World Chess Championship Blog

Canadian Zonals in the 1990s

2012-02-01T16:37:00.000+01:00

Continuing with zonal clippings from the last eight cycles, I tidied some of the work I had done while preparing the last few posts. The most important change involved a clarification for the Canadian zonals from the 1990s, as recounted by their winner.

GM Kevin Spraggett (January 2012, email correspondence):'Canada decided (around 1995, I think) that since FIDE was undecided about when to resume its own interzonals, to hold regular zonal championships. But as FIDE did not quickly resolve the issue, a number of 'backed-up' zonal champions were put on a hold list.I participated in the 1997 Groningen World Championship because I won the 1994 Zonal. And I played in [1999] Las Vegas for winning the 1996 Zonal.
In the aftermath of the 1993 scandal of Kasparov and Short leaving FIDE and setting up their own world championship system, the CFC [Chess Federation of Canada] had no idea that it would take so long for FIDE to sort things out. It is ridiculous to simply become paralyzed and stop organizing interzonals or their substitute. We only assumed that it would be off by a cycle...instead it was several cycles and when it did return it was never the same format. At one point I offered to 'surrender' one of my backed up zonal titles -- to allow another zonal championship, but the CFC rejected it.'

I updated my index page,World Chess Championship Zonals,to include this information. I'm not aware that the cancellation of the 1996 Interzonal, which was the action that caused the problems for the CFC, has been documented anywhere. It's not mentioned on Wikipedia's FIDE World Chess Championship 1998,and would be a suitable subject for a future post.

New Zonal Clippings for C18

2012-01-25T17:50:00.000+01:00

Counting down from New Zonal Clippings for C19,I added a few new clippings to C18: Zonals 1998-1999.I also discovered some new info for theWorld Chess Championship Zonalsindex page and will incorporate it ASAP.

New Zonal Clippings for C19

2012-01-18T18:01:00.000+01:00

Coming back to Missing Zonal Clippings,I added a clipping toC19: Zonals 2000-2001.On the same cycle I also found some new info for the index pageWorld Chess Championship Zonals,but didn't add it because I need to check a few additional points on Wikipedia. The resource was unavailable today.

New Zonal Clippings for C21 and C22

2012-01-11T17:45:00.002+01:00

Continuing with Missing Zonal Clippingsand followingNew Zonal Clippings for C23, C24, and C25, I added TWIC clippings to C21: 2002-2004andC22: 2004-2005.I found nothing new on TWIC relevant to C20 and I expect to find the same when I tackle C18 & C19, the two cycles missing the most detail in my page onThe World Chess Championship Zonals.

New Label: Interviews

2012-01-04T17:01:00.000+01:00

Is there anywhere a chess fan who doesn't like an interview on a hot topic with a world class player? I located all of the relevant posts on this blog and added the label 'Interviews'. Then I identified relevant posts on my main blog, i.e. interviews with a World Championship angle, and listed them here:-

2007-10-26: Alekhine BBC Interview
2008-06-20: Mr. Personality?
2009-03-01: The Soviet Category System
2009-06-26: Fischer's Last Interview
2009-08-02: More Botvinnik Appreciations
2009-10-02: Kasparov and Karlsen
2009-11-23: The Dorfman Affair
2010-03-01: 'Did You Consider Just Playing Chess?'
2010-12-07: Recently Spotted - Blog Carnival & Soviet School
2010-12-14: The Rybka Book
2011-03-29: The Worst World Championship Ever
2011-07-15: The Rybka Affair (on YouTube)
2011-12-08: Ask Kasparov

Voila! An easy first-post-of-the-year.

Let's Hear It for C19

2011-12-28T15:34:00.001+01:00

A month or two ago, after I added cycle numbers to the labels for this blog, I noticed that I had nothing for C19: 2000-01 (*). That's the cycle where Anand won his first World Championship by beating Shirov in the final at Tehran. The first six rounds were played at New Delhi in his native country.

The full record of Anand's victory is on my page2000 FIDE Knockout Matches,and I have links to contemporary accounts from Hindu.com on another page,Reports from The Hindu.Although the domain for those reports changed between 2000 and 2011, it is remarkable that the originals are still available on the web.The following table shows that the year 2000 is the earliest where we have such reports.

2000: 679 results
2001: 1010
2002: 1300
2003: 1950
2004: 4400
2005: 3600 (San Luis, won by Topalov)
2006: 2830
2007: 5690 (Mexico City, won by Anand)
2008: 5740 (vs. Kramnik)
2009: 6020
2010: 5680 (vs. Topalov)
2011: 2050

(Source:About 40,200 results : site:hindu.com chess anand.)

I can't explain the big drop in 2011, but the numbers still work out to more than 5.6 reports per day. Is there any other country with so much interest in its top chess player?

(*) Re the 'C19: 2000-01' terminology, there is no good reason why it shouldn't be labeled 'C19: 2000'. Most of the zonals took place in 2000, and the last round of the final match was played before the end of that year. The zonals for the next cycle, C20: 2001-02, were played in 2001, and the first six rounds of the next FIDE knockout championship were played near the end of that year. The final, where Ponomariov beat Ivanchuk, was played in 2002.

New Zonal Clippings for C23, C24, and C25

2011-12-21T16:54:00.000+01:00

Getting back to Missing Zonal Clippings,I added TWIC clippings to the three most recent cycles,C23: 2006-2007,C24: 2008-2009, andC25: 2010-2011.Although I didn't make any changes to the index pageWorld Chess Championship Zonals,I did add a few new links toZonals : Links (and Other References).

2011 FIDE Executive Board : Whither the World Championship?

2011-12-14T15:31:00.000+01:00

FIDE Congresses are important annual events in the evolution of the World Championship, and the most recent was no exception. I've already reported on the meeting in82nd FIDE Congress,so now I'll turn my attention to theExecutive Board Minutes and Annexes, just as I did for the 2009 FIDE Executive Boardand the 2010 FIDE General Assembly.

FIDE Congress, Krakow, Poland
Executive Board
20-21 October 2011

The minutes always kick off with the 'Report of the President'. After mentioning the most recent events in the Women's World Championship, FIDE President Ilyumzhinov turned to the unrestricted version.

In Kazan, on a very high organizational level the Candidates' matches have been organized. Together with the 1st President of Tatarstan, Mr. Mintimer Shaimiev, we participated in the opening and closing ceremonies. I would like to congratulate GM Boris Gelfand from Israel on his brilliant victory.

As you know that we had a tender for the venue for the World Championship match, which will take place next year. There have been two bids, from India and Russia. The Russian bid won, because of two advantage, because it is a neutral venue and the Russian Federation offered practically half a million USD more for the prize fund which means a bigger financial support for FIDE (20% is a sizeable number). I would like to thank the leadership of Tatarstan, and its President M. Shaimiev has been appointed as my Senior Adviser and he helps me a lot in the matters.

The World Cup took place this year in the new building of a Chess Academy. Now Nalchik is hosting another stage of [the Women's] Grand Prix, and the tournaments were organized in Shenzhen and Rostov. All is OK with Women's Grand Prix. But soon we will announce also men's series, after finalizing it. We found sponsors in New York, London, Cheliabinsk, Mashhad and we are looking for the last organizers.

After a short discussion of two lawsuits that have cost FIDE heavily, Ilyumzhinov turned to the 'Modernisation Commission'.

It goes without saying that we should stick to our traditions in the classical World Championship title cycle, traditions going back to 1886. But, at the same time, I cannot help noting that to date the old format is not TV attractive and is not either attractive for general public. [...]

It seems logical to introduce additional World Championships in rapid and blitz chess, with a further determination of absolute champion. Since 1st January 2012 there will be rapid and blitz official rating lists, we are also negotiating with possible sponsors of Grand Prix where top players will be participating.

FIDE will be facing a task of creating a clear and structurised qualification system for these new World Championships with eventual giving up any privileges to World Champions and rating favourites. In order to bring wider groups of middle echelon players, the main principle of new system should be the following motto –- Everyone can win.

During the rest of the meeting, other brief mentions of the World Championship were:

registration of the trademark 'FIDE World Chess Championship' with the World Intellectual Property Organization; and
contract for the 2013 World Cup, Tromso, Norway, to be signed at the 2012 Istanbul Congress.

A potential glitch with next year's title match...

World Championship match 2012 Anand - Gelfand, we have not signed the contract, the contract was sent to RCF [Russian Chess Federation] and the problem is with the Russians, they were silent for two months. There is a meeting on the 26 November, in Moscow, with the players and RCF. The Federation should sign the contract and they were supposed to send the money. We should press them. Kirsan will help as well. We hope the preparation will be OK. RCF said they received the money.

...was resolved satisfactorily on the date indicated:Contract on the World Chess Championship Match 2012.I've mentioned in the past that FIDE is surprisingly open about contractual difficulties. Here are a few more examples.

Women's World Championship 2012, Khanty-Mansiysk. Mr. Balgabaev has discussed the details of the contract, they are supposed to give the dates.
Women's Grand Prix: Mr. Makropoulos said there was a problem in Rostov with the finances, as no prize fund was received and so FIDE paid the prizes.•Mr. Borg said we are chasing the organiser, because the timing was short, the money was paid to the players, and they are not complaining. We are chasing the government of Rostov. If they do not send us money, we will go for a legal action.•For the cycle, we had an excellent event in Shenzhen and Nalchik, everything was paid in advance. The others are Jermuk, Kazan and Istanbul. All contracts were signed, the money should be sent.
Mr. Makropoulos said that we should avoid such situations when money is not sent.•Mr. Borg said the organisers should be chased by the FIDE office provided there is a contract. It applies to all FIDE events.•Mr. Makropoulos said that Grand Prix is a special event.
Mr Yazici said in the first cycle we made a mistake, and I hope we do not make it for the 2nd time. Closing will be in Istanbul and all organisers of the previous legs should be invited and receive some plaques and the winner of the Grand Prix should also be invited in advance.

On top of other subjects that I've written about in the past deserving a revisit -- CACDEC, the CNC Project, and the Ethics Commission (*) -- two new topics are worth special treatment. The first I've already mentioned in the context of Ilyumzhinov's report: two lawsuits stemming from last year's presidential election. There was a long discussion of the subject during the financial report.The second is a report by the 'Chess in Schools' commission.

In both the lawsuits and the chess-in-schools project, FIDE is butting heads with former World Champion Kasparov, a tenacious opponent. It sometimes seems that nothing in chess is ever accomplished without political bickering.

(*)March 2009:Chess in Africa - What Is CACDEC?,October 2011:No Nose for FIDE News,andMay 2010:FIDE Ethics

First Women's Title Match in 12 Years

2011-12-07T11:40:00.001+01:00

After taking care of the19th World Computer Championship,I added the final results for the 2011 Hou Yifan - Koneru Title Matchto my history of theWorld Chess Championship for Women.I also added the event to theIndex of Women Players.This is the first time a classical style match decided the women's title since the1999 Xie Jun - Galliamova Title Match,an event that was beset by organizational difficulties.

19th World Computer Championship

2011-11-30T15:34:00.001+01:00

Today, just like a few months ago in Ladies First,I had the choice between two recent world championship events : a computer championship and a Women's championship. This time I let the women wait and added the19th WCCC - 2011 Tilburgto my page on theWorld Championship : Computer Chess.The official site atGrappa.univ-lille3.fr(Groupe de Recherche en Apprentissage Automatique at Université Lille 3)hadn't been updated yet, so I relied on the DGT site (DigitalGameTechnology.com) atWorld Championship Computer Chess 2011for the PGN game scores and crosstable. Thanks to DGT for the timely information.

Last year I declined (or perhaps neglected) to include the18th World Computer Chess Championship (Software),which was held for the first time. What's the difference between the two events?

The World Computer Chess Championship (WCCC) for the Shannon Trophy will be contested by teams who have no restriction placed on them as to their choice of hardware.

The World Chess Software Championship (WCSC) tournament will be held at the same location, after the WCCC. This will be a uniform platform event using computers loaned by the host organisation. In each game played in this tournament the two computers will be, so far as is possible, identical with respect to their hardware capabilities: number of cores, processor speed, memory size.

This year's WCCC was the first since The Rybka Affairhit top-level computer chess like a sledge hammer. Was the shunning of Rybka a wise move or a witch hunt?The debate continues on forums wherever computer chess is dicussed; see, for example,World Computer Chess Championship (2011)on Chessgames.com.

Missing Zonal Clippings

2011-11-23T15:55:00.001+01:00

After adding the clippings for the current cycle -- seeZonals for the Current Cycle (C25)andTWIC Clippings for the Current Cycle (C25)-- to my pages on the zonals, the next step is to identify which events have no clipping. For each cycle, the table on the left shows how many events have no related clippings.

It should be relatively easy to find crosstables for many of the events in recent cycles. The high number of missing clippings for C18 & C19 is most likely due to events listed on my index page,World Chess Championship Zonals,as zonals, when in fact they aren't.I'll work through the table as time permits.

Kramnik on Kramnik

2011-11-16T16:39:00.001+01:00

In the first decade of the new millenium, three world class chess players -- Kasparov, Kramnik, and Anand -- in that order, ruled the roost. Kasparov was the dominant split-title World Champion going into the decade, Kramnik was his hand-picked heir apparent, and Anand flew FIDE's flag at the beginning of the decade gaining the unified title near the end.

Over the past few months, we've been treated to a steady stream of Kramnik interviews, most of them posted on the relatively new site Whychess.org. InNo Nose for Navigationon my main blog, I criticized the site for technical reasons, but there's no question that content is its strong point.

After the 2011 Candidates Event,we listened to the top players sound off in Interviews Past and Present,where Kramnik was eliminated in the semifinal round. A little later he won the annual Dortmund tournament, and has been holding forth ever since. Here he talks mainly about Dortmund and a little about Kazan (links to Whychess.org unless otherwise noted).

Kramnik: "It’s unlikely I can compete with Carlsen long-term",4 August 2011
Video interview Vladimir Kramnik,3 August; Chessvibes.com

He was less successful in the Russian Championship Superfinal, finishing in a tie for 3rd-5th.

Kramnik to retire in four years?,16 August
Kramnik: For me chess is a great love,18 August

Then, in the longest interview I can remember him giving, he touched on many subjects, including three important title matches:2000 vs. Kasparov,2006 vs. Topalov (unification), and2008 vs. Anand.His comments on the Topalov match brought responses from both Azmaiparashvili and Makropoulos, central figures in FIDE's bungled handling of the cheating accusations.

