The Longest Move – Chess Championship 2026

There is a moment, familiar to anyone who has ever sat across a chessboard, when you realise the game is bigger than the pieces in front of you. The board recedes. What remains is you — your patience, your nerve, your willingness to think three moves ahead in a world that keeps changing.

For six students from Ol Jogi Primary School, that moment arrived in a competition hall in Entebbe, Uganda, surrounded by the best young chess players from across Africa. In May 2026, Peter A., Evans L., Justin M., Raymond N., Stephen L., and Peter L. travelled by bus to the Africa Youth Chess Championship. They were all thirteen years old. It was their first time leaving Kenya. And they were about to discover something that no chess manual had ever taught them.

A Game Deeper Than Chess

Chess has always been more than a game. Across centuries and cultures, it has been understood as a mirror of the mind, a discipline that sharpens concentration, builds patience, demands resilience, and rewards long-term thinking over short-term impulse. For children, it offers something rarer still: a structured space in which to fail, to learn from that failure, and to try again without embarrassment.

At Ol Jogi Primary School, chess is not an afterthought. It is part of a deliberate investment in the children of the community that surrounds the conservancy, a recognition that nurturing young minds is as vital to Ol Jogi’s mission as protecting the land and wildlife in its care. The conservancy’s commitment to empowering local communities does not stop at the classroom door. It follows these children all the way to Entebbe.

When the six students were selected to represent both their school and Kenya at the Africa Youth Chess Championship, the announcement landed with the weight only a genuine first can carry. For every one of them, this was not merely a tournament. It was the beginning of a wider world.

The Man Behind the Board

Every programme of this kind has someone at its centre, a person whose belief in the children under their care makes the difference between a game and a vocation. At Ol Jogi Primary School, that person is Mr. Ambrose Lonuko.

Chess was first introduced to the school by Mr. Alexander, a volunteer who had represented Luxembourg at the Chess Olympiad and who recognised in the game a tool for developing the kind of patient, strategic thinking that serves young minds well beyond any classroom. During his nine months volunteering at Ol Jogi in 2023–24, he founded the chess club and trained Mr. Ambrose Lonuko from scratch, laying the foundations for the programme to continue beyond his stay. In 2024, the chess club was entrusted to Mr. Lonuko, whose passion and commitment have shaped its growth into something remarkable. Ol Jogi has also fully funded his training as a chess referee, and he is now certified. It is a powerful example of how one volunteer’s time and dedication, supported by continued investment, can have a lasting impact on our children.

Since taking on the role, Mr. Lonuko has trained and mentored learners at every level, guiding them from the fundamentals of the game to competition stages that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago. Under his leadership, Ol Jogi’s chess teams have competed at county, regional, national, and international levels, gaining competitive exposure in Mombasa, Kenya, and now Entebbe, Uganda. He has not simply coached chess. He has built a culture of discipline, ambition, and belief.

Away from the chess club, Mr. Lonuko is a dedicated classroom teacher who participates actively in both the academic and co-curricular life of the school. His commitment to nurturing learners in every dimension has contributed significantly to the reputation that Ol Jogi Primary School’s chess programme now carries across Kenya and beyond. This foundation, laid quietly, game by game and lesson by lesson, made the journey to Uganda possible.

First International Trip, First Crossing

The journey to Uganda was itself the first lesson. The experience of crossing a border — of arriving somewhere new, with different sounds and different food and different faces — began reshaping them before a single piece had moved on a board. “I was excited because my mind was just thinking how Uganda looks like. My favourite part was when I saw the longest river in Africa, the River Nile.” — Peter L., 13, Grade 7

For Justin, the revelation came at the water’s edge. Lake Victoria, a name he had encountered in Social Studies lessons, was suddenly, astonishingly real. “I will never forget the day I was in Uganda at Lake Victoria, swimming at the lake, taking pictures from the lake and learning how to swim. I was so excited.”— Justin M., 13, Grade 8

These are not incidental memories. They are the kind of moments that lodge permanently in a child’s understanding of the world, moments that make abstract geography suddenly, viscerally concrete. A river studied on a map becomes a river that runs beside you. A lake named in a textbook becomes a lake you swim in. The world, experienced firsthand, is a far more powerful teacher than any classroom.

The Africa Youth Chess Championship attracted participants from numerous countries across the continent, creating a rich, multilingual environment throughout the tournament. Flags of different nations lined the competition halls. Young players who had never met exchanged cautious smiles across language barriers. For six children from Laikipia, it was an encounter with the extraordinary breadth of Africa — and their own place within it.

