In what can only be described as a pawn-tastically hilarious turn of events, a male chess player in Nairobi, Kenya was caught competing in a female open chess tournament while disguised as a woman.
25-year-old Stanley Omondi went to great lengths to conceal his true identity, dressing himself head to toe in a burka and even donning a pair of glasses. He even went so far as to register himself under the name Millicent Awour, fooling the tournament organizers into believing he was a woman.
However, his sneaky scheme was soon uncovered when the organizers became suspicious of “Millicent”, demanding him to remove her burka and glasses, revealing Omondi’s true identity.
During the annual Kenya Open chess tournament in the country capital city of Nairobi, organizers spotted a suspicious looking female player. Chess Kenya’s president, Bernard Wanjala was the first to notice Millicent Awour. He told reporters,
One of the red flags we also noticed [was] the shoes, he was wearing more masculine shoes, than feminine.
Wanjala took note of his footwear and the fact that Omondi did not speak. He couldn’t take immediate action because he might get accused of profiling due to the religious attire.
However, he was eventually called out in the fourth round of the tournament, exposing his little clever scheme. Omondi was quick to defend his actions, writing an apologetic letter in which he claimed that he had “financial needs” and was willing to accept the consequences of his actions.
The Kenyan native was subsequently banned from competing in future tournaments, but not before he inadvertently sparked a new trend of cross-dressing chess players.