Kramnik on chess, Anand, Topalov and his future,31 August
Azmaiparashvili responds to Kramnik,31 August
30 years after,27 October; 'Makropoulos responds to Kramnik’s accusations'

Later he had much more to say on the 2000 Kasparov match.

Kramnik on the Shirov and Kasparov controversies,13 October

He then won the Univé tournament in Hoogeveen, and came back to the subject of the current World Championship cycle.

Kramnik: "I’m a little more concerned about ratings just now",25 October

That's a good show for a man who has often been indifferent in his attitude toward the chess public. It's clear from the comments to many of those intervews that he remains enormously popular with chess fans.

ICCF World Championships (2011 Status)

2011-11-09T16:48:00.000+01:00

Once again, here's my annual look at what's happening at the top of correspondence chess. The current status is shown in the following table, which is based on last year's post,ICCF World Championships (2010 Status)As before, the asterisk ('*') means the winner is known and the PGN game scores are available.

20	* (PGN?)	2004-11	Lehikoinen, Pertti (FIN)
21	*	2005-08	Oosterom, Joop J. van (NED)
22	*	2007-10	Dronov, Aleksandr (RUS)
23		2007-	Started 2007-12-31
24		2009-	Started 2009-06-10
25		2009-	Started 2009-12-10
26		2010-	Started 2010-06-10
27		2011-	Started 2011-06-10

What's changed? The 20th championship has finished (see20th World Championon ICCF.com for an announcement) and the 27th has started. That makes three crosstables to be added to my page World Chess Championship : Correspondence Chess.In other news, the ICCF forum closed near the end of last year --Forum,'As decided at the 2010 ICCF Congress the ICCF Forums are now closed' -- but lives on atArchive.org : iccf.com/forum/*.

More Feedback on Zonals

2011-11-02T14:37:00.000+01:00

Returning to A Feedback Loop for Zonals,ebutaljib responded with a number of additional points which I've added to the appropriate zonal clippings (all marked '[Ref. BI220357]').

C03 : 1954-57
C05 : 1960-63
C10 : 1975-78
C12 : 1981-84

InSvidler, Grischuk and Ivanchuk qualified for... what exactly?[Chessvibes.com],where he copied my post onFIDE's Got a Secret, ebutaljib stirred the pot some more and revealed that FIDE had indeed changed its mind on the format of next year's Candidates event (see alsoRIP Candidates Matches?on Whychess.org).It appears from the comments on Chessvibes that the events behind the unification process in 2002-2006 have faded into the haze of history. Is there a good summary somewhere on the Web?

2011-2012 Women's Grand Prix, Nalchik

2011-10-26T15:27:00.000+02:00

I added the Nalchik event to my page on the2011-2012 FIDE Women's Grand Prix.After Rostovin August, and Shenzhenin September, this was the third Women's Grand Prix tournament in as many months.The last three events are scheduled for Kazan, Russia, in May 2012; Jermuk, Armenia, in June; and Istanbul, Turkey, in November.

The Nalchik event was marked by the runaway win of Zhao Xue (+9-1=1) and the collapse of former Women's World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk, who finished last (+3-7=1), only a half-point ahead of her last place finish in the Rostov Grand Prix event. What went wrong for the self-styled Chess Queen™? Her blog makes no excuses --Congratulations to Zhao Xue for winning the third Women's Chess Grand Prix in Nalchik-- and features an interview with the winner.

Of Names and Pirates

2011-10-19T17:42:00.000+02:00

A comment to my recent post,2011 World Cup Players,alerted me to a couple of errors on myIndex of playersfor all World Championship events (after the zonal stage).One error I already knew about (the dates are the years of a WCC event),

Alexander Nenashev (1997) and Alexander Graf (2001, 2004) are the same person.

but hadn't yet made the correction. The info is confirmed on Wikipedia,Alexander Graf:-

born Alexander Nenashev, 25 August 1962 in Tashkent, Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, USSR, is an Uzbekistani-German chess grandmaster. In 2000 he moved to Germany and took his father's name.

The other error was new to me.

Mohamed Esam Ahmed Nagib (FIDE WCh 1999) and Essam El Gindy (2004, 2007, 2009) are the same person.

This was confirmed on a page from the Polish version of Wikipedia,Essam El Gindy,translated by Google:

Essam El Gindy (born 14 July 1966 in Cairo) - Egyptian chess player, grandmaster since 2008, the end of 2000 known as Esam Mohamed Ahmed Nagib.

In both cases, it would be interesting to confirm that the FIDE ID handled the change correctly (seeStructure of the FIDE IDfor background).While I was working on these changes I was reminded that another sharp-eyed visitor had spotted an error on my index ofWorld Chess Championship : Zonalspage. For cycle 16, zone 4.2, I had noted that I was missing info on how the player Adly of Egypt had qualified for the next step in the cycle, the1993 Biel Interzonal Tournament.This did not jive with Glenn Giffen's page,Zonals in the Americas and Africa,which listed Esam Aly Ahmed of Egypt as one of the qualifiers from Africa.

My first problem was that the 1993 Biel page had no mention of Adly, Esam Aly Ahmed, or any other player from Egypt. I located a printed crosstable from 1993 and discovered that Essam Ali A. of Egypt was qualified to participate, but forfeited the first round and was dropped from the tournament. My corresponding PGN file for 1993 Biel (last touched in August 1997, the month before I first released the WCC site!) confirmed this. I corrected both the 1993 Biel page and the index of zonals.

That first problem alerted me to a second problem, where the Arabic name had four valid transliterations -- Esam/Essam Aly/Ali -- all found using Google, although 'Esam Aly' is by far the most common variant. A browse through the various pages did not resolve the original question, how he qualified into the 1993 Interzonal.I did, however, discover that he was no longer with us. From The Sunday chess column(telegraph.co.uk) for 16 November 2003 by Nigel Short:-

After returning home to Egypt from last month’s African Games in Abuja, Nigeria, Esam Aly Ahmed, a 38-year-old International Master ranked sixth in his country, dropped dead from cerebral malaria. The 60-year-old head of delegation did likewise the following day. The disease, which requires urgent treatment, had not been detected in time.

These various researches left me little time to tackle any other item on my long TODO list, so I spent the available time delving further into theComplete History of the World Championship.An unfortunate side effect of these researches is to unearth elsewhere on the web many unattributed copies of the original material.

For example, a search on "there have been many matches between the leading players" returns not only the original page History of World Championship matches(forums.ubi.com, 11 July 2008), but also a bootlegged pageWorld Chess Championship 1886 Pre-Fide(pakchess.org, 4 September 2009).I'm sure the forums.ubi.com page is the original, because I've also been copied by the pakchess.org site. For example, the page The History of Chess | PAKCHESShas links to copies of many articles from my own page onChess History.Authorized? Of course not. Attributed? You must be kidding!

Complete History of the World Championship

2011-10-12T17:59:00.000+02:00

Help! I'm being bombarded with fantastic information about the World Championship and I don't know how to assimilate all of it.In addition to clarifications on the zonals from the ubiquitous ebutaljib, last mentioned inA Feedback Loop for Zonals,I've been getting frequent messages from German correspondent H-W.Ohl, whose work I introduced in Qualifiers and More Qualifiers.

Herr Ohl sent me a 527 page PDF reference document that chronicles the history of the World Championship from the early 19th century to the present (2011 World Cup). The document was compiled using copy & paste -- the word 'scrapbook' describes it best -- from knowledgeable sources that cover all aspects of the World Championship. For example, here are web sources I identified from the first 25% of the document, listed with the PDF page where the source is quoted.

p.1, p.22•Unofficial champions (pre-1886)[Wikipedia.org]
p.25, p.32, p.39, ...•History of World Championship matchesby ebutaljib [hence my use of the adjective 'ubiquitous'; forums.ubi.com]•covers the 1886 Steinitz - Zukertort match through the 1957 Botvinnik - Smyslov match (won by Smyslov)
p.29, p.35•Most Dominant Player to not be World Championby ebutaljib [forums.ubi.com]
p.34•Sixth American Chess Congress (1889)[Wikipedia.org]
p.35 (again)•Do the history books need to be re-written?by ebutaljib [rybkaforum.net]
p.57, p.65, ...•FIDE: The Prehistoryby Edward Winter [Chesshistory.com]
p.125•The London Rulesby Edward Winter
p.132•1st unofficial Chess Olympiad[Wikipedia.org]
[...]

I even spotted a few pages copied from (gasp!) me, including that rare show of thanks : attribution.Filling up the other pages are crosstables and scanned clippings from offline resources that enhance the referenced material.For reasons of copyright, the Ohl document can't be distributed publicly, but it makes a good personal reference and I am lucky to have received a copy.

Making the document even more valuable is a second, three page PDF cross-referencing Ohl's list in my 'More Qualifiers' post with the longer document. For example, the blog post item '1907: Ostende Tournament (World Tournament Championship & Qualifier)' is supported by the Wikipedia page on the Ostend 1907 chess tournament,along with a German language clipping from an unidentified (probably contemporary) source.

I have several books covering different aspects of the history of the World Championship, but I don't have any single reference that is so comprehensive. It is truly a unique document. Thank you, Herr Ohl!

***

Later:More of the same investigation.

p.146•FIDE Championship (1928)by Edward Winter
p.169•Edward Winter's Chess Explorations (65)andWorld Championship Disorderby Edward Winter
p.175•AVRO 1938 chess tournament[Wikipedia.org]
p.177-178•Alexander Alekhine; 1937–39[Wikipedia.org]
p.175•Absolute Championship of the USSR, Leningrad 1941[Graeme.50webs.com/chesschamps/ussr]
p.185•The Death of Alekhine and the Rebirth of FIDE, 1948[Chessgames.com]
p.187•Interregnumby Edward Winter
p.191•Section 5: Euwe world champion for one dayby Edward Winter
p.192•World Championship Qualifiers 1946on this blog
[...]

2011 World Cup Players

2011-10-05T16:19:00.000+02:00

Continuing with my previous post on2011 World Cup Results,I added the missing explanatory material to my page on the2011 World Cup.I also added the names of all 128 players, including the two no-shows, to my Index of Players:A-G,H-M,N-S, &T-Z.According to my calculations, there were 41 players who had never played in a World Cup before.

2011 World Cup Results

2011-09-28T18:20:00.000+02:00

After updating the latest event in the FIDE Women's Grand Prix (see Ladies First),I added the results and PGN to my page on the 2011 World Cup, Khanty-Mansiysk.A comparison with my page on the 2009 World Cuprevealed that I'm missing a few notes on the 2011 event : (1) which rd.1 matches were decided by forfeit, and(2) the rules of the competition explaining the time controls, etc.I also noticed that I had no links to FIDE news leading up to the 2011 event.I'll check those points at the same time I update myIndex of Playersto add the participants in the latest World Cup.

Winner Svidler's previous best result in a FIDE knockout competition was a loss to Ponomariov in the semifinal round (rd.6) of the 2001-02 FIDE Knockout Matches.I imagine his win over Ponomariov in the semifinal round of the 2011 version was doubly satisfying.

Ladies First

2011-09-21T11:44:00.000+02:00

This week I had the choice between updating my page on the 2011-2012 FIDE Women's Grand Prix,where the Shenzhen event finished two days ago,and the2011 World Cup,which finished on the same day. I chose to do the Grand Prix, won by Hou Yifan, who also won the first event in Rostov last month. The third event is scheduled for Nalchik in October, then we have the last three events spaced more evenly in 2012.

The official site for the latest Grand Prix event,shenzhen2011.fide.com,calls it the 'Snow Beer Cup - SZSZD FIDE Women Grand Prix Shenzhen 2011' on info pages like the 'Pairings & Results'. I've never had Snow Beer before. I wonder if I'm missing much.

I'll tackle the 2011 World Cup next time I do an update. Won by Peter Svidler, it was a very entertaining event to watch.

A Feedback Loop for Zonals

2011-09-14T18:13:00.003+02:00

The mysterious ebutaljib, last seen on this blog in my post on 'Chess Results' by Gino Di Felice, has been busy working on World Championship qualification paths, tracking players as they move through a championship cycle from zonals to interzonals and (for a lucky few) beyond. This exercise, which I last addressed in a post titled Qualification Paths, is an invaluable exercise -- a feedback loop -- for checking that the list of zonals for a particular cycle is complete and correct.

He flagged a number of errors and omissions to me, which I incorporated into my page on World Championship Zonals. Once again, thanks, ebutaljib! You can find examples of his own outstanding work starting at 00001 - 1886 - Windows Live, where he has documented the history of the World Championship in picture format.

***

Later: Along with corrections to the index of zonals, ebutaljib queried a number of clippings. I've documented his queries on the corresponding pages, all marked '[Ref. BI072028]' with a link back to this blog post.

C01 : 1946-51
C02 : 1951-54
C03 : 1954-57
C08 : 1969-72
C09 : 1972-75
C10 : 1975-78
C11 : 1978-81
C12 : 1981-84
C13 : 1984-87
C14 : 1987-90
C15 : 1990-93
C16 : 1993-96
C17 : 1995-97

In the pre-Internet days, the accurate transmission of tournament info was relatively error prone.

TWIC Clippings for the Current Cycle (C25)

2011-09-07T13:48:00.004+02:00

Continuing the project I started with Zonals for the Current Cycle (C25) and Clippings for C19, C20, & C25, I added TWIC clippings to Zonals 2010-2011 (C25). While working on this, I noticed that starting with Cycle 1998-1999 (C18), I was missing all TWIC clippings for zone 2.1 (USA), plus some TWIC clippings for the continental championships (1.0 Europe, 2.0 The Americas, 3.0 Asia, & 4.0 Africa). My next task for the zonals will be to fill this gap.

Clippings for C19, C20, & C25

2011-08-31T17:36:00.000+02:00

As mentioned in Zonals for the Current Cycle (C25), I located the TWIC clippings for C25, but didn't have time to add them to the clippings page for that cycle. Instead of that, I made some small, general corrections to the index of all World Chess Championship Zonals, and to the related pages for the individual cycles. Then I added a few odds and ends to the pages for Zonals 2000-2001 (C19) and Zonals 2001-2002 (C20).

