Kenyan chess pictorial part one

Part of this blog is to bring you those memorable pictures you would want to see. Thanks a lot for all those who send in photos, your contributions are highly appreciated. Here i have posted quite a few pics i felt are interesting. hope you enjoy.


Down memory lane: KK karanja

	KK Karanja playing the Alehkine's Defense against Georgia's GM Maia Chiburdanidze in an 1987 simul at the Marshall CC. Chirburdanidze was the Women's World Champion at the time.

The young at heart

Kenya's young star in the making weru, displays some of his many trophies. The young lad captured the hearts of many kenyans and had extensive media coverage. He is probably the most known chess player in Kenya.



Top brass
Gm Nigel short visit to Kenya gave us all an opportunity for a souvenir picture. Here chess Kenya officals pose for a photo with him.



Who said blitz was bad.
Gm short gave us all a lesson in fast chess. Only in the coastal city of Mombasa did James apiri give the commonwealth chess champion a test of defeat.


Olympiad:

Kenya vs Cyprus in the chess olympiad.




Kenya vs qatar

After poaching many of our top class athletes qatar faced Kenya in the Olympiad and from the look of kenyan players faces they were not in the mood for petro dollars.






Kenya vs macao
The tiny enclave of macao got its independence from portugal only 10 years ago. Like hong kong and taiwan china claims them to be part of its territories. here macaoians or is it macoese (whatever) faced Kenyan players.




The ladies
Not to be left behind, the kenyan ladies battled it out for supremacy with their Albanian counter parts.




Kamba's know their trade

Even though kenya is not known worldwide in terms of chess performance, one of the highest selling souvenir chess boards come from Kenya. chess boards like the one seen above go for upto £1000 at amazon.com. in fact a search for Kenyan chess at Google will give you more of this boards and kisii soap stone chess pieces than gateri or kanegeni.