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The current champions of the country among boys and girls under 14 Myahri Agamuradova and Gurbanmurat Rustemov represent Turkmenistan at the international chess tournament "ACF Cup in memory of M.M. Botvinnik", which takes place from August 23 to 28 in Moscow.

After two rounds among girls in the category under 14, our compatriot has already taken the lead, having won in both games. In the first round, Myakhri defeated her rival from Kyrgyzstan Ayana Abayeva, and today - representative of Kazakhstan Malika Zhapparbekova.

Gurbanmurat, in the first round, defeated his rival from Azerbaijan, Agshin Alizada, who is also a FIDE master on the official FIDE Online Arena chess platform. But in the second round, Gurbanmurat, unfortunately, lost to a strong rival from Kyrgyzstan -silver medalist of this year's Asian Championship among schoolchildren under 13 years old, FIDE master candidate Emir Sharshanbekov.

The competition includes two round-robin tournaments - among boys and girls under 14 years old (born in 2009 and younger). Each tournament is attended by 9 participants representing Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The tournament, held by the Association of Chess Federations with the assistance of the Russian Chess Federation, is named after the sixth world champion, international grandmaster Mikhail Moiseevich Botvinnik, who founded this tournament back in 1952.

For our compatriots, the performances at this traditional tournament were quite successful. For example, in 2011 the FIDE master Mergen Kakabaev won the gold medal here, and in 2014 the silver medal was won by the FIDE master Azat Nurmammedov. Well, in the team tournament in 2018, the team consisting of Azat Annageldiyev, Emin Kuliyev, Azim Sariyev and Merjen Batyrova, led by the captain international grandmaster Maksat Atabayev, was awarded a bronze medal.

We hope that the tournament will be successful for Myahri and Gurbanmurat as well. A month earlier, at the Asian Championship among schoolchildren in Tashkent, Myahri became a two-time silver medalist in the category under 13 years old.

ORIENT news

Photo: provided by the Chess Federation of Turkmenistan