Zonals for the Current Cycle (C25)

2011-08-24T13:59:00.001+02:00

The 2011 World Cup starts in a few days, meaning that the qualifying zonals for the current cycle (C25; the 25th since FIDE took control of the World Championship in 1946) are now history. I updated my page on Zonals : Links (and Other References) to point to relevant rating reports on FIDE's ratings.fide.com subdomain. Then I added the 19 events for the current cycle to my index of World Championship Zonals and created a new page, Zonals 2010-11, to keep clippings related to the cycle. That last page is little more than a stub, but I'll add to it as I find the time.

2011-2012 Women's Grand Prix, Rostov

2011-08-17T12:43:00.003+02:00

I added the crosstable for the just-finished Rostov event to my page on the 2011-2012 FIDE Women's Grand Prix. The next two events are scheduled for September and October.

***

Later: In other news unrelated to women's events, the 2011 World Cup starts next week. I haven't updated the page since creating it, so I added the official site chess.ugrasport.com and the official logo.

Two Upcoming Title Matches

2011-08-10T16:50:00.002+02:00

Which is worse - no press release or a bungled press release? We saw the first scenario, regarding the 2012 Candidates Event (or will it be in 2013?), in FIDE's Got a Secret, and the second scenario, regarding two upcoming title matches, in the recent announcement World Championships Matches - Press Release [Fide.com]. According to TWIC, in Moscow's winning World Championship bid,

A premature FIDE press release that appeared on Monday was not signed by Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and there are claims that the final decision wasn't made until Tuesday. It does seem that the final specific venue is a source of dispute. Ilyumzhinov insists upon Skolkovo a small Moscow Science Park whilst the major sponsor Andrey Filatov and the Russian Chess Federation say that it should be the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts.

I updated my page, 2012 Anand - Gelfand Title Match, to document the new information on that match, and added a new page for the 2011 Hou Yifan - Koneru Title Match. FIDE's ongoing incompetence in its relations with the press reminds me of those old slapstick movies where one of the characters gets his foot stuck in a bucket and then stumbles around trying to get it off. The difference with FIDE is that it happens again and again and again.

2011-2012 Women's Grand Prix

2011-08-03T10:58:00.001+02:00

I added a new page for the 2011-2012 FIDE Women's Grand Prix to my index on the World Chess Championship for Women. The first of the six events started this week; for more information, see the official site rostov2011.fide.com.

In contrast to the unrestricted championship, discussed in my previous post FIDE's Got a Secret, FIDE has found a stable, workable format for the women's cycle. From the Regulations for the 2011-2012 Women's FIDE Grand Prix:-

The winner of the Grand Prix series at the end of 2012 will play the Women World Champion in the third quarter of 2013 in a ten game match for the Women’s World Championship title. Should the overall winner of the Grand Prix also be the World Champion at the end of the Grand Prix series in 2012, then the Challenger rights will go to the second placed overall in the Grand Prix.

As I understand it, the reigning Women's World Champion 'in the third quarter of 2013', will be the winner of a knockout event to be held in 2012. This event is currently listed on the FIDE calendar as 'Women's World Championship 2012, Khanty Mansiysk, Russia' without any dates.

FIDE's Got a Secret

2011-07-27T17:43:00.004+02:00

Q: How do you pack a four stage qualifying cycle into three years? • A: You hold one stage per year and let the first stage of a new cycle overlap the last stage of the previous cycle. This is how the World Championship was organized from 1950 until 1990, when the title match for cycle X was held in the same year as the zonals for cycle X+1. This worked for 14 cycles.

Q: How do you pack a four stage qualifying cycle into two years? • A: No one seems to know. • FIDE's solution: You schedule the second stage of the cycle, aka the 'World Cup', every two years, preferably at Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. This fixes the schedule for the first stage -- the zonals and continental championships -- during the months before the World Cup. As for the third and fourth stages, you issue regulations and bidding procedures whenever you think the time is right and hope that someone is paying attention (or maybe you hope that no one is paying attention, thereby sparing you any criticism).

According to Google, the Rules & Regulations for the Candidates Matches of the FIDE World Championship cycle 2011-2013 were published on 16 May 2011. They were unaccompanied by any of the usual marketing nonsense like a press release or a news item on Fide.com. Why let your light shine when you can hide it under a bushel basket?

Why all the hush-hush? One reason might be that we are once again faced with that situation peculiar to today's FIDE that I call Two Overlapping World Championship Cycles. This guarantees that no one can follow the events except FIDE insiders, of whom there are few; it helps them feel important. Another reason might be that we are faced with the exact same format that bored everyone and was roundly criticized in the recent 2011 Candidates Event at Kazan, Russia. Yet another reason might be that FIDE can make changes to the 'Rules & Regulations' whenever they fancy, then claim, 'But it wasn't official!' Still another reason might be the chronic incompetence that plagues FIDE leadership.

I suspect it's all of the above and then some. Come on, FIDE, you've had six years since Kasparov handed you exclusive ownership of the World Championship. It's time you start acting like professionals. Do you really want to be the world's largest *amateur* sports organization?

Qualifiers and More Qualifiers

2011-07-20T12:45:00.002+02:00

Every once in a while I receive an email that reminds me how little I really know about the World Chess Championship. No, it's not the sort of email that points to an error on one of my pages. From time to time I do get these, but they are just as likely to be an error by my correspondent as an error by me. They are instead the sort of email that dumps a ton of information on me and leaves me wondering what to do next.

Lately I've been getting messages from Heinz-Willi Ohl of Germany, a chess history aficionado with a special interest in the World Championship. The messages have been mainly about the zonals and I hope to incorporate them into my pages during the next few months, but the latest message from Herr Ohl was about the post Getting Serious About Qualifiers; (translating from the German:) 'In my opinion you should add to the WCC Index (World Chess Championship etc.) accordingly.'

'Suggestions:
1887: Steinitz - Paulsen (unplayed match)
1887: Steinitz - Mackenzie (unplayed match) incl. Frankfurt Tournament
1889: New York Tournament
1890: Chigorin - Gunsberg und 1893 Chigorin - Tarrasch s. a. [A]
1899: Lasker - Janowsky (unplayed match)
1900: Gründung Internationale Schachmeistervereinigung incl. Munich Tournament ['foundation of international chessmaster federation']
1903: Lasker - Marshall (unplayed match)
1903: Lasker - Tarrasch (unplayed match)
1905: Marshall - Janowsky (challenger confirmation)
1905: Tarrasch - Marshall (challenger confirmation)
1906: International Chess Federation (Gründungsversuch [B]) incl. Ostende Tournament
1906: Lasker - Maroczy (unplayed match)
1907: Ostende Tournament (World Tournament Championship & Qualifier)
1908: Janowsky - Marshall (challenger confirmation)
1909: Capablanca - Marshall (challenger confirmation)
1911: Lasker - Capablanca (unplayed match)
1912: Lasker - Rubinstein (unplayed match)
1914: International Chess Federation (Gründungsversuch [B]) incl. St. Petersburg Tournament, St. Petersburg rules & Mannheim Tournament
1919: Capablanca - Kostic (challenger confirmation)
1920: Rubinstein - Bogoljubow (challenger confirmation)
1920/21: International Chess Federation (Gründungsversuch) incl. Göteburg Tournament
1921: Capablanca - Rubinstein (unplayed match)
1921: Capablanca - Alekhine (unplayed match)
1922: London Rules incl. London Tournament
1922: Alekhine - Rubinstein (unplayed candidates match)
1924: FIDE-Gründung incl. Paris Tournament
1926: FIDE Masters Budapest
1927: New York Tournament
1928/29: Bogoljubow - Euwe Matches (FIDE-Championship & Candidates)
1928: Amateur World Championship Den Haag
1931: Alekhine - Capablanca (unplayed match)
1931: Capablanca - Euwe (challenger confirmation)
1932: Euwe - Flohr (challenger confirmation)
1936/37: World Championship Disorder (lt. Edward Winter [C])
1938: Alekhine - Flohr (unplayed match)
1938: AVRO Tournament
1939/40: Keres - Euwe (challenger confirmation)
1941: URS Absolute Ch (challenger confirmation)
1945: Pan American Ch & Radio match USR-USA
1946: Alekhine - Botvinnik (unplayed match)
1946/47: Interregnum
1946: Groningen & Prag Tournaments (Qualifier)
1946: USR-USA Match & USA Ch
1976: Karpov - Fischer (unplayed unofficial match)
1995/96: FIDE-PCA WCC Reunification
1998: Linares (WCC Qualifier)
2006: Topalov - Radjabov (unplayed FIDE match)
'Additionally you can add tournaments with the status of a challenger confirmation, for example Monte Carlo in 1904, Ostend 1905 (Maroczy), Cambridge Springs 1904 (Marshall), Ostende 1906 (Schlechter), etc.'
Notes:
[A] Most Dominant Player to not be World Champion
[B] Google: 'establishment attempt'; i.e. to create a formal organization governing, among other matters, the World Championship
[C] World Championship Disorder by Edward Winter

That's a lot of new material. Where to start? By posting it here and hopefully interesting other amateur chess historians who would like to research these topics.

***

Chessbase.com recently posted an article relevant to note [B]: Chess Explorations (66) by Edward Winter; 'chronological overview of various pre-FIDE attempts to create an international governing body for chess'.

Interviews Past and Present

2011-07-13T16:25:00.003+02:00

The completion of a major milestone in a World Championship cycle always brings a spate of interviews with the players involved and the recent Kazan Candidate matches continued the tradition. Chessbase.com ran a three part interview by Shay Bushinsky (developer of a former World Computer Champion) with GM Gelfand, Anand's future challenger.

The homecoming: Boris Gelfand is back Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Here are some excerpts.

Q: You are in the cycle for a long time now. Did you actually believe you would reach this stage challenging the World Champion? • A: Yes, and I reached it! I had chances in the early nineties, when Kasparov thought that I was the favourite. But I didn’t succeed then. [Gelfand lost to Short in the quarter finals of 1993, and to Karpov in the semi-finals of 1996]. Then, for ten years, there was no proper cycle. When it reappeared I had two excellent results: I qualified for the World Championship in Mexico, and there I tied for second place. And now I reached the final. So I think I showed that in this system very few people can compete with these results. I must emphasize that unfortunately a lot of excellent players never reached this stage. Players like Keres, Geller, Polugaevsky and Larsen never made it. So I consider myself really fortunate to have managed to get this far. I see it as a privilege and I will do my best to seize the opportunity.

Q: How do you explain your recent success, especially at these elite knockout tournaments? • A: Throughout my career I was in all possible situations – must win with black, must draw with black etc. You know that I’m pretty experienced, having participated in previous candidate cycles. It was probably in the early nineties when I managed somehow to store somewhere all these experiences, and apparently I can retrieve them now, when similar moments occur. It is all unconsciously stored in my brain.

Q: Let’s talk about your age – do you feel its effect on your game? • A: No. The only thing I feel is that it takes me a little longer to recuperate between games, and perhaps it is a bit more difficult for me to achieve consistency, compared to past years. However, by no means do I feel any decline in my tactical ability. When I play I am in full concentration, a condition I attribute to the healthy life style I lead.

Q: How do you assess your chances against Anand? • A: Vishy and I played a lot in the 90’s. I must say that in the first half I had a big advantage, while in the second half he prevailed. If my memory doesn’t fail me it is +1 for him out of the 34 classical games we played, which is by no means a big advantage. During the last decade we played no more than six or seven games, so to be able to play twelve games in one month against such a player will be very interesting… I think that my chances are decent. This opponent is of course extraordinarily strong, but I showed that I can play matches well against the strongest opponents.

Plus much more. An interview with GM Ponomariov, FIDE World Champion in the time period 2002-2004, was posted a few months ago on ChessInTranslation.com and crossposted on Chessvibes.com. I give links to both because Chessvibes generally receives more comments from chess fans.

GM Ruslan Ponomariov answers your questions: Part I • ChessInTranslation.com: Part 1, Part 2 • Chessvibes.com: Part 1, Part 2

The interview is excerpts from more extensive material at Crestbook.com, KC-Conference with Ruslan Ponomariov: Part 1. On this last link, the most interesting section to me was '5. The Kasparov Match', with details on the aborted 2003 pre-unification match.

Q: Why didn’t the match come off? • A: I’m not entirely clear myself what the real reasons were for Ilyumzhinov suddenly announcing the cancellation of the match in Yalta. Did he consult Kasparov and the match organisers before taking that decision, or didn’t he? I don’t know.

Plus much, much more.

The Rybka Affair

2011-07-06T11:29:00.005+02:00

Extraordinary events require extraordinary actions. While I normally wouldn't comment on the story reported by TWIC as Rybka banned by International Games Federation, the ICGA action impacts a page I maintain on the World Chess Championship : Computer Chess. The least I could do was to add the statement by ICGA President David Levy to that page, announcing that 'Vasik Rajlich is hereby disqualified from the World Computer Chess Championships (WCCC) of 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010'. Rajlich is the developer of Rybka, the winner of the championships from 2007 through 2010.

Rajlich's first sin was to ignore the ICGA rule that

Each program must be the original work of the entering developers. Programming teams whose code is derived from or including game-playing code written by others must name all other authors, or the source of such code, in their submission details. Programs which are discovered to be close derivatives of others (e.g., by playing nearly all moves the same), may be declared invalid by the Tournament Director after seeking expert advice.

The phrase 'close derivative' requires a subjective evaluation. The most blatant violation of the rule would be to take an existing engine, do nothing more than change its name, and enter it in competition. It's common sense that Rybka wouldn't have won four consecutive world titles 'by playing nearly all moves the same' as its competitors.

Rajlich's second sin was to ignore the ICGA investigation.

The ICGA regards Vasik Rajlich’s violation of the abovementioned rule as the most serious offence that a chess programmer and ICGA member can commit with respect to his peers and to the ICGA. During the course of the investigation and upon presentation of the Secretariat’s report Vasik Rajlich did not offer, despite repeated invitations from the ICGA to do so, any kind of defence to the allegations, or to the evidence, or to the Secretariat’s report [...]

For these two sins, the ICGA punished Rajlich in every way available to it -- stripped of his titles, 'banned for life from competing in the World Computer Chess Championship or any other event organized by or sanctioned by the ICGA', and asked to return all trophies and prize money -- punishments which, in my opinion, far exceed the gravity of the offense. Add to this the damage to Rajlich's reputation and commercial activities, and it is conceivable that the affair will evolve into a civil lawsuit.

