NUR-SULTAN – Kazakhstan’s FIDE Master Nogerbek Kazybek took the rapid chess gold in the Open Under 18 category at the World Cadet & Youth Rapid And Blitz Chess Championships 2022 that started on April 30 and will last through May 4 in Rhodes, according to the Kazakhstan Chess Federation’s press service.
Nogerbek Kazybek. Photo credit: Kazakhstan Chess Federation
The seventeen-year-old player who trained at the famous capital-based Central Chess Club previously won the Moscow Open-2015 International Chess Cup in the under 11 category, took bronze at the World Schools Individual Chess Championships 2015 in Thailand and at the World Youth Chess Championship in Greece in 2018 among other awards.
Kazybek is preparing now to participate in the forthcoming blitz tournament.
Out of eight participants from Kazakhstan, Daniyal Sapenov won the bronze medal in the Open under 14 category.
Overall, young Kazakh chess players show great potential in this kind of sport as they steadily win prestigious titles. Zhansaya Abdumalik became the first ever female chess player from Central Asia to receive the Man Grandmaster in June, 2021, while Sapenov won the gold medal at the Serbia Chess Open – 2021 international tournament held in July of the same year. Later in September, Bibisara Assaubayeva won the online Asian Chess Championship. This year, Assaubayeva entered the Guinness World Records for becoming the youngest world female champion in blitz.
