World Amateur Championships 2022 to be held in Malta The details of the World Amateur Championships 2022 to be held in Malta have been announced by the World Chess Federation (FIDE). This official world event will take place October 20 and 30 with six world championship titles in play: U2300, U2000 and U1700, each open and women’s. The top women’s category offers particular potential as it allows entry ranked just below the world’s top 25 girls and roughly top 150 women. The event initially planned for April 2021 will have an increased prize fund of €15,000. The event follows the European Small Nations Team Championship held at the end of last year, part of the official European calendar. The last official world event to take place in Malta was the 1st World Youth U16 Olympiad in 1994, which included 12-year-old prodigies Ruslan Ponomariov and Francisco Vallejo Pons. Before that, the 24th World Olympiad was held in the Great Ward of the then newly-inaugurated Mediterranean Conference Centre in 1980, at which event Garry Kasparov (see photo below) made his Olympiad debut as second reserve for the USSR (gold) at the record age of 17, and winning the bronze medal behind...