the entity in 2013. Karim has also coached the national team of Oman in two Chess Olympiads — Norway 2014 and Georgia 2018. Omani talent Ayoub al Riyami, who is only seven-years-old, managed to take the 12th place with a score of 6 out of 10. Karim said the future of Oman in chess is bright with the likes of Ayoub al Riyami. “This boy had a good game along with the other members of our team. The players have significantly increased their online rating points after the win,” he said. World chess champion Magnus Carlsen’s (Norway) company Play Magnus invested millions of dollars in online tournaments and coaching platforms as chess has been witnessing a booming time during the pandemic. The International Chess Academy of Oman is still continuing to function online with the classes being held on Zoom and the practice being played on lichess.org.