Turkmen chess player Allayar Shirliev won the Open A tournament at the 32nd International Chess Festival in Abu Dhabi, the Turkmenistan Chess Federation announced.

The competition took place from August 15 to 24 in the United Arab Emirates.

Shirliev (FIDE rating 2184) scored 8 points out of a possible 9 and took first place, beating two International Masters seeded above him. Syrian Bashir Aitey placed second with 7,5 points, while Filipino Richilieu III Salcedo placed third, also with 7,5 points. Following the tournament, the Turkmen player's rating increased by 40,6 points.

The Open A tournament was played using the Swiss system over nine rounds with a classic time control of 90 minutes per game with a 30-second increment per move. In addition to the Open A, the festival program traditionally included the Masters, Open B, and Juniors U16 categories. The Masters tournament featured, among others, Russian grandmaster Daniil Dubov, Indian grandmasters Pa Iniyan, Anand Pranav, S. L. Narayanan and Abhijit Gupta, Armenian David Paravyan, as well as Alexander Rakhmanov and Ivan Zemlyansky.

Allayar Shirliev was born on October 31, 2003, in Ashgabat, and is a student of coach Shohrat Myratguliev. He is known, in particular, for his blindfold exhibitions: he performed them on boards 25 and 31, and later played 40 simultaneous blindfold games. Previously, Shirliev had also defeated a number of renowned grandmasters, including American Gata Kamsky and Azerbaijani Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.