Kenya has won the hosting rights for the 2016 Zone 4.2 Africa Individual Chess Championship.

This welcome news was announced by Githinji Hinga, the chairman of Chess Kenya (CK) on his Facebook page to the stakeholders. Uganda recently held the 2015 edition.

While in Kenya early in the year, the African Chess Confederation president, Lewis Ncube, offered CK the opportunity to play host to this continental showpiece, and promised to follow up with the World Chess governing body (FIDE), to make it a reality.

"Credit goes to the Chess Kenya executive and entire community for making great strides in chess development resulting in this huge milestone. The event will take place in the first half of 2016, on dates to be announced later, and what a fitting way to mark the 40th anniversary of Chess Kenya," enthused the chairman.

Countries in this zone include Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania and Seychelles. Eritrea and South Sudan are also expected to join sooner than late. It is now time to roll up our sleeves and start planning for this prestigious tournament that attracts the best from the zone.

In yet another post, the CK boss took to social media to report on another outstanding event that took place at the Splash Water World in Nairobi on August 29.

"Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) makes the smart move by including chess as one of its fun activities in the Premier Kids Cub Accounts launch that happened this past weekend. Thank you to Terrian Chess Academy (TCA)--founded by Yours Truly-- and the support from Daniel Ndambuki alias Churchill for making this possible," he wrote.

And added: "It was a pleasure to visit the festival and witness the enthusiasm in the kids being introduced to the game by the able TCA team. Equally fantastic was seeing the KCB CEO Joshua Oigara's visit to the chess stand and play against a budding chess star in the form of a lovely little girl (as seen in the video posted on KCB's Facebook page). His game is pretty good, and just goes to show how many corporate captains are closet chess players."

This was indeed a big win for chess, and it is hoped that individuals, clubs, counties and corporates around the country are duly challenged to share the gift of chess, especially among our youth.