| Prior Click here |
| Next Click here |
As far as chess international masters and grandmaasters, we'd not expect much for Gabon given its small population. Barthelemy Bongo Akanga Ndjila has a rating of 1924, and Jean Pierre Moulain Ayombo has a rating of 2142. Somewhat more puzzling is that, as far as FIDE knows, there are no (zero) rated players in Mozambique. Continentally, the top ranked African inhabitant is Ahmed Adly of Egypt at 2630. There are two other FIDE grandmasters in Egypt: Bassem Amin (2596) and Essam El Gindy (2506) as well as 25 International Masters (usually 2200+). Iran with a smaller population than Egypt has 7 grandmasters, three of whom are fairly active. We note that Iran also has two women grandmasters - Atousa Pourkashiyan (2374) and Paridar Shadi (2250). We'd expect Shayesteh Ghader Pour (also 2250) to get the WGM title soon
(as of 2020 she had not - a ranking of 2198).
To illustrate some points we turn to an interesting game by GM Ehsan Ghaem Maghami (2606), now 29, who has been the Iranian national champion nine times.
As of 2020 he is ranked 4th (2561).
