KazChess Masters in Almaty: Shankland, Kovalenko start with wins

by Carlos Alberto Colodro
7/1/2026 – The KazChess Masters Almaty has begun in Kazakhstan's largest city, with five established international grandmasters facing five rising local players in a ten-player single round-robin. The opening round produced two decisive results, as Igor Kovalenko defeated Alexander Donchenko with a strong attacking display, while Sam Shankland converted an endgame against Aldiyar Ansat. | Photo: Official website
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Kazakhstani talents face consolidated GMs

The KazChess Masters Almaty is taking place from 30 June to 8 May in Almaty, the most populous city in Kazakhstan, which was the country’s capital from 1929 to 1991. Almaty is also the second-largest city in Central Asia and the fourth-largest in the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The tournament is a ten-player single round-robin organised by the Kazakhstan Chess Federation. The games are played with a classical time control of 90 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes to finish the game, with a 30-second increment from move one.

The tournament concept pairs five established international grandmasters, rated between 2640 and 2672, with five rising Kazakhstani players rated between 2436 and 2551. The invited foreign players are Igor Kovalenko from Ukraine, Alexey Sarana from Serbia, Sam Shankland from the United States, Maksim Chigaev from Spain and Alexander Donchenko from Germany.

Similar competitions were organised in November last year (won by Sarana) and in March this year (won by Pranav Venkatesh).

The Kazakhstani contingent includes 19-year-old IM Alua Nurman, the second-highest rated woman player in the country, behind Bibisara Assaubayeva, and the sixteenth highest-rated player in Kazakhstan overall.

KazChess Masters 2026

Round one saw two of the international grandmasters scoring wins to grab an early shared lead. Igor Kovalenko produced a strong attacking game to beat Alexander Donchenko, while Sam Shankland got the better of local representative IM Aldiyar Ansat after converting an endgame with two rooks and an extra pawn against a rook, a bishop and a knight. Both early co-leaders scored their wins with the white pieces.

Kovalenko 1-0 Donchenko

Standings after round 1

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Topics: Igor Kovalenko, KazChess Masters, Sam Shankland
Carlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.
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