Kazakhstan’s top chess players
Zhansaya Abdumalik
Born in January 2000 in Almaty, Abdumalik began playing chess at the age of 5. In 2007, she claimed the title of Kazakhstan’s champion in the age group under-8 category and one year later she became the first world champion in the history of Kazakh chess taking first place at the World Youth Championship in Vietnam. Abdumalik performed in the age group for girls under 8 years old and scored 10 points in 11 games.
Zhansaya made her debut as a member of Kazakhstan’s women's team at the World Team Championships in Nur-Sultan in 2010.
22-year-old Abdumalik is a chess prodigy. She has won the World Youth Chess Championships in her age category twice. Woman Grandmaster since 2014 and International Master since 2017, she made her final Grandmaster norm in 2018, and by winning the 2021 Gibraltar Women's Grand Prix, she became the first in Kazakhstan and Central Asia to receive the title of an international grandmaster, the biggest personal success in her career to the present date.
With her first title won just when she was six years old, Abdumalik has numerous international championships, including the ASEAN+ Age Group Championship, Asian Women’s Blitz Championship, Asian Youth Chess Championship, Brno Open, Kazakhstan Women’s Championship, Women International Chess Memorial of Krystyna Hołuj-Radzikowska, World Junior Girls Chess Championships and World Youth Championships.
«I started playing chess when I was five and a half. My dad taught me and my brother. He is two years older than me. He gave us to a chess school. My first tournament was when I was 6,» said Abdumalik in the series of interviews conducted at the Women's Grand Prix in Gibraltar 2021.
For her, the most interesting part was communicating with other kids. «We were having fun. That is why I started enjoying chess and my school. My friends are from the chess world,» she added.
Besides chess, she also does boxing and swimming.
Dinara Saduakassova
Dinara Saduakassova is a professional chess player based in Kazakhstan and a four-time chess world champion.
Born in Nur-Sultan in October 1996, Dinara Saduakassova won the World Youth Chess Championship twice, in the girls under-14 category in 2010 and girls under-18 in 2014. When she was 15, she was the youngest player to participate in the 2012 Olympiad in Istanbul. There, she received the Woman Grand Master title.
She played for Kazakhstan’s national team in four Women's Chess Olympiads (2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014), two Women's World Team Chess Championships (2013 and 2015), three Women's Asian Nations Cups (2012, 2014, and 2016), and 2011 World Youth Under-16 Chess Olympiad.
In 2017, she also gained the International Master title, and in 2019 – her first grandmaster norm while participating in the 2019 FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss tournament.
«When I signed up for the chess club, my mother was told that I was too young,» said Saduakassova in one of her interviews. «There was never a case of starting chess classes at that age. Gradually, my coach began to be happy for me. I took my victories calmly, thinking that this was how they were supposed to be. And at the age of 8, I already won first place in the city tournament for girls under 18. My coach believed in me and really wanted me to compete in the Asian Championships in Singapore. At that time, there were only continental championships at that age; there were no world championships. I won second place in the Asian Championships, and it was my first serious victory. I remember the first official competitions we went to at our own expense, no one paid for our trips.»
Saduakassova is also a UNICEF goodwill ambassador promoting and protecting children's rights. After becoming the World Junior Champion in 2016, she opened a chess academy for children in Kazakhstan.
Bibisara Assaubayeva
Born in Taraz in February 2004, Bibisara Assaubayeva holds the titles of International Master and Woman Grandmaster. She is the Women's Blitz World champion, the youngest in history to earn the title.
She started playing chess when she was 4 and won her first city championship when she was 6.
«When I was 4, I saw the awarding ceremony of Alexandra Kostenyuk [referring to a Russian chess grandmaster] when she became the Women's World Chess Champion. I wanted the same. I went to a chess club but all the students there were around 7 years old and were boys. Therefore, the first three months, I was losing and going back home in tears,» she said in an interview with a national TV channel in 2021.
Her first coach was Oleg Dzuban, a multiple Kazakh chess champion and international master.
Winning the World Youth Championships in Caldas Novas, Brazil in the Girls U8 section when she was 7 allowed Assaubayeva to achieve the title of Woman FIDE Master.
In 2016, she switched her federation affiliation to Russia, and it was not until 2019 that she moved back to the national federation of Kazakhstan.
In March 2019, she debuted on Kazakhstan’s national team at the Women's World Team Championship and in December last year, she became the Women's World Blitz champion, winning the event held with a round to spare and a score of 14/17, winning 13 games.
The three met with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on June 22 to discuss the development of chess in Kazakhstan.
Welcoming the country’s prominent chess players, Tokayev noted that he has a special attitude to chess and expressed his hope that the women's team of Kazakhstan will perform successfully at the upcoming World Chess Olympiad in India.
During the meeting, he supported the proposal to introduce chess as an optional subject in the school curriculum and build a boarding school in Almaty with the advanced study of chess and IT technologies for 1,500 children. He also stressed the importance of business support for the development of chess sports.
The chess players are expected to take part in the 44th Chess Olympiad 2022 to take place in Chennai, India from July 28 to August 10.
Written by Assel Satubaldina