I wonder if Levy and the ICGA realize how much their action has diminished the value and reputation of their WCCC. Knowing that the results can be changed at any time in the future, who can take these events seriously? It is entirely possible that one of the newly promoted winners in the years 2007-2010 will one day be judged to have committed the same offense as Rajlich; then the former no.3 placeholder in the tournament will become the 'winner'. I can even imagine that all participants in an event will eventually be disqualified, as though the event had never taken place. As things were, WCCC events got little attention from the chess world. Now they will get even less. Well done, ICGA, (not).

'Prevented from Taking Part for Political Reasons'

2011-06-29T17:40:00.003+02:00

I started to tackle the new material mentioned in Qualification Paths, and quickly ran into a frequent problem that occurs with data maintenance: The more old material you have, the more work it takes to incorporate new material. The reason is that everything has to be cross checked for consistency. The only thing I was able to finish in the time available was to add new clippings to two zonal pages -- C02 (1951-54) and C05 (1960-63). One clipping on the 1961 Marianske Lazne event mentioned,

The [FIDE] Congress unanimously decided to state as a general principle that a tournament in which one or more players for political reasons are prevented from taking part cannot be recognized as a FIDE tournament. Prior to the Berg en Dal tournament such an event had never occurred in the history of FIDE. (FIDE Review 1961)

The Berg en Dal tournament was played in the fifth FIDE World Championship cycle (C05). To put this in perspective, the current cycle, culminating next year in the Anand - Gelfand title match, is C24, and the next World Cup, 2011 Khanty-Mansiysk, is C25. The situation where 'one or more players for political reasons are prevented from taking part' has been a recurring problem in recent years, where the 2004 FIDE Knockout Matches in Tripoli, Libya, provided numerous examples. I recently wrote about this in The Worst World Championship Ever. Maybe it's due to the passage of time, but the early FIDE officers seem to have been wiser than the bumbling bozos currently in charge.

Incidentally, the 'Berg en Dal tournament' would be better called the 'Ubbergen tournament'. As mentioned in another clipping, Berg en Dal was a hotel in the town of Ubbergen, Netherlands.

Insiders' Guide to the 2011 FIDE Candidate Matches

2011-06-08T17:26:00.003+02:00

R1 TB, 9 May

Intermission

R2 G1, 12 May

CB: Semis G1: Gelfand and Kamsky draw
CV: Semi-finals start with two draws
CM: Semi-finals, Day 1: Two Draws
CT: Shipov’s live commentary on the Candidates SF, Game 1

R2 G2, 13 May

CB: Semis G2: White wins both games!... Almost
CV: Candidates: two more draws
CM: Semi-Finals, Day 2: Two More Draws
CT: Kramnik: I thought of banning castling before the 10th move • Shipov’s live commentary on the Candidates SF, Game 2

R2 G3, 14 May

CB: Semis G3: Blood, sweat and tears
CV: Two more draws on third day Candidates semi-finals
CM: Semi-Finals, Day 3: Guess the Result!
CT: Shipov’s live commentary on the Candidates SF, Game 3

R2 G4, 15 May

CB: Semifinals G4: Blood, sweat and real tears this time
CV: Again two draws, tie-breaks on Monday
CM: Semi-Finals, Day 4
CT: Shipov’s live commentary on the Candidates SF, Game 4

R2 TB, 16 May

CB: Semis Tiebreak: G-Day for the Ks
CV: Gelfand and Grischuk reach Candidates final
CM: Semi-Final Tiebreaks: Grischuk, Gelfand Advance
CT: Gelfand and Grischuk’s press conference

Intermission

CN: G-Man Shootout in Candidates Final
CM: A Preview of the Gelfand - Grischuk Match

R3 G1, 19 May

CB: Finals: First game drawn after fight
CV: First game Candidates final drawn
CM: Final: Game 1 is Drawn

R3 G2, 20 May

R3 G3, 21 May

R3 G4, 23 May

CB: Finals G4: Another short draw
CV: Candidates final: game 4 also drawn
CM: Game 4: Dr(y)awn
CT: Shipov’s live commentary on the Candidates Final, Game 4

R3 G5, 24 May

CB: Finals G5: No winner in trenchwar
CV: Candidates: game 5 also drawn
CM: Game 5 is...Drawn
CT: Shipov’s live commentary on the Candidates Final, Game 5

R3 G6, 25 May

Post-match

2011 Kazan Candidate Matches

2011-06-01T17:41:00.000+02:00

I updated my page on the 2011 Candidates Event to include the results and the PGN game scores. I also added links for the eight competitors to my Index of Players. It's a great result for GM Gelfand, who earned a shot at World Champion Anand in 2012. According to Chessgames.com's Overall Record, the two players first met in 1989 and since then 'Viswanathan Anand beat Boris Gelfand 16 to 6, with 43 draws'. It promises to be a great match.

News from the Catwalk

2011-05-25T13:44:00.002+02:00

While most of the other top GMs have been slugging it out (so to speak) at the Shazam Candidates, vying for a crack at World Champion Anand, what has Anand's heir apparent, Magnus 'Catwalk' Carlsen, been up to?

Photographs by Anton Corbijn

He's been plastered all over London!

Movie making may have filled Corbijn with a renewed sense of adventure, but photography remains his primary medium. His portraits of actress Gemma Arterton and chess champion Magnus Carlsen are plastered across the London underground in a new advertising campaign for fashion brand G-Star RAW and his latest musical collaboration is with Canadian band Arcade Fire, who he shot for a sixth time last November.

From Shadowplay: An interview with Anton Corbijn.

Qualification Paths

2011-05-18T15:53:00.000+02:00

My request for further info in Zonal '?'s brought a number of helpful responses, some of them very detailed, which I'll tackle in a future post. One of the common threads across the responses was a summary of the qualification paths by players who qualified into the next stage, i.e. who qualified by what event into the interzonal (or knockout tournament). The best known overview of qualification paths is found on Glenn Giffen's zonal pages:-

I've collected a number of references related to this topic and will add them as I can. I started with the following cycles -- C01 (1946-51), C03 (1954-57), C04 (1957-60), C06 (1963-66), and C08 (1969-72). More to come...

Meet Cathy Forbes

2011-05-11T17:16:00.002+02:00

I picked up a used copy of 'Meet the Masters' by Cathy Forbes (Tournament Chess, 1994) and was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was largely about the World Championship in the early 1990s. Mixed in with other luminaries, it has interviews with Keene, Fischer, Kasparov, Short, and Timman, plus Xie Jun; only Karpov is missing. I had already read Forbes' works on the Polgar sisters (Batsford, 1992) and Nigel Short (Cadogan, 1993), and knew that she was a keen observer of top level chess. For more about the author, see Cathy Warwick (née Forbes; Wikipedia); for a sample of her work, see Bobby Fischer, the Holy Grail - A Balkan Odyssey.

Zonals, Current Cycles, and GM Kamsky

2011-05-04T13:30:00.002+02:00

A few weeks ago I linked my index of World Championship Zonals to my pages on the various interzonals (see 'Chess Results' by Gino Di Felice), so it seemed appropriate to make the round trip. I linked the main index page for the World Chess Championship, plus the page on FIDE Events 1948-1990, to the clipping pages for the various zonal cycles.

While I as at it, I added a few doodads to my page on the 2011 Candidates Event, which gets underway this week. I also added a new page for the forthcoming 2011 World Cup. FIDE has said so little about this event that I suppose they are still hammering out the details of the new cycle.

***

The May 2011 Chess Life (CL), has an interview titled 'Kamsky on the Record' (p.30), where the USA's second ranked GM mentioned something that didn't seem right to me. Here is an excerpt of the passage, with my apologies for treating it like an image. The editor of CL recently eliminated the HTML version of the magazine and I haven't figured out how to do a text copy/paste.

The sentence that caught my attention was Kamsky saying, 'I was supposed to play the World Champion for the title', where he was talking about his December victory in the 2007 World Cup. According to my page on the 2008-09 Matches, FIDE had already announced in July 2007 that the winner of the World Cup would only get a World Championship match if Kramnik won the double round robin title event at 2007 Mexico City. Anand won that event in October 2007, well before Kamsky won the World Cup. There was never any question of Kamsky playing a title match without first winning an intermediate match.

Zonal '?'s

2011-04-27T16:19:00.002+02:00

I spent some time going through my page on the World Chess Championship Zonals, looking for events marked with a '?', and trying to resolve the uncertainty. By doing this, I was able to eliminate about half of the '?'s on the page. The remaining question marks are genuine mysteries where I'm missing a piece of critical info. For example, in the second cycle (1951-54), I don't know how R.Wade qualified for the 1952 Saltsjobaden (Stockholm) Interzonal. If you have information on any of the events marked '?', please send me an email using the 'Contact' address behind my profile.

'Chess Results' by Gino Di Felice

2011-04-20T16:34:00.005+02:00

The same ebutaljib who helped sort out the qualifying events for Zonal Cycle 2008-2009 informed me about two books with crosstables for the early zonals: 'Chess Results' by Gino Di Felice, 1951-1955 and 1956-1960. I added these to the Clippings pages for cycles two (1951-54) through five (1960-63) linked at the end of my index page on World Championship Zonals.

While I was making the update, I added links from that index page to my individual pages on the Interzonals and to other events that depended on the results of the zonals. Thanks again, ebutaljib!

***

Later: In the same correspondence, ebutaljib commented on clippings for cycle five, Zonals 1960-63. I added the comments to relevant portions of that page: [Ref. BD191630].

Forthcoming Zonals++ in 2011

2011-04-06T11:48:00.003+02:00

In ~~London,~~ Siberia, Turkey, Siberia I noted a spate of upcoming continental championships and zonals, events qualifying players into the next World Cup, which is scheduled for August in Khanty-Mansiysk. To keep track of progress on these, I added a new column, KO Khanty-Mansiysk (Cycle 25), to my page on Zonals : Links (and Other References). It's worth noting that, in addition to the African Championships in June, there are zonals foreseen for all three African zones.

Zonals & Bad Championships

2011-03-30T16:14:00.003+02:00

Using two recent summaries as a guide -- The U.S. Championship as FIDE Qualifier and Zonals : Links (and Other References) -- I updated my index of World Chess Championship Zonals. The last five cycles are now more accurate than they are misleading, largely due to the Zonals : Links records taken from ratings.fide.com, a wonderful resource for chess history that I only discovered while working on the zonals project. If you've never used it before, try entering a name, e.g. Seattle, in the box titled 'Archive Tournaments Database'.

***

Working on cycle 21 -- that's the one that culminated in the 2004 Tripoli KO -- prompted me to write The Worst World Championship Ever on my main blog. After I posted it, I started thinking that maybe it wasn't really the 'Worst World Championship Ever'. The aborted 1975 Fischer - Karpov match and the terminated 1984 Karpov - Kasparov match are two other strong choices, not to mention the nearly-abandoned 1993 Karpov - Timman match. I just realized that all three of those matches featured the same player. Now that's a coincidence!

The U.S. Championship as FIDE Qualifier

2011-03-23T17:05:00.008+01:00

I took another stab at FIDE Rating Reports for Zone 2.x, concentrating on how USA players qualified into the various FIDE events. My goal was to determine which of the U.S. Championships doubled as zonal qualifiers.

The following list shows info on the U.S. Championship from Wikipedia. I've added venue and, where the event was a zonal, the subsequent FIDE event. The number in the first column is the series number of the U.S. Championship.

38 • 1992 Durango • Wolff, Patrick -> 1993 Biel IZ
39 • 1993 Long Beach • Shabalov, Alexander; Yermolinsky, Alex
40 • 1994 Key West • Gulko, Boris -> 1997 Groningen KO
41 • 1995 Modesto • de Firmian, Nick; Wolff, Patrick; Ivanov, Alexander
42 • 1996 Parsippany • Yermolinsky, Alex
43 • 1997 Chandler • Benjamin, Joel
44 • 1998 Denver • de Firmian, Nick -> 1999 Las Vegas KO
45 • 1999 Salt Lake • Gulko, Boris -> 2000 New Delhi KO
46 • 2000 Seattle • Benjamin, Joel; Shabalov, Alexander; Seirawan, Yasser -> 2001 Moscow KO
47 • 2002 Seattle • Christiansen, Larry
48 • 2003 Seattle • Shabalov, Alexander -> 2004 Tripoli KO

~~For the 2004 Tripoli KO, all USA players qualified from the 2003 Continental Championship, Buenos Aires.~~ All of the preceding KOs were World Championship events, although 1997 Groningen gets an asterisk ('*'), since reigning FIDE champion Karpov was seeded directly into the final round which was played after a short delay at another venue.

I didn't have time to double check the following, but I believe the U.S. Championship in odd years qualified to the corresponding Khanty-Mansiysk KO of that year, which were World Cup qualifiers to a subsequent event.

49 • 2005 La Jolla • Nakamura, Hikaru; Tournament ('was played in 2004, but called the 2005 Championship, for legal reasons')
50 • 2006 San Diego • Onischuk, Alexander
51 • 2007 Stillwater • Shabalov, Alexander
52 • 2008 Tulsa • Shulman, Yury
53 • 2009 St. Louis • Nakamura, Hikaru
54 • 2010 St. Louis • Kamsky, Gata
55 • 2011 St. Louis • ?

I'll update my page on the World Chess Championship Zonals as soon as I can.

***

Later: After GM Shabalov, the 2003 U.S. Champion, informed me that the 2003 event was indeed a zonal, I reviewed my work and corrected my records. Apologies for the error.

Names: Certainty and Uncertainty

2011-03-16T11:33:00.001+01:00

Now that the results are in for the 2009-2010 Women's Grand Prix, Doha, the final event in the 2009-2010 FIDE Women's Grand Prix, I added the players to the Index of Women Players for all women's events.

Although no format has yet been announced for the next cycle (2011-?) of the unrestricted World Championship, it appears from my recent post 2010 FIDE General Assembly : Whither the World Championship?, that it will follow the same World Cup -> Candidates -> Title Match format being used for the current cycle (2008-12?). This means that the unrestricted World Championship and the Women's World Championship will be using different formats: a three year cycle (my best guess) and a two year cycle (according to FIDE's announced plans). Let's see which format succeeds better.

***

By coincidence, I recently received a couple of emails related to Korchnoi's matches from the 1970s. The first asked for clarification on where the 1974 Korchnoi - Mecking quarterfinal candidates match had been held, so I added a detail to my page on the 1973-75 Candidates Matches. This reminded me that I still have a number of historical matches which lack the month when the match was played. The second email was about a paragraph in my page on the 1978 Karpov - Korchnoi Title Match, titled Yogurt, Parapsychology, Ananda Marga, ... Where I had written,

When play resumed for game 18, Rita Mataragnon, who worked for [a professor in the Department of Psychology at Manila University, Dr. Jaime] Bulatao, was present in Baguio, seated in the fifth row. Luc Claes, another associate of Bulatao, was present for game 19, along with groups of young psychology students. Karpov sent a letter to Schmid after game 20 complaining about the students.

