The Open FIRE Rated Blitz Tournament with a prize fund of four thousand dollars was held in Abu Dhabi (UAE) as part of the international chess festival.

Grandmaster Farrukh Amonatov showed the best result: having scored 9.5 points in 11 rounds, he took 1st place.

Together with him, the representative of Italy, Lorenzo Rodici, scored the same number of points, but Amonatov won by additional indicators.

A total of 333 chess players took part in the blitz. Besides Farrukh Amonatov, three more Tajik chess players participated in the tournament, but they were not among the leading players at the end of the competition.

Earlier it was reported that the grandmaster ended his career and focused on coaching.

"Indeed, among the active players, Amonatov is no longer in the FIDE rating. But as far as I know, he hasn't finished his career yet, he just hasn't played in tournaments for a long time. If a chess player does not play for a certain time in official competitions, then his rating goes to the archive. Accordingly, he can return and then get back into the rating," explained the situation Secretary General of the Chess Federation of the Republic Ilkhom Yunusov.

According to him, the margin of points that the chess player had will remain the same as it was before the archive. "He's just gone into sleep mode right now. He works with many chess players from different countries, trains them, and shares his experience," Yunusov said.

In 2002, Farrukh Amonatov fulfilled the grandmaster's standard and still remains the only chess player in the republic who has reached the highest chess rank.

As Ilkhom Yunusov said, in order to get the title of grandmaster, conditions are needed.

He also noted that there are other important goals in chess in Tajikistan now. In particular, the Chess Federation would like to adopt a program for the development of chess in Tajikistan at the state level, and within the framework of this program, a Chess Academy was built in Dushanbe.