Inside the Tournament Hall

The chess itself was serious. The field was strong, the competition rigorous, and the playing styles varied in ways that surprised and challenged the Ol Jogi team at every turn. Students who were accustomed to competing within Kenya now faced opponents who had trained differently, thought differently, and brought entirely unfamiliar approaches to the board. Justin M. shared: “The most challenging moment was playing with players from outside the country — meeting the best players from outside. I overcame it through my hard work and practice, and I managed to get a draw from my opponent.”

Peter L. said: “People were using different tactics and techniques so that they could beat you. I was concentrating because I knew that this was my chance to proceed to the next level — and that’s how I overcame it.”

This is chess doing what chess does best: demanding that a player adapt, recalibrate, and persist. The Ol Jogi students were not the most experienced players in the room. They knew it. And rather than retreating into discouragement, they leaned into the gap, competing with the focus and determination of players who understood that every game, won or lost, was a lesson worth having.

When the final standings were confirmed, the results told a story of genuine effort. Peter L. finished with 4.5 points; Justin M. with 3.5.; Peter A. also earned 4.5 points. Kenya, drawing on results across all categories and teams, finished third overall at the continental championship, collecting 10 medals in total, including two gold, four silver, and four bronze. It was a performance that reflected not only the talent of the individual players, but the quality of the programme behind them.

What the Board Teaches

The most striking thing about the reflections these students offered after the championship was not their pride, though that was evident, but their honesty. They returned not with inflated confidence, but with a clearer, more grounded sense of what they still had to learn. Justin M. said: “I learnt that I am not the best, and you need to do a lot of practise every day and hardworking in chess or anything like studies.”

There is something quietly extraordinary about a thirteen-year-old who travels to an international competition for the first time and returns not with a performance to boast about, but with a more honest reckoning of the work ahead. This, too, is what chess teaches. It has a way of showing you exactly where you are and, if you are paying attention, exactly where you need to go.

Beyond the discipline of the game itself, the championship offered lessons in resilience, sportsmanship, and the courage it takes to compete in an unfamiliar environment far from home. Every game became a test not only of chess knowledge, but of character.

Wearing the Colours

To compete is one thing. To compete as a representative, of your school, your conservancy, your country, is something else entirely. Every Ol Jogi student carried that weight into the tournament hall, and each was changed by what it felt like to wear those colours on an international stage. Justin M. said: “I felt excited to present my country and Ol Jogi school to international championships and for Ol Jogi school to be known everywhere, inside the country and outside. I felt proud in a way I’d never felt before.” Peter L. reflected: “I felt proud in a way I didn’t feel before, because I was representing our school and Kenya as a chess player and as a person.”

This sense of identity, of being part of something larger than oneself, is one of the most lasting gifts that sport can give a young person. These six students left Uganda as young Kenyans who had stood up and been counted among their continental peers.

Each student received a certificate of participation at the close of the championship. It was, by all accounts, a proud moment. But the real certificate, the one that will endure, is the self-knowledge that comes from having done something difficult in front of the world and having done it well.

What Lies Ahead

Ol Jogi has long understood that conservation and community are not separate endeavours. The health of the land depends on the wellbeing of the people who live alongside it, and the wellbeing of those people depends on opportunity, on access to education, to experience, to the chance to discover what they are capable of.

Chess, at first glance, might seem a long way from the work of wildlife conservation. But look closer, and the connections become clear. Chess teaches patience in the face of complexity. It rewards long-term thinking. It builds the kind of mental discipline that serves a child for a lifetime, in the classroom, in their career, in their community. It is, in the deepest sense, an investment in human potential.

When Ol Jogi invests in a chess programme, sends six children to an international championship, and ensures that they return home broadened and inspired, it is doing something that goes far beyond sport. It is planting seeds, in the minds of these six students, in the school community that watched them go, and in every child who will now dream a little bigger because they saw what was possible.

The six children came home from Entebbe with 20 combined tournament points between them, certificates of participation, and stories they will tell for the rest of their lives. But what they brought back that matters most cannot be counted or certificated. It is the unshakeable knowledge that they showed up, for themselves, for their school, for their country, and that they were more than equal to the moment. That knowledge, once earned, does not leave you.

With Gratitude

Ol Jogi sincerely expresses our heartfelt gratitude to Mama Eden, Michael and Jamie for their immense support, encouragement, and contribution towards making this journey possible. Their commitment and generosity played a major role in ensuring that the students received this rare and life-changing opportunity. May their kindness, support, and dedication continue opening doors for many more young talents in the future.

Having six children qualify was a wonderful achievement, but with entry fees of US$300 per child, sending them all represented a significant expense. With arrangements coming together quickly, Michael and Jamie stepped in at short notice to cover half the costs, helping ensure that all six children could take part.