I learned that the real identity of the person named Luc Claes is not at all certain. I rewrote the paragraph to reflect the uncertainty.

2009-2010 Women's Grand Prix, Doha

2011-03-09T14:21:00.001+01:00

I added the sixth and last Grand Prix event of the current cycle, held in Doha, Qatar, to my page on the 2009-2010 FIDE Women's Grand Prix. The next event on the women's circuit will be the 2011 Women's World Championship Match, currently listed on the FIDE Calendar without details. With Hou Yifan (China) having qualified via the 2010 FIDE Knockout Matches and Humpy Koneru (India) via the Grand Prix, I hope we see bids for the match from both nations. They are not only the two most populous countries in the world, they also represent two of the fastest growing economies.

The Ballad of London 2012

2011-03-02T17:29:00.006+01:00

The recent collapse of negotations between FIDE and the London organizers on holding the next World Championship match just before the 2012 Olympics marked the second time that FIDE has failed to agree on terms for the match. The first failure occurred almost two years ago. The bid came from the same German group (UEP) that had organized the 2008 Anand - Kramnik title match at Bonn, Germany.

Today FIDE has finalised the bid procedure for the Candidates 2010 and World Championship Match 2011 and is pleased to announce that it has received an offer from Universal Event Promotion GmbH to organise the Candidates. (UEP make bid for Candidates 2010 and World Championship 2011; Fide.com; 6 February 2009)

The discussions lasted three months. (The slip from 'World Championship 2011' to 'World Championship 2012' occurs later in the story.)

Due to different agendas relating to organisational sovereignty and commercial rights, the parties failed to reach an agreement. Aggravating circumstances included FIDE's financial expectations beyond the original tender details. (World Championship cycle: FIDE-UEP negotiations fail; Chessbase.com; 13 May 2009)

The mention of 'different agendas' was explained in a followup article, Ilyumzhinov: 'It is not the size of the logo, it’s the principle', (Chessbase.com; 19 May 2009), and achieved credibility in certain influential circles, e.g. Logos and cigarettes, (Chessvibes.com; 21 May 2009). A few months later the London organizers popped into the picture.

The [FIDE] Executive Board in Halkidiki, Greece gave an option to London to organise the World Chess Championship in 2012. The Organizing Committee requested the option for Olympic Games year in London and they have until February 15th 2010 to exercise the option which must include the offer of a prize fund similar to that for the match between champion GM V. Anand and GM V. Topalov next April. If the option is not exercised then FIDE will open the bidding procedure. (London given option for World Championship 2012; Fide.com; 2009-10-20)

Although nothing was heard publicly of the resulting discussions, there were tensions between the negotiating parties. I reported on these in my most recent post, with an extract from FIDE's official minutes.

World Championship Match 2012. London has an option. We are facing a serious problem regarding a tax issue. Mr. Makropoulos asked approval for the Presidential Board to authorise the finalising of the details. He said that if we are not able to finalise in the next two weeks, maybe we will have to open a bidding procedure. The players who play in the candidates’ matches want to know first who will organise the final match, before they sign the contract for the candidates match. They want to know the organisers and the conditions. (2010 FIDE General Assembly : Whither the World Championship?, on events which took place from 29 September to 2 October 2010)

The 'two weeks' became two months, then stretched to four months, before the chess world learned that negotiations had failed.

Chess Promotions Ltd has been in discussions with FIDE since February 2010 regarding the staging of the WCC in London. A € 50,000 deposit was paid to FIDE to secure an option on the WCC 2012 match as negotiations commenced and finance was sought. Having secured the necessary funds, on July 21st 2010, CPL sent FIDE a formal offer and a detailed commercial contract to stage the next WCC match in London with financial terms similar to the 2010 WCC match at Sofia.

Unfortunately agreement could not be reached in the autumn. Following more discussions in London in January, CPL asked FIDE to accept the offer by Saturday 29th January 2011. No such acceptance was forthcoming. Therefore, with regret, CPL has withdrawn its offer in time for the next Executive Board meeting which starts today in Turkey in order to give the EB clarity and the opportunity to consider alternatives. The timeline to stage a WCC match before the Olympic Games in May 2012 is now too short.

Signed Malcolm Pein, CEO Chess Promotions Ltd. (London withdraws 2012 World Chess Championship Bid; Chess.co.uk/twic; 3 February 2011)

The chess world loves a good knock-down-drag-out fight, especially between FIDE and a group of influential organizers, and the main chess discussion groups weighed in quickly with blame assessment, much of it centering on the November 2010 withdrawal of GM Magnus Carlsen from the current World Championship cycle, a subject I covered at the time in Carlsen Quits (Again). Here are some representative comments, including an alternative conspiracy theory.

From London No Longer Calling; Chessninja.com; 3 February 2011; comment by rdh: The London sponsors have been very keen to cover their tracks if the Carlsen withdrawal was really important to them. In December I attended a dinner at which they spoke eloquently about their hopes to bring the WC match to London, and that was long after Carlsen had withdrawn. You can say they were just covering themselves if you like, but I'm not sure what you think they needed to cover themselves for. Given that they prefer to remain individually anonymous, it's not really clear what nefarious scheme one might suspect them of, and having seen them talk to Anand, Kramnik, etc (also present at this dinner, as was Carlsen) they don't strike me as Carlsen fanbois [fanboys] particularly. Moreover, I've known Malcolm (or "Pein", if you prefer) for 35 years and he's a straight guy [...]

London withdraws bid to organize 2012 World Championship; Chessvibes.com; 3 February 2011 • KPF: Around the time of the last FIDE elections last year parallel to the Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk, Malcolm Pein was cited on TWIC for some harsh, personal comments on Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. I don’t remember the exact wording, but besides saying that he found Kirsan utterly unfit as president of FIDE on the background of his track record , he indirectly accused him of being responsible for politically motivated murders in his home country. He would never even contemplate to shake hands with such a man. It is clear then that now it’s simply payback time. • Malcolm Pein: [KPF's] remarks about the reasons we didn’t reach agreement with FIDE are based on reasonable assumptions and some hard facts, I have certainly said some harsh things about [Ilyumzhinov] but [KPF's] conclusion is wrong. I had a note from the man himself just before the deadline but it wasn’t his signature on the contract, so that was it, offer expired. They were still keen to do the match in London but the time for talking and negotiating was over. Whatever they think about I have written, the chunky sanctioning fee and the opportunity to be running this event in the shadow of the Olympics whose recognition they desperately crave, was more than enough incentive for them. Judging from the horrified reaction, they were not expecting a withdrawal but some people mean what they say. I gave them a deadline and they didn’t meet it.

FIDE's initial reaction was guarded,

New composition of the Presidential Board discussed the enormous agenda consisting of 60 items. The most important among them is the question of holding the World Chess Championship 2012. It was decided that a separate press-release on this item will be spread the soonest. (1st Quarter FIDE Presidential Board; Fide.com; 7 February 2011)

and on the same day that Malcolm Pein issued a further statement,

London's bid for the FIDE World Championship match in 2012 has been withdrawn. Following over a year of talks and six months of negotiations, I wrote to FIDE in time for the Executive Board meeting in Turkey that concluded on Sunday to advise them that I felt fifteen months was insufficient time to organise the event properly.

The plan was to stage the match, between Vishy Anand and one of the eight Candidates, in May, just before the Olympic Games. The London bid was substantial and given the costs of staging a tournament in London compared with Sofia, the total outlay would have exceeded that of the 2010 match between Vishy Anand and Veselin Topalov which boasted a substantial prize fund. (London withdraws World Chess Championship Bid; Chess.co.uk/twic/malcolmpein; 9 February 2011)

FIDE responded to Pein (Open letter of Mr. Israel Gelfer concerning the FWCM 2012; Fide.com; 9 February 2011:)

On February 2010 FIDE granted you the option to organize the FWCM "under the same conditions like the Sofia match between Anand and Topalov". On 15 February you signed a memorandum accepting the conditions and regulations of the match and two days later paid a deposit of 50,000 Euro for such option.

After that, for a long period, you have been proposing several changes from the Sofia contract. In July 2010 (after the original deadline was extended by FIDE) you sent to FIDE a different version of the contract with different conditions. For most among this were important financial conditions which had to be clarified first. In a constructive manner FIDE, wishing to hold the match in London, accepted several conditions interalia reducing the prize fund by 20% due to UK taxes not covered by the organisers, reduction of the contribution to FIDE, reduction of the number of principals. In January we met in London when I proposed to discuss the agreement based on the Sofia contract as amended above.

In our meeting both you and Mr. Andrew Finan replied that you only consider the version dictated by you, claiming that they are no substantial differences between the two contracts. You made it very clear, as you recall, that the sponsor of the match "lost interest" in it after the withdrawal of GM Magnus Carlsen and consequently instructed you "not to negotiate at all about anything" i.e. "take it or leave it".

Even after the meeting in London I was trying to solve the problems and I informed FIDE about the situation. The FIDE Secretariat then gave me a list of 36 differences between our version and your proposed contract and 16 changes from your original July draft. Many of which were completely unacceptable to FIDE, interalia FIDE being responsible of player’s taxes in their respective jurisdictions, no liability for any cancellation for any reason and putting FIDE as responsible for several obligations which were and are not in FIDE`s hands.

Moreover, in your contract you change the regulations of the match. Furthermore you have informed us only on 27 January that the players may be liable up to 50% tax. This means that the net prize fund could be as little as near 1.2 million EUR after tax where as our agreement was that you will provide, as in Sofia, a prize fund of 2.0 million EUR after tax. Therefore your statement that the conditions were equal to Sofia was incorrect.

In order to try and solve the problems I asked for an extension of the signing date until the Presidential Bord meeting in early February. You were also invited by the FIDE President to come to Antalya so that we could try to reach an agreement. Unfortunately this proposal was rejected and you announced the withdrawal of your offer.

It is clear, and was obvious to me and expressed specifically by you, that the withdrawal of GM Carlsen from the WC cycle meant that the sponsor was no longer interested in sponsoring the match.

There is certainly much in the FIDE response that can be scrutinized -- the wisdom of accepting bids before the players have been identified, the equivalance of Sofia and London, the total cost of a match vs. its value to sponsors, the financial expectations of the players, the responsibility for taxes or tax-related advice, and the time lapses between discussions -- but Mark Crowther of TWIC (a service funded by Malcolm Pein) squashed the speculation on Carlsen along with a rap on the knuckles for having revealed details about the negotiations.

The statement itself reveals details (unverified) of the negotiations that one would expect both parties to keep confidential. Pein's press release scrupulously avoided this and was diplomatic in tone. Malcolm Pein made it clear in talking to me that if London were not interested in hosting the championships any more after the withdrawal of Carlsen from the cycle, they would not have left the offer on the table (a six figure sum) [English pounds?] for more than two months after he declared he was out. (FIDE respond to London withdrawing World Chess Championship Bid; Chess.co.uk/twic; 9 February 2011)

Another insider, FIDE Vice President Ilya Levitov, a newly appointed member of the Presidential Board and a rising star in international chess politics, offered further insight into the difficulties.

Q: On the eve of the FIDE Presidential Board meeting the organising committee of the World Championship match, which was planned for spring 2012 in London, announced that the English wouldn’t be running the match. They explained their decision was based on FIDE’s unwillingness to negotiate with them. They say that the FIDE functionaries didn’t respond to them even after they received financial guarantees in the form of a 50,000 dollar deposit. So what happened? • A: I think London’s refusal was directly linked to Magnus Carlsen refusing to take part in the World Championship cycle. The sponsor of the London match, a big chess fan and a wealthy man, expressed a great desire to hold the World Championship match. But after Carlsen dropped out my deep conviction, also based on the information available to me, is that the London organisers ceased to want to run such a match. It seems they considered a direct refusal to be undignified, and therefore they decided to put forward completely unrealistic conditions.

Q: For example? • A: There were more than 35 conditions. At first they promised a prize fund of 2 million euros, and then 1.6 million euros. They wanted to burden FIDE with the cost of the players’ taxes and they didn’t want to put money towards the World Championship Development Commission. In case of one of the players refusing to play they wanted themselves, and not FIDE, to take the decision about the replacement. But there are points in the regulations which FIDE can’t simply bypass. Of course, I’m not saying that FIDE’s management is ideal. I wasn’t present at the negotiations... (Levitov on the collapse of the London match Chessintranslation.com; 10 February 2011)

As for me, I don't understand why FIDE would want to justify this latest failure by another recent failure where they played a significant role: the withdrawal of Carlsen from the qualifying cycle. What I do understand is that world class chess has lost a golden opportunity for international media attention. The botched saga might not have been as dramatic as the breakdown of the 1975 Fischer - Karpov negotiations, but it has many earmarks and symptoms of the same sort of bureaucratic failure.

2010 FIDE General Assembly : Whither the World Championship?

2011-02-23T13:54:00.008+01:00

In my most recent post, ~~London,~~ Siberia, Turkey, Siberia, ..., I promised to follow-up a post from a year ago 2009 FIDE Executive Board : Whither the World Championship?, by extracting relevant info from the 81st FIDE General Assembly Minutes and Annexes, '29 September to 2 October 2010 in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia'. The 2010 edition of FIDE's largest annual meeting was held during a FIDE election year, meaning that more emphasis was placed on the election than on other FIDE matters. The 2010 minutes contain far less material of interest to the World Championship than was found in the 2009 minutes.

Is it worth dissecting discussions that occurred almost five months ago? In my opinion, yes. It gives us a good feel for the general direction and management of the world's most important chess federation. Ilyumzhinov's annual report contained more about past achievements since his election in 2006 than about future directions. It also included one very curious remark.

1. Report of the President. (29 September) [...] On the same topic he would like to inform everyone of the bidding procedure for the 2009 World Youth Championships. These tournaments have become the most important and prestigious tournaments of FIDE, where about 2000 sportsmen, trainers and accompanying persons usually attend. Among them are future Grandmasters and World Champions. They are the future of FIDE. [...]

