TEAM SEYCHELLES WON THE 1ST SEYCHELLES RUSSIA FRIENDSHIP TOURNAMENT!!

 Friday the 12th June 2026 the Seychelles Chess Federation in collaboration with the African Initiative News Agency organised a Chess tournament commemorate Russia Day and 50th Independence of Seychelles at the National Library, Victoria.

A total of 20 Players registered and played in this 1st Edition Event with 9 individuals on Russian team and 11 players from Seychelles side. The tournament had two formats;   

1. The Best Team Wins
2. The Top 3 players win Medals at the Final Ranking

Candidate Master Benjamin Hoareau had to face his biggest rival in the 1st round Alexander Sitkin (which won the 2nd Place overall) and finished with a total of 5 points after vanquishing all his opponents.

Another Seychellois made Seychelles proud in this event is Young and Promising Chessler Christiano Renaud with a total of 4 points and a tie-breaks of 13.5 after Sitkin.

With more Seychelles players getting more points than the Russian team at the end of the Tournament, Team Seychelles end up being the Winner of this 1st Edition of the event.

Dmitrii Yurievich Iordanidi, Minister-Counsellor of the Russian Embassy have this to share:

Thank you for coming. I wish all participants all the best. You know for sure that this sport, chess, is a part of our civilization, started from old time, from time of Russian Empire, and till now millions of Russian people like to play chess.

For example, one of the best books of the Russian literature of the last century, Vladimir Nabokov’s The Luzhin Defense, is about this sport – and not only about the sport; it also underlines how important it is to us.

But obviously, given the number of participants from the Seychelles here, I am sure chess is important to our friends in that country as well. I remember a story about the very famous Russian champion Anatoly Karpov. When he was a young boy, like some of the boys present today, he went to a children’s chess club in Moscow for the first time – and he lost. He cried. There is probably something very…

Which hurts when you lose at chess. If you lose in a book contest or in skiing, it means you are not strong enough. But when you lose at chess, you may think, “Maybe I’m not clever enough; maybe my adversary is smarter” – and that hurts even more.

But I am sure that today nobody will cry, Everyone will be glad, and I am sure that our younger participants will have great perspectives in chess.

Some of them, perhaps, are happy, are hopeful that it will happen so, and I wish you to become champions, perhaps champions of Seychelles, perhaps champions of Russia, perhaps champions of the world, and basically this great sport will contribute to your further development and once again thank you so much for the participation and I wish you good luck. Thank you.

The Seychelles Chess Federation will love to take this opportunity and thanks all the participants for their participation, National Library Administrative and Co-Host African Initiative News Agency for their support and collaboration in initiating materialising the Success of this Wonderful Event!! 

To see more pictures of the event visit: https://www.instagram.com/benchess14/reel/DZe_hWmI-tW/

To see SBC News report of the event see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5wRoestmz0