Having received an invitation from the Egypt Chess Federation to play for the "Eastern Company" chess club in Doha (Qatar) I was not hesitating much. I have accepted the invitation and spent almost 2 weeks in Qatar in March.

It was an unique opportunity to widen my horizons and add another place on Earth to my "list of the visited countries". There are no chess tournaments organized in Qatar, the number of the chess players in the whole country is only 16. This team tournament was the only chess event held in the country so far.

The clubs from the 11 Arab countries took part in the tournament which was won by the Doha chess club. Our club from Egypt was the 2nd. The 1st board had a reasonably strong field. I have taken 8½ point out of 10, have also gained 6 Elo rating points.

The rounds started at 16:30 o'clock. Every day at about 17:40 the games were stopped for an evening prayer. Very unusual experience for me! The players were allowed to go to their rooms to pray for 15 minutes. An excellent possibility to cheat!

The tournament was splendidly organised. All the teams stayed in a 5 star hotel, excellent rooms, food (buffet 3 times a day). Almost everything was fine.

Nothing can be compared with what I have seen in Qatar, I will always remember my trip there.

/ Written by GM Sergei Tiviakov, originally published at www.schaakbond.nl /