Rwandan chess players will this month benefit from an online coaching programme sponsored by the Kasparov Chess Foundation Africa (KCF-A).

Graham Jurgensen, the Executive Director of KCF-A, on Tuesday announced that the latter is sponsoring a total of 40 hours of online coaching by GM Robert Fontaine for French speaking African Chess Federations in 2015.

The French Grand Master has already started with structured sessions for players from Madagascar and will also be working closely with players from Ivory Coast in early 2015.

Kevin Ganza, the acting president of the Rwanda Chess Federation (Ferwade), said that Fontaine’s training for Rwandans will be for a total of eight hours, one hour per week, during weekends or late night after working hours on weekdays.

The last time Rwandans got top notch training was over six years ago and, the trainer was in Rwanda.

Ganza said: "It will improve our players’ performance for sure, as we will be learning from a Grand Master. It will be an opportunity to view or understand chess from another angle, the GM perspective.”

Jurgensen said this was made possible through collaboration with African Chess Lounge (ACL), a South African company, "which has kindly made their online master coaching platform available for these sessions.”

editorial@newtimes.co.rw