The italics are mine. In the past the World Championship events were 'the most important and prestigious tournaments of FIDE'. That position has now been ceded, at least in the FIDE President's mind, to the World Youth Championships. Another surprise, to me at least, was in the greatly increased commercial value of the Olympiad to FIDE.

Regarding this Olympiad 2010, the expenses of the Organisers total from 12 to 14 mln USD. FIDE received from the Khanty-Mansiysk organizers 900,000 USD (Dresden [2008] paid 100,000 USD, and Calvia [2004] even less). The most important thing is the considerable improvement of conditions for CACDEC members, for the arbiters, and for the first time there will be a prize fund of 200,000 euros. Charter flights, costing 1.2 million USD, have also been organized. Similar conditions have been received from the Istanbul Organisers.

After that, Ilyumzhinov touched on the World Championship directly.

On the World Championship cycle, he said we should move forward and meet today’s challenges, with new development in the chess world, especially in the commercial part. The summary is clear. We have come back to a traditional system with a world championship cycle and a final match. [...]

but then returned to a summary of past title matches.

This system is more attractive for sponsors and is more understandable to them. This has been proven by the two matches that took place during this period [post-Turin 2006] – Anand-Kramnik in Bonn [2008] and Anand-Topalov in Sofia [2010]. [...]

During the last Presidential Board, he had attended the closing of the Anand-Topalov match in Sofia. He wanted to express the gratitude of FIDE to the Government and Chess Federation of Bulgaria for the brilliant organization and holding of the World Championship. As everyone knew, there had been a lot of scepticism on whether equal conditions for both players could be achieved, but FIDE together with the Organising Committee managed to do everyone possible and necessary, even to overcome the force majeur situation, and the match was held on the highest level. [...]

No thoughts about the current or next World Championship cycle? We find that later in the minutes.

Section [8?]: FIDE Meetings, Tournaments and Matches (29 September) [...]

8.6. World Cup 2011. Deputy President, G. Makropoulos said that it might take place in Khanty-Mansiysk. The President would advise.

8.7. Candidates Matches 2011. The event shall be organised in Kazan, Russian Federation. Annex 18 is the list of participants. Mr. Makropoulos said the final contract had not been signed. We have discussed several details here with the Russian Federation. He requested the authorisation for the President and the Board to finalise the discussion. General Assembly approved.

[8.?] World Championship Match 2012. London has an option. We are facing a serious problem regarding a tax issue. Mr. Makropoulos asked approval for the Presidential Board to authorise the finalising of the details. He said that if we are not able to finalise in the next two weeks, maybe we will have to open a bidding procedure. The players who play in the candidates’ matches want to know first who will organise the final match, before they sign the contract for the candidates match. They want to know the organisers and the conditions.

8.8. Grand Prix 2008-2010. Annex 19 is the final standings.

8.9. Women’s World Chess Championship 2010. The event shall take place in Hatay, Turkey, 2-25 December 2010.

8.10. Women’s Grand Prix. Annex 20 is the current standings. Mr Borg reported that there is one leg to organise. The Chileans cannot organise the tournament this year because of the earthquake.

As I mentioned in the 'London, Siberia' post, the World Cup is now on the official calendar in August at Khanty-Mansiysk; the London match fell through end-January, when the organizers withdrew their bid; and the Women’s Grand Prix was rescheduled (it's going on right now). Although I haven't seen any formal announcement for the World Cup, the FIDE handbook has a section on 08. Regulations for the World Chess Cup 2011, which Google dates to no later than '12 Dec 2010'. Among many other details, the regulations specify who qualifies (plus the rules for replacements),

2. 3. 5. The number of qualifiers for each continent is: Europe 46, Americas 19, Asia 19, Africa 6

3. 1. Qualifiers – There are 128 qualifiers (in order of priority): World Champion + four (4) semi-finalists from the World Cup 2009, Women's World Champion, World Junior U-20 Champions 2009 & 2010, twenty (20) rated players as described in 3.1.2, ninety (90) players from Continental Championships, six (6) FIDE President nominees, four (4) organiser nominees.

the prizes, and qualifications to the next stage.

4. 1. The winner and the runner up of the World Cup 2011 will qualify to the Candidates stage of the World Championship cycle 2011-2013. If there is a 3rd place qualification, a match will be organized together with the final match of the World Cup to decide the 3rd place.

The phrase 'if there is a 3rd place qualification' implies that the rules for the Candidates stage have not yet been fixed. There will be at least two qualifications and possibly three. It's worth noting that every one of the four Khanty-Mansiysk World Cups has seen different rules for qualifying from the World Cup to the Candidates.

Returning to the minutes of the 2010 FIDE General Assembly, paragraph 8.5 on the Chess Olympiad 2014, stated that both federations bidding on the Olympiad (Bulgaria and Norway) 'are bidding to host the World Cup in 2013 as part of their overall package'.

There are many more topics in the minutes to be digested, but that's about all for the World Championship. I might cover some of the other topics -- especially the continent/zone structure, appointed FIDE officers, ethics, SportAccord, and the CNC -- as my future posts call for them.

London, Siberia, Turkey, Siberia, ...

2011-02-16T14:11:00.008+01:00

Since the time I last looked at Current Events, there's been so much activity related to the World Championship that it's about time I pulled my head out of the zonals (see FIDE Rating Reports for Zone 2.x for the last update) and documented some of the news. Following is a summary:

After a months-long news drought about the next World Championship match, it rained in buckets starting with the withdrawal of the London 2012 organizers. I opened a new page, 2012 Title Match, to keep track of the happenings.
FIDE finally published documents related to the 81st FIDE General Assembly Minutes and Annexes -- 'We are publishing the Minutes and Annexes of the General Assembly meeting that was held from 29 September to 2 October 2010 in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia' -- so I'll tackle those as soon as I can. This will be a follow-on to the summary I did in December 2009, 2009 FIDE Executive Board : Whither the World Championship?
Just when I thought that the most recent Women’s World Championship, the 2010 FIDE Knockout Matches, was history, some of the participants released OPEN LETTER to FIDE about the WWCC 2010 [Chessblog.com; lots of comments] • 'We, the players of the Women’s World Chess Championship 2010 in Antakya/Hatay [Turkey] who have signed this document below, would like to share with the chess community and FIDE our thoughts about the level of the organization of the recent women's world championship.'
The women's complaints followed hot on the heels of It’s Turkey’s Move [gambit.blogs.nytimes.com; see 'Related Posts' for previous news] • 'In late December, the Turkish Chess Federation, which had been awarded the right to organize the European Women’s Championship, withdrew as the host.' What's the connection with the World Championship? The European Women’s Championship is a qualifier into the next World Women's Championship.
Of the last 20 news items on Fide.com (covering a little less than three weeks), four were congratulatory messages, three were related to titles, two were site subdomain announcements, and two were the comings & goings of the FIDE President. Given this relative lack of significant news, the FIDE Calendar for this year and for next, FIDE Calendar 2012, take on special importance.

After the Candidates Matches 2011 (Kazan, Russia; 3-May-2011; 27-May-2011), the next big, scheduled event is the World Cup 2011 (Khanty Mansiysk, Russia; 26-Aug-2011; 21-Sep-2011). The first major event in the next cycle, this listing is noteworthy for several reasons. First, the months are a change from all previous World Cups, which were held November - December. Second, previous discussions (see my 'Whither' post above) had the event taking place in Tallinn, Estonia. Third, it is once again, and for the fourth consecutive World Cup, in Khanty Mansiysk (Siberia). Soviet authorities used to banish political opponents to Siberia. Now FIDE authorities send chess players.

There is no official news on the structure of the cycle following the World Cup, but there is unofficial news.

If by 1 March nowhere has been found to hold the four Grand Prix tournaments, then the cycle will be as follows: the candidates matches will consist of three players from the World Cup, three based on ratings, the nominee of the organising country and the player who lost the World Championship match. - Levitov on the collapse of the London match [Chessintranslation.com]

According to that same Chess in Translation post, Levitov is 'a FIDE Vice President and the man in charge of the Russian Chess Federation'. The schedule change for the World Cup has an impact on the qualifying events held by the continents and zones. Here are the continental events currently listed on the calendar.

1.0 European Individual Chess Championship 2011 (Aix-les-Bains, France; 21-Mar-2011; 3-Apr-2011)
2.0 Panamerican Continental Chess Championship 2011 (Mexico)
3.0 Asian Continental Championships 2011 (Mashad, Iran; 1-May-2011; 11-May-2011)
4.0 African Individual Chess Championships 2011 (Maputo, Mozambique; 19-Sep-2011; 1-Oct-2011)

The Panamerican championship isn't scheduled yet, and the African Championship takes place after the World Cup. As for the zones, the following are currently listed:-

2.1 (St Louis, USA; 13-Apr-2011; 28-Apr-2011)
2.2 (Colombia; 22-Mar-2011; 29-Mar-2011)
3.1 (Yemen; 27-May-2011)
3.3 (Tagaytay, Philippines; 23-May-2011; 31-May-2011)
3.4 (Tashkent, Uzbekistan; 2-Jun-2011; 15-Jun-2011)
3.5 (Beijing, China; 13-May-2011; 22-May-2011)
3.6 (Rotorua, New Zealand; 25-Jan-2011; 31-Jan-2011)
4.3 (Gaborone, Botswana 29-Apr-2011 9-May-2011)

The FIDE Grand Prix might be dead, but the Women's Grand Prix lives on:-

2009-10, no.6 (Doha, Qatar; 20-Feb-2011; 6-Mar-2011)
2011-12, no.1 (Nalchik, Russia; 16-Apr-2011; 30-Apr-2011)
2011-12, no.2 (Astrakhan, Russia; 1-Jun-2011; 15-Jun-2011)
2011-12, no.3 (?; 1-Sep-2011; 15-Sep-2011)
2011-12, no.4 (Istanbul, Turkey; 16-Apr-2012; 30-Apr-2012)
2011-12, no.5 (Jermuk, Armenia; 1-Jun-2012; 15-Jun-2012)
2011-12, no.6 (?; 1-Sep-2012; 15-Sep-2012)

A few other events have venues and dates (Is the schedule conflict with the SportAccord Mind Games the reason the World Cup was shifted?):-

2nd Quarter 2011 Presidential Board (Al Ain, UAE; 4-Jun-2011; 7-Jun-2011)
82nd FIDE Congress 2011 (Krakow, Poland; 15-Oct-2011; 22-Oct-2011)
SportAccord Mind Games 2011 (Beijing, China; 8-Dec-2011; 17-Dec-2011)

And a few lack one or both:-

Women's World Championship Match 2011
World Championship Match 2012 (London, England)
Women's World Championship 2012 (Khanty Mansiysk, Russia)
World Chess Olympiad 2012 (Istanbul, Turkey) [FIDE General Assembly]

That's a lot of news for the World Chess Championship. I'll follow these up as time and info permit.

FIDE Rating Reports for Zone 2.x

2011-02-09T17:55:00.000+01:00

Continuing with FIDE Rating Reports for Zonals, I added links for the America's Continental Championship (as it is called by FIDE and which I number unofficially as zone 2.0) and for the U.S. Championship (zone 2.1) to my page on World Chess Championship Zonals : Links (and Other References). Due to the irregular intervals of the FIDE World Championships and of the U.S. Championships, this was more difficult to piece together than I had expected. I'm still not sure it's complete and correct.

FIDE Rating Reports for Zonals

2011-02-02T17:28:00.002+01:00

I added a new page, Zonals : Links (and Other References) to my index of World Chess Championship : Zonals. For now it only has links to rating reports on ratings.fide.com, but I expect that it will eventually encompass more material.

I ran into problems documenting events for the U.S Championship (zone 2.1) in the context of the American Continental Championships (which I number unofficially as 2.0) and couldn't solve them in the time I had available. I'll return to those events another time.

Zonal Cycles 2004-2005 & 2006-2007

2011-01-26T11:17:00.001+01:00

Working from FIDE documents published prior to the 2005 & 2007 World Cups at Khanty-Mansiysk, I researched the events for the zonal cycles 2004-2005 and 2006-2007 (cycle no.22 & no.23 in my way of counting), and updated my page on the World Chess Championship Zonals.

Zonal Cycle 2008-2009 Index

2011-01-19T09:16:00.002+01:00

Last year I wrote a post titled Resources for Candidates++ and for Zonals++ with a link to a relevant post, Next World Championship Cycle (rybkaforum.net), authored by a certain ebutaljib. Some time later ebutaljib contacted me to inform me about more of his resources, including 2009 World Cup Qualifiers (forums.ubi.com), with detailed data and links on zonal cycle 2008-2009. I compared his data to mine, made a few additions, and updated my index of World Chess Championship Zonals. Thanks, ebutaljib!

Fischer in the World Championship

2011-01-12T10:18:00.004+01:00

While working on a post for my main blog, The Brady Bunch, I noticed that Frank Brady's book 'Bobby Fischer: Profile of a Prodigy' (Dover 1989), had good summaries of all the zonal events where Fischer participated. I updated the relevant zonal pages with specific page references, combined them with links about Fischer from my World Championship Index of players (A-G), and created the following table. The links to zonal pages are in the 'ZT' column.

**Fischer's World Chess Championship Participation**
WCC	ZT	IZ	CT	TM
1960	1957-12; Brady p.20	Portoroz 1958	Yugoslavia 1959
1963	1960-12; Brady p.41	Stockholm 1962	Curacao 1962
1966	1962-12; Brady p.68
1969	1965-12; Brady p.92	Sousse 1967
1972	1969-11; Brady p.155, 173-174	Palma de Mallorca 1970	Candidate Matches 1971	Reykjavik 1972
1975				(1975 Fischer - Karpov)
***
1992				(1992 Fischer - Spassky)

The left column 'WCC' is the year when the corresponding title match was played. The right column 'TM' shows the title matches where Fischer had a role. I've included the 1992 Fischer - Spassky rematch in the TM column to avoid creating another column. I don't believe that anyone except Fischer considered that match to have been for a recognized title.

Current Events

2011-01-05T17:43:00.000+01:00

Catching up on current events, I added the participants from the 2010 Women's World Championship to the Index of Women Players for all Women's World Championship events. I also added recent FIDE announcements to my page on the ~~2010~~ 2011 Candidates Event.

Date changes, format changes, venue changes... Has FIDE ever managed a world class event less impressively than the forthcoming candidates event? Furthermore, almost six years have passed since Kasparov retired from professional chess, clearing the way for FIDE to take full control of the World Championship, and there is still no roadmap for a stable cycle.

