DUBAI
Emirate of UAE with more than 20 years of chess organizational experience. Many regional, continental and worldwide tournaments have been organized since 1985. The World Junior won by Max Dlugy in 1985; the 1986 Olympiad won by USSR, the Asian team Championship won by the Philippines, Asian Cities Championships in 1990, 1992 and 1996, the FIDE Grand Prix in 2002 and the Arab Individual Championship in 1984 and 1992 and 2004. Dubai Chess & Culture Club was established in 1979, as a member of the UAE Chess Federation and was proclaimed on 3/7/1981 by the Higher Council for Sports & Youth. It was first located in its previous premises in Deira–Dubai as a temporary location for the new building to be over. Since its launching, the Dubai Chess & Culture Club has played a leading role in the chess activity in UAE, achieving for the country many successes on the international, continental and Arab levels. The Club has also played an imminent role through its administrative members who contributed to promoting chess and leading the chess activity along with their chess colleagues throughout the UAE.
The Dubai Open championship, the SHEIKH RASHID BIN HAMDAN BIN RASHID AL MAKTUM CUP, the strongest tournament in Arabic countries, has been organized since 1999, it attracts every year nearly 200 participants with the first prize of 13,000 USD.
The winners were: 1999 Vladimir Akopian, 2000 Alexander Nenashev, 2001 Karen Asrian, 2002 Alexander Golshchapov, 2003 Baadur Jobava, 2004 Shakriyar Mamedyarov, 2005 Wang Hao, 2006 Sergey Fedorchuk, 2007 Levan Pantsulaia, 2008 Wesley So, 2009 Tigran Kotajian, 2010 Iturrizaga Eduardo, 2011 Abhijeet Gupta, 2012 Ni Hua, 2013 Aleksandr Rakhmanov, 2014 Romain Edouard, 2015 Dragan Solak, 2016 Gawain Jones, 2017 Gawain Jones, 2018 Diego Flores, 2019 Maxim Matlakov.
