With the assistance of PNGCF President Tom McCoy, I ran a small rapidplay event in Port Moresby on Sunday. Despite the very short notice (24 hours) a good field of 24 players turned up to play. The venue was the South Pacific Motor Sports Club and provided excellent facilities for the event. As most players do not have ratings it was seeded based on volunteered chess.com ratings. As it turned out the estimates were pretty good, based on the finishing positions.
It was a 7 round event, with a time limit of G/10m. The winner was Victor Ahulo who finished on 6/7. In 2nd was Adrian Chamilou on 5.5, with Jireh Mileng, Liberty Joku and Nickson Lahui tied for 3rd on 5. Adrian was the best placed junior, while Liberty was the best female player.
The quality of chess was quite good, and most of the field would do quite well in an event like Street Chess (for a point of comparison). I even played a casual game against one of the local juniors, who had arrived too late for the event, and was lucky to escape with a draw.
All in all this is quite promising for upcoming events. The PNGCF plan to send players to the Oceania Youth Championship in Brisbane later this year, while potential teams for the 2026 Chess Olympiad are taking shape. With the large number of female players taking part in events, PNG should be able to enter a female team for the first time.
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