2010 Women's World Championship

2010-12-29T18:04:00.000+01:00

I added details on the 2010 FIDE Knockout Matches at Antakya (Turkey), to my page on the World Chess Championship for Women. Two players forfeited the first round. In Cramling eliminated in first round Women World Championship,
Chessvibes.com reported,

Two matches have not been played: Iweta Rajlich - Jovanka Houska and Arianne Caoili - Ju Wenjun. From the latter we know that Caoili didn’t have time to play chess in this period, but strangely enough she was paired anyway – we can only assume that a cancellation letter wasn’t received in time. About Rajlich the official website reports that she was traveling with her husband and new-born kid, but was stopped by the weather conditions.

If you've forgotten about the new format of the Women's World Championship, with matches and knockouts in alternate years, see one of my previous posts on the subject: 2009-2010 Women's Grand Prix.

Zonal Cycle 2008-2009

2010-12-22T11:05:00.000+01:00

My first task after Zonal Index Updated was to add clippings for Zonals 2008-09 to my page on the World Chess Championship Zonals. Now I have one page of zonal clippings for each of the 24 World Championship cycles.

Zonal Index Updated

2010-12-15T09:37:00.000+01:00

I updated my index page for the World Championship Zonals, incorporating all of the modifications made since the previous update in 2007. I added a new column giving the 'Cycle' number for each event. This is an internal, artificial number I invented to sort the various events correctly, but it is useful enough to display on the index. The current cycle is the 25th since FIDE took responsibility for the World Championship in 1946.

There are still many errors and omissions on the page, and I have a plan to address these systematically in the coming months. This should result in more frequent updates of the index page.

Dvoretsky on the World Championship

2010-12-08T17:25:00.003+01:00

On my main blog (see Recently Spotted - Blog Carnival & Soviet School), I mentioned The Big Dvoretsky Interview on Chessvibes.com. Part 1 isn't particularly relevant to the World Championship, but the two other parts are. Dvoretsky, a world class trainer and 'the strongest IM never to make GM', touched three times on the importance of the endgame.

Part 2: Bronstein didn’t win his World Championship match against Botvinnik; it ended in a draw. Botvinnik hadn’t played for three years, he was absolutely out of training and his openings were worse at this moment than Bronstein’s openings, but still Bronstein didn’t win. Both players won five games. So Bronstein lost five games; three of those five games he lost from equal, drawn endgames. So if he had been better in endgames he would have become World Champion. Three out of five games were drawn endgames; I believe that it is quite impressive.

In 1995 grandmaster Topalov was very weak in endgames. His manager Danailov told me that he doesn’t feel confident in endgames and even avoided profitable endgames sometimes and so he would lose points in endgames, and so on. So we arranged a training session in Moscow; we worked just twelve days. After this session Topalov won the majority of tournaments which he played during the next year. He won, if I remember correctly, eighty rating points and took third place on the rating list. So, you see, he was a very strong grandmaster at this moment but even for such a level it was very important because it was his weak side.

Part 3: Tal wasn’t good in the endgame when he was young. Fortunately for him at some moment players couldn’t use it but in his second match against Botvinnik, Botvinnik used it several times.

He also touched on a subject that pops up in just about every interview I've seen for the past month.

Part 3: What is your opinion on Magnus Carlsen’s decision to withdraw from the Candidates? • You know, everybody can make any decision. I don’t know his motivation, his real reasons and so on, so it makes no sense to discuss it not with Magnus himself. On the other hand of course this decision was made because he had some problems with the modern World Championship. It’s true, there are really serious problems which are very interesting to discuss, but it’s a big topic, a separate topic, perhaps we shouldn’t do it now. For example he mentioned the great privileges of the World Champion – I absolutely agree with him. I know that Kramnik, Gelfand and some others disagree, Kasparov, Karpov. But many players agree with this position and I also agree.

On the other hand he told that the World Champion shouldn’t have any advantage, any privileges, and this is also wrong. When we play a World Championship it should be a system, not a single match or tournament, it’s a system. So everybody starts at some stage and it’s natural that some players came to the next stage by winning or keeping some results in previous stages and some of them get the right to play just because of their previous successes, it’s absolutely natural. The win of the previous World Championship is also something we can consider the win of some previous tournament, so the winner should have some privileges, but of course not so fantastic as he has now. Also in the case of Carlsen: why should he play in the Candidates, he should start in the semi-final of the Norwegian championship, because maybe some younger generation can beat him. He should also play several steps and don’t have privileges.

He got in because of rating of course... • Rating is also a previous result, it’s not ‘this set-up of competitions for this World Championship’, it’s previous results, it’s also a success like winning a previous World Championship, so it gives some privileges but not absolute privileges, like now. But it’s a topic for a serious discussion and perhaps we have no time for it. Some other problems he mentioned are also connected to modern FIDE and their policy, their strategy… In many areas he is absolutely right – FIDE is a horrible organization now but again it’s a topic for a separate discussion.

The comments on the 1951 Botvinnik - Bronstein match and the 1961 Botvinnik - Tal match are worth pursuing.

Kasparov's Character

2010-12-01T14:21:00.001+01:00

From Authors@Google: Garry Kasparov (YouTube.com), 'in conversation with Jonathan Rosenberg & Udi Manber' (2010-11-03). The 13th World Champion, when asked about the 1984 match, his first against Karpov, said,

It was a long time ago. As you remember, I was trailing badly, losing 5-0, so Karpov had to win one more game to retain the title. He couldn't win this game and eventually I won three more games. I was catching up and then the match was stopped and started again eight months later. There was a clear case of interference by Soviet officials. They believed that it would be too much pressure on Karpov to continue the [match]. I didn't like it, so the official decision made by the International Chess Federation [FIDE] stated clearly that Karpov agreed, Kasparov obeyed.

At the end of the day I won the title. The match was a great lesson for me because it probably made the ultimate mark on my character. Trailing badly, losing beyond any hope to survive, eventually surviving and beating Karpov eight months later, it was proof to me that there's no situation in your life where you have to give up. It was a very, very good lesson. So I'm grateful to Karpov who helped me to build up my character. [laughter & applause]

See also: The Sunday treat: Garry at Google (Chessbase.com).

Zonal Cycle 2006-2007

2010-11-24T17:02:00.000+01:00

After a delay of a few weeks, I returned to my index page on the World Chess Championship Zonals and added Zonals 2006-07. The next step will be to release a new index page (last updated in September 2007), including the qualifying events from the latest complete cycle, 2008-2009. That will serve as a baseline for a new round of checks and updates.

Kasparov on Modern Chess

2010-11-17T15:59:00.000+01:00

The gremlins working at my website server host decided this would be a good time to take FTP out of service, so I'm temporarily blocked from making any updates to my site. Instead of continuing with my zonal page (last seen in Zonal Cycle 2004-2005), I have to punt. Looking at the ongoing list of possible topics (a long list), I see several reviews of Kasparov's series on Modern Chess, but no one source appears to have covered them all. While I'm not a big fan of Amazon customer reviews, they'll have to do.

Garry Kasparov on Modern Chess (Amazon.com):

Part 1: Revolution in the 70's (March 2007) #150,712 in Books
Part 2: Kasparov vs Karpov 1975-1985 (September 2008) #184,670
Part 3: Kasparov v Karpov 1986-1987 (August 2009) #73,660
Part 4: Kasparov v Karpov 1988-2009 (October 2010) #35,780

I started this topic in a previous post, Kasparov vs. Karpov 1975-1985, where I included the 'Sales Rank'. Although it's now called the 'Amazon Bestsellers Rank', I guess it's the same thing and have included the numbers for comparison. Revolution in the 70's has gone from #264,777 to #150,712. Way to go, Garry!

Carlsen Quits (Again)

2010-11-10T16:25:00.003+01:00

GM Magnus Carlsen's announcement that he would no longer participate in the current World Championship cycle -- Magnus Carlsen drops out of World Championship cycle (Chessbase.com) -- sent shock waves through the chess world and shivers (déja vu style) up my spine. Instead of jumping to any conclusions as to Carlsen's motives, I decided to compile a list of similar incidents. Before I could start, I discovered I had been anticipated by the Daily Dirt (the dates in square brackets '[]' are mine):-

Alekhine dodged Capablanca [>1927]. Fischer disappeared instead of playing Karpov [1975]. Or was he taking a principled stand for rigorous rules? Shirov should have played Kasparov for next to no money. Or was it Kasparov who was dodging Shirov [1998]? Kramnik dodging Kasparov's quest for a rematch, or was he trying to restore a credible cycle [2001]? Kasparov skipping the Dortmund qualifier [2002], Ponomariov and Kasparov never playing [2003], and now Carlsen and, well, Ilyumzhinov [2010]. There are a dozen more we could add. • Carlsen Bails from WCh Cycle (Chessninja.com)

'Only a dozen more?', I thought. Here's a list I came up with after about 30 minutes, mostly spent on verification:-

1948: Fine [WCC match tournament]
1950: Reshevsky, Fine, Euwe, Bondarevsky [Budapest CT]; for several reasons
1965: Botvinnik [CM]

1964: Fischer [Amsterdam IZ]
1967: Fischer [Sousse IZ]
1972: Fischer [Reykjavik WCC]; will he or won't he?
1975: Fischer [WCC vs. Karpov]

1971: Huebner [CM qf vs. Petrosian]
1980: Huebner [CM f vs. Korchnoi]

1985: KK1; terminated by Campomanes
1986: KK3; Kasparov threatened to quit
1993: Kasparov - Short; played wthout FIDE

1996: Ilyumzhinov cancels Interzonal and replaces with KOs
1997: Kramnik [Groningen KO]
1999: Karpov [Las Vegas KO]

1998: Anand [WCC vs. Kasparov, declined]
1999: Anand [ditto, cancelled]
2000: Anand [ditto, declined]

There's some overlap there with the Chessninja list. I could have added more from the FIDE KOs played after 2000, but I became bored with the exercise. More challenging would have been a list of cycles where there weren't any such shenanigans. For a similar overview, see my post Troubled Matches from a few years ago. Maybe it has something to do with chess players not wanting to submit to authority.

Zonal Cycle 2004-2005

2010-11-03T14:25:00.000+01:00

I added Zonals 2004-05 to my page on the World Chess Championship Zonals. These events qualified players into the first of three consecutive World Cups held in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, at intervals of two years. This was the first hint of order in the post-unification World Championship, a regularity that FIDE failed to maintain for other events in the three cycles.

Zonal Cycle 2002-2004

2010-10-27T17:15:00.001+02:00

Continuing with zonal clippings, I added Zonals 2002-04 to my page on the World Chess Championship Zonals. This was the last cycle that qualified players from the zonals directly into a World Championship knockout tournament. The next three cycles qualified them into a World Cup : same format, different status.

ICCF World Championships (2010 Status)

2010-10-20T09:58:00.003+02:00

It's time for my annual look at what's happening in the world of correspondence chess. The current status is shown in the following table, which is based on last year's post, ICCF World Championships (2009 Status). As before, the asterisk ('*') means the winner is known and the PGN game scores are available.

20		2004-	Started 2004-10-25
21	*	2005-08	Oosterom, Joop J. van (NED)
22	*	2007-10	Dronov, Aleksandr (RUS)
23		2007-	Started 2007-12-31
24		2009-	Started 2009-06-10
25		2009-	Started 2009-12-10
26		2010-	Started 2010-06-10

What's changed? The 22nd championship has finished, while the 25th and 26th have started. I now have two final crosstables to add to my page on the World Chess Championship : Correspondence Chess.

The ICCF crosstable for the 22nd championship shows Dronov tied with Bücker, Jürgen (GER), but leading on SB tiebreak. A thread on the ICCF forum, World Championship 22 Final, confirmed that Dronov was awarded the title. The same thread has a relevant discussion on the merits of adjudication, which played a key role in determining the top finishers.

18th World Computer Championship

2010-10-13T15:23:00.000+02:00

I added the 18th World Computer Championship (WCCC) - 2010 Kanazawa to my page on Computer Chess. The official results are available on a page at ICGA Tournaments (www.grappa.univ-lille3.fr).

Zonal Cycle 2001-2002

2010-10-06T14:53:00.000+02:00

More zonal clippings: I added Zonals 2001-02 to my page on the World Chess Championship Zonals. This cycle was the first to use continental qualifiers, although not consistently. It was also the first (and so far only) cycle to use qualifiers conducted via the Internet.

Zonal Cycle 2000-2001

2010-09-29T17:26:00.001+02:00

Using the same techniques as in Zonal Cycle 1998-1999, I added a set of clippings for Zonals 2000-01 to my page on the World Chess Championship Zonals. Once again, the set is taken entirely from Mark Crowther's 'The Week in Chess'. Only five more cycles left to finish off the first pass through clippings!

Zonal Cycle 1998-1999

2010-09-22T16:32:00.001+02:00

Has it really been eight months since I last added a new page of zonal clippings? Looking at the date on the post for Zonal Cycle 1995-1997, it indeed seems to have been that long. Since it's high time to start another cycle, I added a first set of clippings for Zonals 1998-99 to my page on the World Chess Championship Zonals. The set is taken entirely from Mark Crowther's 'The Week in Chess'. I also expect TWIC to provide a good base for the remaining cycles.

Not Larsen's Best Photo

2010-09-15T17:05:00.000+02:00

It wasn't his best match either.

The caption said,

7/21/71 - DENVER: Bobby Fischer, New York, N.Y., (right), discusses postgame analysis after beating Bent Larsen of Denmark late 7/20 to win the semifinal candidate match for the World Chess Championship. The 28-year-old American won the semifinals, 6-0 and will play the winner of a semifinal tournament currently being played in Russia for the world title. Fischer won the last game in 40 moves. UPI TELEPHOTO DENVER

What were the odds of a 6-0 whitewash?

Zonals 1984-87, 87-90, & 90-93

2010-08-25T17:42:00.001+02:00

Over the past few months there has been so much happening with the World Championship that I almost forgot about an unfinished job last documented in the post Zonals 1978-81 & 1981-84. I added crosstables etc. from a number of Informants to the following pages on the World Chess Championship Zonals:-

There remains some info in the Informants that I haven't used yet, mainly from the lists of which tournaments were included in the rating calculations for the period covered by the Informant. These are factually so bare that there only worth is to verify when and where an event was played. I'll include these if I can't find any better sources.

