Match “Nairobi vs Marseille”
On Sunday, May 31, 25 members of Nairobi Chess Club (NCC) had the privilege to play an overseas online match against Marseille Échecs (ME) from France.
Thanks to our member Fred Salles who made this match possible. He comes from Marseille and provided the contact with the club.
ME is one of the most important chess clubs in Europe. And because of having more than 600 members is the largest in France. Besides that, most of their members are juniors. In fact, more than half of our French opponents were juniors.
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Lichess was the platform for the match, games used a time control of 25 min + 10 s, all players had two games (Black & White) against the same opponent and FIDE ratings served for arranging the pairings.
In pre-match arrangements both teams agreed on additional conditions:
- In round one Marseille would play the white pieces
- Players with White would set up and sent the first challenge to their opponents
- After first game a short break was suggested to allow players to refresh and refocus on the next game
The result of the match was 20,5 – 29,5 for Marseille.
The match ran smoothly and the French players had no difficulty in set up correctly the challenges.
On the NCC side we had a default on board 19 where Alex Nyaga disconnected without warning or further explanation after first game. As a result he lost the second game.
All in all the games proceeded in a friendly atmosphere and players enjoyed the experience.
Final Results
| NAIROBI | 20,5 – 29,5 | MARSEILLE |
| Boniface Kathurima | 1 – 1 | Tony Douchez |
| Fuad Issa | 0,5 – 1,5 | Matteo Carissan |
| Viacheslav Chvoro | 0 – 2 | Malo Barthel |
| Mike Mwangi | 1 – 1 | Léonard Metras |
| Ryan Kimani | 2 – 0 | Eva Perles |
| Jackim Arigi | 1 – 1 | Raphael Andriamanantsoa |
| Tedy Wainaina | 0 – 2 | Fabien Cayrou |
| Cyril Teddy | 1 – 1 | Léon Maineult Flores |
| Nisha Bhavsar | 1 – 1 | Laurent Bartolomei |
| Noreen Koech | 0 – 2 | Lorenzo Meirone |
| Satya Shroff | 2 – 0 | Renaud Hedde |
| Manuel Mwine Bujara | 2 – 0 | Alex Germain |
| Adriel Baraka | 1 – 1 | Victor Gagnard |
| Shawn Myles | 1 – 1 | Lucas Deus |
| Nishant Some | 0 – 2 | Achille Desportes |
| Brian Mwangi | 0 – 2 | Emilio Chiron Coloma |
| Viyan Iyer | 0 – 2 | Souleymen Djellal |
| Holley Ndalo | 0 – 2 | Rosalie Kohler |
| Alex Nyaga | 0 – 2 | Baptiste Graillon |
| Fred Salles | 0 – 2 | Noha El Habi |
| Leonard Maina | 1 – 1 | Shahin Ben Haj |
| Arthur Keya | 2 – 0 | Yannick Carissan |
| Olive Sang | 0 – 2 | Aksel Adjeroud |
| Isaac Too | 2 – 0 | Simon Muscenise |
| Jude Too | 2 – 0 | Pénélope Metras |
Because of the large attendance, this match has been the one with most players since 2022 when NCC presented a line-up of 20 players against “Marshall Chess Club” (New York, USA)
When in 2009 NCC organized an online 6-board match against Wageningen Chess Club (The Netherlands) a tradition for international online matches started.
Now, 17 years later, and in 5 years, NCC has played 16 online international matches with more than 10 boards each time and the present one against Marseille breaking the record with 25 boards (!!)
Being founded in 1958, Nairobi Chess Club is the oldest chess club in East Africa, and also leader in approaching not only chess to people, but also approaching people through chess.
