A look into the 1st African University Mind Sports Championship

The African University Sports Federation (FASU) organised its first ever Africa University Mind Sports Championship. The competitions were held online on 28 and 29 November 2020, consisting of men’s and women’s bridge, draughts and chess tournaments.

The tournament was held online due to the COVID 19 sporting and traveling restrictions around the continent. 

The draught and bridge competitions was played using the PlayElephant platform a boardgames play platform also used by the International Draughts Federation (IDF). The two day event saw the women’s championship held on Saturday 28 November, while the men’s tournaments were played on Sunday 29 November.

A total of 23 universities from 10 countries, with 183 participants took part in the competitions. Participating universities presented a maximum of six (6) male and six (6) female players, with the best four (4) players among each category used to rank the universities.

To familiarise participants and National University Sports Federations (NUSF) with the format and rules of the game, trial tournaments were held on 22 and 26 November for the draft championship.  

BRIDGE

Women’s Results

Men’s Results

The championship was attended by representatives of Busitema and Makerere University from Uganda, Malawi and Zimbabwe University.

Enock Makoka Banda	Malawi	2	4	6	8	9	11	12	13	14	14	94	1
Bondo Humble	Malawi		2	4	6	8	10	12	13	13	13	81	2
Mahande Xavier	Busitema	2	4	6	7	8	8	8	10	11	11	103	3

The winners and prize-winners of the Men championship were:

1. Enock Makoka Banda (Malawi)
2. Bondo Humble (Malawi)
3. Mahande Xavier (Busitema)

BRIDGE CHAMPIONSHIP

The Bridge tournament was played in Teams of two. Three universities competed for the top prize.

Men’s Results

	Men’s Bridge Championship
Pair	Surname & First name	University	% score
1	Motlhanka Gosego Ramoseki Prince Amantle Thuto	Botswana Int. Univ. of Sci. & Tech.	78.64
2	Caiphus Temogo Nkosinathi Chidzala Prince	Botswana Int. Univ. of Sci. & Tech.	57.95
3	Mwesigwa Calvin M. Dhikusooka Emma	Makerere University	45.91
4	Kaaki Emmanuel Semugonde Atuheire Victor	Busitema University	45.48
5	Kasawuli Dirisa Mwalo Edward	Busitema University	36.19
6	Ogema David Aupal Emmanuel	Makerere University	35.00

Winners are

1. Botswana Int. Univ. of Sci. & Tech. (BOT)
2. Botswana Int. Univ. of Sci. & Tech. (BOT)
3. Makerere University (UGA)

Women’s Results

Rank	Surname & First name	University	% score
1	Asanansi Anitah Namugenyi Dorothy	Busitema University	67.50
2	Byona Mary Stella Kantono Asher	Makerere University	52.50
3	Nagasha Elizabeth Namuyiga Denise	Busitema University	47.50
4	Kemigisa Martha Alum V. Namale Nashibah	Makerere University	32.50

Winners

1. Busitema University (UGA)
2. Makerere University (UGA)
3. Busitema University (UGA)

CHESS COMPETITION

The Chess competition was played on the Lichess.org platform. A total of 18 universities from 9 countries (Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Libya, Malawi, Nigeria, Botswana, Egypt) consisting of 57 participants took part in the Women’s tournament.

The championship was competed in teams of 6

Women’s Results

1. Busitema University (Uganda) Gold
2. University of Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe)Silver
3. Technical University of Kenya (Kenya)Bronze

In the Men’s game, 116 participants from 23 universities took part.

1. Team University of Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe)Gold
2. University of Lagos (Nigeria) Silver
3. University of Zambia –UNZA (Zambia) Bronze

Speaking to Glitzsport, some participants at the tournament shared their experiences. Gichuhi Brian Chege from the Jomo University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) Kenya said ” This tournament was a very great and encouraging one, it was well organized and I really enjoyed playing in it.

Chigozie Nnadi from the University of Lagos, Nigeria said “I loved that I got the chance to play a Grandmaster and at least measure the difference in strength between us and the fact that the tournament was majorly clean of cheaters” . Also participating from the University of Lagos, Adetunji Adeyimika said ” I like the fact I we had the opportunity to play other hands outside my home country , the organization was seamless too”

Mohammed Asouri Alharari from the University of Tripoli Lybia commended the efforts of the African University sports federation; “The best thing, ‘He said, about this tournament is the effort to try to advance the game of Chess and motivate African universities in playing international sports as this in their schools too”.

Mohammed also pointed at some of the failings of the tournament “The lack of organization in such an event for the right international application manner in monitoring and the application of the law, and the absence of a quick and decisive committee during the tournament for a player to object to some decisions”. He also queried the right application of the international standard decision making when complaints are made ” We were not awarded the points deducted from the team from Uganda who were caught using an assisting software, yes they were disqualified but the points we lost in the round was not given to us”.

As referred to by Mind Sports Association of Uganda (MSAU) Games Director and President, Dr. Dan Isabirye, the inaugural Africa certainly should be a reference point for future events, following what he considers a low turn out for the events. “I expected more universities to be involved in the championship than the numbers that were realized .

He praised the players attitude towards the game, The skill of play of chess was quite high, he said, For draughts, the top 4 male players were quite strong although the bulk of the rest were greatly lacking in skill. For the ladies, the top 2 players had average skill and the rest were greatly lacking in skill. For bridge, apart from Botswana and 1 participant from Uganda, the other participants had just learnt how to play bridge during the 3 day online training workshop that was organised by FASU 10 days before the championship.

He went on to say that, “The training workshop was poorly attended. For draughts, the universities had little time to look for skillful players and train them further otherwise African Universities have reasonably good players of draughts in terms of skill since draughts has been on the continent for centuries with its origin traced to Egypt.

FASU President Nomsa Mahlangu highlighted on the need to keep the students busy as one of the motivating factors for this event.“As promised during the lead up to our elections in March of 2019, innovation and technology are key in growing Africa university sport,” she mentioned. “FASU will continue to grow its virtual platform offerings beyond sport. The webinars were a start, but now we have the mind games. We are looking forward to more programmes that will connect our students and staff”.

The Mind sports Championship is a part of the International University Sports Federation (FISU) championship games.