27 January 2016

C27 Zonal Rating Reports

Just as two years ago in C26 Zonal Rating Reports (May 2014), I collected rating reports for the current cycle (C27) from ratings.fide.com.

Next step: Add the references to Links (and Other References) Zonals. The list is missing two events that are on my page for (C27) 2014-2015 Zonal Cycle:-

  • 0.0: ACP 2015-00
  • 1.7: (3 x) Baltic Zonals 2014-00

I'm not sure how to handle these at this time.

20 January 2016

Zonal Clippings and Comments

I added a number of clippings and comments to various zonal pages:-

This is my seventh consecutive post concerning zonals on this blog and there is more to come!

13 January 2016

Zt: 1987 Jakarta

In a recent post, Zonal Qualifiers C14, I was reminded of an outstanding zonal mystery, the 1987 Jakarta event for FIDE zone 11. Although the word 'scandal' is attached to the zonal, I had never seen any detailed explanation of what happened there. In particular, did the scandal have an impact on who qualified to the subsequent Interzonals?

Thanks to IndonesiaBase, there is an entire page describing the event, FIDE Zonal 11, Bogor/Jakarta 1987, including copies of letters from the players complaining about alleged collusion among the Chinese players. The page informs,

The combination of the unethical play, the fact that China had four out of twelve finalists, and the carry-through system damaged the tournament so badly to the extent of beyond repairable. GM Ian Rogers was the first player to pull out as a protest. GM Utut Adianto and GM Rosendo Balinas Jr were the next ones to do so.

Prof Dr Max Arie Wotulo, the President of FIDE Zonal 11 and an IM himself, agreed. He declared that the final stage was void. The twelve finalists were expected to be at Jakarta in May to replay the final stage. However, for a mysterious reason, the FIDE governing body ruled out this decision and endorsed the top two of the event, Chinese Xu Jun and Filipino GM Eugenio Torre, as the Zonal 11 representatives to Interzonal Championship. Case closed.

I added clippings for the IndonesiaBase crosstables and explanations to my page on (C14) 1987-1990 Zonal Cycle. Add this event to the list of bizarre zonals: 1960 Berg en Dal (as in Cold War Chess Politics) and 1975 Barcelona / 1976 Arandjelovac.

06 January 2016

Zonal Qualifiers C14 - Qualification Paths

Continuing with the blog post on Zonal Qualifiers C14, I worked out plausible explanations for all of the 55 players known to have qualified for (or played in) one of the three Interzonals for that cycle and added the guesses to my page on C14: Zonal Qualifiers (1987-1990).

Following the same structure I used for Zonal Qualifiers C13 - Qualification Paths, the two tables below show the counts of players who qualified by the different paths.

The left table ('Qual') counts the types of qualifiers as defined in the first part of C14: Zonal Qualifiers. The right table ('Zonal') counts the players who qualified at a certain zonal ('z'), as listed in the second part of the same page. The question marks ('?') in the 'Qual' table are a reminder that there is some guesswork in the data.

For details on the different zonals, see the clippings for (C14) 1987-1990 Zonal Cycle.