The 22nd edition of the Mohd Badshah Memorial Open Chess Championships was a 3 day chess festival graced by the presence of Australian Grandmaster Ian Rogers and his wife IA Cathy Rogers.

GM Rogers on his first trip to Fiji held chess coaching clinics for the elite training squad on Friday evening which was followed by and exhibition simul against 40 local opponents at the MHCC on Saturday. During the event, GM Rogers had a shock defeat to current national champion Manoj Kumar andthis seemed to have set the pace for the full day tournament on Sunday.

 Australian chess player Bill Egan joined an super-elite field of ten participants for the major event with top seed GM Rogers seeded 500 points higher then his next challenger.

The event got off to a good start with the favorites winning in the first round. GM Rogers managed to easily account for the Kumar in their second round matchup while Dr. Sanmogam Goundar lost to CM Calvin Prasad. Kumar had a disasterous tournament with shock draw to Arvind Goru followed by losses to CM Prasad and Dr. Goundar.

Prasad managed to amass four points suffering only his expected loss to the much experience grandmaster who blitzed the field with a 100% score from the 5 round event to claim a historical win on Fijian soil, his first.

In the minors event, veteran Seru Sisarocivi edged Noel Adricula on tie-break after both ended the tournament with 4.5/5 points having drawn their game in round 3. Gloria Sukhu, who has improved her game play quite a bit over the last year, completed the event in third place with 4/5 points.

Tournament sponsor Dr. Sanmogam Goundar, the driving force behind the trip by GM Rogers, was happy with the turnout and looked forward to bigger and better events in the near future.