Asian Cities Championship 2009

Quietly! This never came in my google chess alerts nor in any of the major chess sites I read.

With a boom!

Learned about this only today, 4 days late.

Let's look at the Team Starting Rank

1. Tehran
2. Baghdad
3. Furn El Chebak A
4. Bangalore
5. Sanaa
6. Aleppo
7. Amman
8. Sharjah
9. Damascus
10. Abu Dhabi

Wait! Already on the first half and I still have not seen the Asian country that has P and H as it's first two letters. Le' me continue to the second half:

1. Beirut
2. Bandar Emam
3. Kathmandu
4. Chia
5. Sulaimaniyah
6. Dubai
7. Furn El Chibak B

Hoping still... Last three:

1. Al Quds
2. Hazieh
3. Gaza

Safi! (end!)

Am too lazy to include the country names each city-teams but mostly the participating teams are from the Middle East.

No team from the Republic of the Philippines?

No funds, not in the Agenda for 2009 (no voters there!?) or maybe I guess this makes sense, maybe there isn't much competition there.

Organizing Federation is Lebanon Chess and the Chief Arbiter is IA Casto Abundo, our very own!