I congratulate all the players and spectators who took part in the 2nd Uganda Open Individual Oware Championship. The championship took place on Monday 27th December 2021 starting at 9:00 pm Uganda time on the playok online platform. Congratulations to Dalton Kukeera for emerging the winner by surprise and Abdunoor Ssebbi, 2nd, also by surprise.
Congratulations to Lillian Namujuzi for being the best lady and for humbling her very coach, Hudson Kyagaba, who was last year's champion ( in the 1st Uganda Oware championship) and Uganda's undisputed Omweso Champion. For Lillian, this could be a bigger victory than being the overall champion.
Congratulations to Priscilla Namukose (username "talisto" , 9 years old), the best under 12-year-old player who jubilated for trouncing Patrick Opolot in the 4th round 25:11. At the start of the round, she told me she had been paired with "opolotpatric" and I told her that opolotpatric was much stronger than her but I told her that "if you play carefully, you can still win him". "I have beaten a highly rated player, she shouted and jumped up". "That is good", i responded as I continued tussling out my game with Hudson Kyagaba (username "harrison01") that i lost 12:26 through a silly mistake (This happened to be my only loss in the tournament and it costed me the championship, relegating me to 3rd position). When Priscilla woke up in the morning, she asked, "How much money are you going to give me for beating a very strong player?". So, I have to find some money to reward her. I felt a lot of anxiety on many other boards where there was tight contest including boards where the players were beginners and still low in game skill making the game to keep oscillating in winning advantage from one player to the other in the endgame phase until eventually one would figure out what to do. To some people, this was the first time to be in a sports competition and we will appreciate if you can share your experience/feelings.
A total of 69 players registered for the event but only 38 took part in the championship. We need to find out the cause of this and any other challenges any player faced so that we appropriately address them in the subsequent championships. Kindly let us know by texting me privately the challenges faced by those who signed up for the tournament and by those who failed and suggest ways we can avoid them if you are able. If the failure to take part in the tournament was your own weakness, be free to tell us so as well and provide a solution to how this can be avoided. We would appreciate to know what can be done to get more players on board targeting those who received training invitations but never honoured them.
Even though the 2nd national oware championship is done and the 3rd one is one year away, be free to ask for technical support including setting up trial tournaments if you are 4 or more people that agree to have some tournament. This championship was graced by the Oware Society (OWS), with its headquarters in UK. Thank you to the OWS for advertising the championship, registering the participants and officiating the championship. Thank you too to the colleagues Hudson Kyagaba & Stella Byona, who supported the mobilisation of the participants.
Last but not least, I am grateful to all the participants who honoured our calls and took part in the championship. Your participation made Uganda to have the world record turn up by any country in the online oware championships. That simple act of honouring our invitation has contributed to this making of history. The 38 players participation in an online oware championship is the highest by any country. This is not a mean achievement as we are all aware that the oware game has just recently been introduced in Uganda. After universities are done with exams in January 2022, we will direct our effort to the ancient game of Go and Xiangqi and if sports is opened up fully from the covid-19 restrictions, we will venture into the pleasure and glory of Morabaraba as we continue to promote oware.
Dan Isabirye
President, Mind Games, Uganda
Email: mindsportsug@gmail.com