By: Kyeyune Ali
The 2025 edition of Som Easter Chess championship officially started on Friday at the Som Chess Academy in Katwe.
This is the second edition of the tournament since 2024 and countries like Uganda, USA, S.Sudan and Kenya have confirmed to participate in this championship and over 157 players registered to compete in this Year’s tournament.
There are three categories; open , ladies and the junior category of under 10, 12, 14, and under 16.
So far Uganda registered the most numbers of players unlike Kenya who managed to register 8 players only.
This year over 10 million prize money has been injected compared to last year’s edition which had 5 million prize money.
The CEO Som Chess Academy in Katwe, Robert Katende who uses sports particularly chess as a platform to restore Hope and and transform player’s lives has said that ” This Year’s edition will not be the same like that of last year because already we have increments in prize money to the winners and of course the number of players has also increased compared to the previous tournament and we closed a day before to opener and therefore we apologize to those failed to register in time since time was against us but next edition in 2026 you will be able to take part “.
Mr Robert Katende is known world over as a man who took the elite game of chess in the slums and his philosophy enabled him to serve as general secretary for the world Chess federation and a commission that promotes chess in the ugandan community for social impact.
The defending champion Emmanuel Egesa “promised that with God every thing will be possible and have been practicing day and night in order to stabilize my performance and I know last year I performed well but by-gones is by-gones therefore am competent also to win this year’s championship”.
The director som chess academy also also called upon all sponsors to come out to support this four days tournament in order to uplift the game of chess in uganda and in Africa at large. Uganda has talented players but due to lack of funds their talents perish and we should come together as one to build and nature our young stars”.
The winner in men will get 1 million cash prize and second runner’s up will receive 750000 cash prize and in third place will get 500,000 / and in fourth place will get 250,000/. And in ladies category will also be the same cash prize in open category. The tournament also has three guests participate from the United States of America including Scott Jason, kavyashree and Eng. Scott.
Defending champion 2024 Kawuma Patricia said that ” am more prepared than last year and I pray that also in this year I perform better to stay number one in this game of chess and as it’s easy to become a winner in any game of sport but it’s more difficult to stay number one therefore have been trying hard to maintain my performance and I think by the end of Easter Monday I will be declared as a winner”.
