While world-class grandmasters battled for the Masters title, Turkmen chess player Allayar Shirliev confidently demonstrated his superiority in his own category—giving Turkmenistan another victory in the successful chess summer of 2026.
Allayar Shirliev (FIDE rating 2184, born October 31, 2003, in Ashgabat) won the Open A tournament at the 32nd Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival, which took place from August 15 to 24 in the United Arab Emirates. The Turkmen athlete demonstrated confident play throughout the tournament and took first place, scoring 8 points out of a possible 9. His rating increased by 40.6 points following his performance.
The Abu Dhabi Chess Festival is one of the largest chess tournaments in the region, annually attracting hundreds of participants from dozens of countries. Organized by the Abu Dhabi Chess Club & Mind Games, the competition took place at the Radisson Blu Hotel & Resort on the Abu Dhabi Corniche. The Open A tournament was played according to the Swiss system in nine rounds with a classic time control of 90 minutes per game with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from the first. Specifically: 1st place – CM Allayar Shirliev (Turkmenistan)
2nd place – IM Bashir Eiti (Syria)
3rd place – IM Richilieu III Salcedo (Philippines)
Thus, Shirliev Allayar, being only the 7th seed, confidently took 1st place, scoring 8 points out of 9 possible and ahead of two international masters who were seeded above him.
In addition to Open A, the festival program traditionally includes Masters, Open B, and Juniors U16 categories—from young talents to the world’s leading grandmasters. This year’s Masters tournament featured, among others, Russian grandmaster Daniil Dubov, Indian grandmasters Pa Iniyan, Anand Pranav, S. L. Narayanan, and Abhijit Gupta, Armenian grandmaster David Paravyan, as well as Alexander Rakhmanov and Ivan Zemlyansky. This level of competition at the festival as a whole lends special significance to the victory of the Turkmen athlete in his own category.
Not the only victory of the month
Shirliev’s success is just one of the remarkable achievements of Turkmen chess players in August 2026. A few days earlier, Turkmen chess player Lala Shokhradova won gold in the girls’ rapid tournament at the Asian Junior and U20 Championship, which is being held in Mumbai, India, from August 16 to 26. This is Shokhradova’s second championship award: on August 17, she won silver in blitz. Earlier, in the summer, the Turkmenistan team won a record 16 medals at the Central and North Asian Championship in Kyrgyzstan, a record for national chess history.
Allayar Shirliev’s victory in Abu Dhabi continues this streak of success and once again confirms that the Turkmen chess school is confidently asserting itself on the world stage.