2009-2010 Women's Grand Prix, Ulan Bator

2010-08-18T15:49:00.001+02:00

I added Ulan Bator (aka Ulaanbaatar), Mongolia to my page on the 2009-2010 FIDE Women's Grand Prix. Linked from that page is the official site where I noticed that the final crosstable had a column titled 'Res.' that I couldn't remember seeing before. I thought it might have something to do with tiebreak and found the following in the FIDE handbook, Regulations for the 2009-2010 Women’s FIDE Grand-Prix:

16. Closing Ceremony of each tournament: The Closing Ceremony shall take place according to schedule. The Organizer shall provide three trophies to the first three placed players. In each tournament, if two or more players tie for first place, the tie to decide the awarding of the trophies will be broken (in descending order) by 1. Direct encounter, 2. Sonneborn Berger Score, 3. Koya System

The column 'Res.' corresponds to what I understand by 'Direct encounter', i.e. the total result of games played between players having the same final score. My crosstables show the 'Sonneborn Berger' tiebreak in the 'T/B' column, while the 'Koya System' is described in another section of the handbook: Annex to the FIDE Tournament Regulations regarding tiebreaks.

The Koya System for Round Robin Tournaments • This is the number of points achieved against all opponents who have achieved 50 % or more.

The tiebreak has no effect on the calculation of Grand Prix points. It is only used to award trophies.

Resources for Candidates++ and for Zonals++

2010-08-11T14:26:00.002+02:00

Following up Database for Chess History, I decided that my first conversion would be 'Statistics for my WCC site', as documented in the post Access to Referrers. During this exercise, an interesting page titled Next world championship cycle (rybkaforum.net), popped out. I wrote,

On the referring page are some nice images giving a graphical overview of the candidate matches starting in 1965. I hadn't seen them before and suppose they are from Wikipedia or similar. Finding those made the whole exercise worthwhile; one of these days I might try to locate the original source.

It didn't take long to establish that the graphical overviews were not from Wikipedia. The following image compares one newly discovered graphic with Wikipedia's page World Chess Championship 1966.

After a little sleuth work, I located the originals on Mr. > Office > Chess History > World Championship, under the directory labelled '1964-1966'. Their creator has also published a Silverlight show at World Championship Cycles - Windows Live, using all of the material under the previous link. The crosstables are very nice work and deserve a better framework. Talk about hiding your lamp under a bushel basket!

***

Another resource I discovered during the same exercise, but did not include in 'Access to Referrers' was Caissa Schach Chronik - Ergebnisse und Tabellen der Geschichte, a German language site. Under the WM tab are entries covering each of the FIDE cycles, including zonals. For example, the page for the zonals played as part of the first complete FIDE cycle is here: WM 1951 Setzliste und Ergebnisse der Zonenturniere. There is lots of material here to compare with my own page on the subject, World Chess Championship Zonals.

Database for Chess History

2010-08-04T17:44:00.000+02:00

Since I'm still blocked from creating new crosstables, as I discussed in 2009-2010 Women's Grand Prix, Jermuk (Not!), it was time to take positive action. The Women’s Grand Prix in Ulaanbaatar will soon be finishing and I'll need to do an update when it does. After doing the necessary homework, I ordered a copy of Microsoft Access 2010, which should arrive in a few days.

While waiting, I decided to catalog my existing databases to see which would be priorities for conversion. I found around 200 databases scattered all over the personal directory of my hard drive, some pertaining to a single event, like a FIDE World Cup, some much larger. The largest databases cover the following areas.

Bibliography
Chess960
Notable events
Notable persons
Ratings
Soviet school
Statistics for my WCC site
Zonals

After I install the new database software, it will be a good time to convert the entire set of databases into a single integrated database for chess history. MS Access offers some functionality for maintaining the data on the Web, but I doubt I'll have the resources to do that. On to the redesign...

Need a Program to Identify the Players?

2010-07-28T13:41:00.003+02:00

I knew I should have waited. Just a few days after last week's post, FIDE Presidential Candidates and the World Championship, where I wrote, 'it's too early to expect details about the 2010 Candidates Event', the details started gushing. Since this blog doesn't pretend to be a news site, I'll refer to a TWIC article on the subject -- FIDE Candidates are moved to Kazan -- and come back to the subject after the crude has stopped flowing.

TWIC's Mark Crowther referred to a Russian language article -- In the Chess World Is Coming Revolution -- which makes a fascinating read when submitted to Google's translation service, even though the sentences (like the title I just used) use a twisted grammar that requires some imagination to make sense of them. The story is a followup to a post I wrote in January -- Global Chess, Chess News Corporation, Chess Lane, and FIDE -- along with a few new twists introduced in the context of this year's FIDE election and the no-holds-barred free-for-all featuring Ilyumzhinov, Karpov, and the Russian federation.

I think I've mentioned elsewhere that I'm a fan of Russian historical novels. Since the names of the characters are never second nature to me, one of the tricks I use to follow them is to keep a list of personalities and the pages where they are mentioned. Doing similar for the 'Coming Revolution' piece, I came up with the following list, roughly grouped according to which players belong together.

Chess Network Company
David Kaplan, Chess Lane
Brothers Magomedov: Ziyavudine (Ziavutdin) & Mohammed (Magomed), Republic of Dagestan, Summa Telecom
Sodbiznesbank, VIP-Bank, CB Diamond; Andrei Kozlov, Alexei Frenkel
Dmitry Medvedev, Arkady Dvorkovich, Alexander Zhukov, Alexander Bach
FIDE Lausanne (Switzerland)
Ilya Levitov (co-author with Bareev of 'From London to Elista'), ST Development, Vladimir Solovyov

Combining this list with Google searches gave me a lot of background info about these same players. I'll share that info whenever I return to the broad subject of contemporary chess in 21st century Russia.

FIDE Presidential Candidates and the World Championship

2010-07-21T10:32:00.004+02:00

With the successful completion of the 2010 Anand - Topalov World Championship match, the confusing situation that I documented in Two Overlapping World Championship Cycles has finally been resolved. Where does the World Championship go from here?

Although it's too early to expect details about the 2010 Candidates Event, its qualifying event 2008-2009 Grand Prix just having finished in May this year, I had expected to have some information by now about the shape of subsequent World Championship cycles. The FIDE Calendar for the year 2011 lists 'Candidates Matches 2011; Baku, Azerbaijan /; 1-Mar-2011; 31-May-2011' (is something missing after the slash '/', like a second venue?), but there is no entry for a World Cup in December 2011 and nothing but junior events in 2012.

The last time I reported on FIDE's plans -- 2009 FIDE Executive Board : Whither the World Championship? (December 2009) -- I wrote that I had two main interests: (1) Successful completion of the two current cycles, and (2) Plans for the subsequent cycles. Assuming that the current, ongoing cycle ends in a title match sometime in 2012, what happens then? Given that we will have a FIDE election in a few months, what do the two candidates have to say about the World Championship? Here is an excerpt from Ilyumzhinov's site (onefide.com/achievements):

World Championship: A stable structure is in place for the World Championship cycles, through a system of Zonals, Continental Championships, Grand Prix, World Cup, Candidates Matches and the World Championship Match. The current system offers more opportunities for hundreds of players, around the world, to participate in high level official competitions, with prize money for all the events exceeding 7 million USD. Furthermore, it is a comprehensive system that produces the best player.

It's easy to take issue with the term 'stable structure'. Stable would mean two consecutive cycles run using the same format. FIDE hasn't yet been able to deliver a single cycle run using the structure announced at the beginning of that cycle. Here is an excerpt from Karpov's site (karpov2010.org/platform):

4.2) The World Championship. For well over a century, predating FIDE itself, the crown jewel of the chess world has been the World Championship. Few titles are as hallowed in the history of sport. Even a mainstream, non-chessplaying public that has heard little of chess in the past dozen years has an instant and profound respect and fascination with the game of chess and our champions. This invaluable mystique has been damaged greatly during the last 15 years, as attempts to randomize results and a failure to promote events has dramatically reduced the profile of world championship matches. We will lead the way toward rebuilding the World Championship aura that captivated the world when Bobby Fischer took the title in 1972 and when Karpov and Kasparov battled through five consecutive world title matches.

4.2.1) The world champion, the championship title, and the championship cycle will be promoted consistently and treated with respect. Championship events must be scheduled well in advance so that proper promotion is allowed. This is essential for any serious sponsor and for the players.

4.2.2) The world championship match, as well as the qualifying and candidates events that lead to it, must be accorded special attention and respect. This means, but is not limited to, scheduling candidates events to allow for promotion as well as for preparation and recovery by the players, and holding matches of sufficient length to produce victors who will be credible world champions.

Here it's easy to take take issue with this revisionist view of recent chess history. It's not that the World Championship's 'mystique has been damaged greatly during the last 15 years', which just happens to coincide with Ilyumzhinov's term as FIDE President. In fact, the 'damage' started in 1993 with the Kasparov - Short match. Furthermore, we don't have to go back to the 1980s with a goal of 'rebuilding the World Championship aura'. The four most recent World Championship events -- 2005 San Luis, 2006 Kramnik - Topalov, 2007 Mexico City, and 2010 Anand - Topalov -- all attracted considerable interest. As for 'scheduling candidates events to allow for promotion as well as for preparation and recovery by the players', the most glaring example was the 1998 Karpov - Anand match, where a well rested Karpov played a tired Anand who just a few days earlier had battled to success in the 1997 Groningen knockout matches.

Neither Ilyumzhinov nor Karpov seems to have any idea where the World Championship is going, so neither do I.

2009-2010 Women's Grand Prix, Jermuk

2010-07-14T11:38:00.000+02:00

Continuing with 2009-2010 Women's Grand Prix, Jermuk (Not!), where I ran into several technical problems trying to update my World Chess Championship site, I decided to barge ahead and discover if there were any other problems to be resolved. Fortunately, there was nothing too complicated and I finally succeeded in adding Jermuk 2010 to my page on the 2009-2010 FIDE Women's Grand Prix.

2009-2010 Women's Grand Prix, Jermuk (Not!)

2010-07-07T10:16:00.000+02:00

As preparation for this post I intended to add a crosstable for Jermuk 2010 to my page on the 2009-2010 FIDE Women's Grand Prix, but technology got the better of me. As I outlined on my main blog in a post titled How I Spent My Summer Vacation, I was forced to upgrade my laptop and ran into more than the usual number of upgrade glitches. It's been less than two months since my previous post on the prestigious series of women's events, 2009-2010 Women's Grand Prix, Nalchik, but it might be a while before I can do similar updates. The last successful update was documented in 2008-2009 Grand Prix, Astrakhan (an unrestricted, i.e. men's, GP event), dated 26 May 2010.

My procedure to create a crosstable is relatively straightforward. First, I collect the PGN game scores, usually from TWIC or from the official site. Then I extract the data from the PGN headers and feed it into a database. From the database I produce a formatted text crosstable which I transform into an HTML crosstable. The HTML crosstable is merged into the relevant page on my World Chess Championship (WCC) site along with explanatory notes. Then I upload the changed page and accompanying PGN to the WCC site.

The entire procedure takes less than an hour using a tool chain which has varied little since I first created the WCC site in 1997. The crosstables are nothing special to look at, but they sufficiently document the individual WCC events. I always compare my new crosstable with another version to see that it is accurate. When there are discrepancies, it is almost always due to an error in the PGN file. I correct these when I discover them and restart the tool chain.

That tool chain broke down when I tried to process the women's Jermuk event on my new laptop. First, I ran into a glitch extracting data from the PGN headers. Although I quickly discovered a workaround, I don't understand why the glitch occurred. It indicates there is a basic, underlying problem which needs further investigation.

More importantly, I ran into a major problem with the database. On my old laptop I used MS Access under Windows XP, but after checking the price of Access and the related suite under Windows 7 -- 'Microsoft Office Professional 2010 • What's included: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Access, and Publisher • Suggested retail price: $499.99' -- I decided to give the competing OpenOffice suite a try. My initial vacation trials for the software were positive, but when I tried to use OpenOffice Database for a real job, I discovered that it was much further from MS Access than other OpenOffice software was from the corresponding MS package. I'm not yet convinced that OpenOffice Database can't do the job I need to do, but the learning curve will be steep.

On top of this I discovered that my trusty software to process PGN files is incompatible with Windows 7. While I'm sure that I can find a replacement, this will also take some time.

My first reaction to these problems was to run the tool chain on my old laptop, then transfer the new files to the new laptop. As luck would have it, I also ran into a glitch here. The network connection between my old and new laptops, which had taken considerable time to implement and which had served to transfer all of my personal files to the new laptop, suddenly decided that it didn't want to work anymore (WIN7: 'The network path was not found'). Of course, I could transfer the files using a USB flash drive, but this is getting far away from my original intention. My experience is that when multiple technical failures occur in reaching a goal, it's time to rethink the original goal.

While I'm rethinking, the crosstable and results can be found on the official site, Women GP - Jermuk. I assume they are also on other sites documenting the World Championship, like Wikipedia.

A Pre-Match Interview with Anand

2010-06-30T09:37:00.000+02:00

My previous post, Two Post-Match Interviews with Anand, featured two video interviews with the World Champion. At about the same time Chessbase.com ran a three part series on an interview conducted in December 2009 by Jaideep Unudurti. • The Delhi Interview with Viswanathan Anand: Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. Here are some excerpts that are particularly relevant to World Championship matches.

On Psychology:

Q: You are going [to Sofia] expecting a state of war?

A: I'm going to go there expecting anything. You have to be prepared for everything. I'm not expecting bad, I'm not expecting good. World championships are traditionally about bad-mouthing your opponent a few months before, press interviews, stuff we have seen for several matches already. That simply comes with the territory. Beyond that I don't want to focus on whether its going to be dirty or its going to be clean. We will be ready for anything but there are good rules and I expect FIDE to uphold them.

Q: Have you ever used psychological tricks?

A: No. This match I have to get ready and get ready for lot of these things. It is clear that the kind of match, where things are quiet, it's not going to be that sort of a thing. I have to get ready for it. Myself, I don't feel like I'm doing it, but always the question is to ask your opponent (smiles). It is my experience that in these areas you can start to see psychological tricks even when there are none. Because the tension in a match is so high that inevitably you feel that everything is being directed against you and vice versa. Matches are very special in that sense, they become very personal. I have no doubt that at the end of the match if you ask, both of us will say 'Yes, the other side did something'.

Q: Have people used psychological tricks against you?

A: Sure. Kasparov and the slamming door. In fact that is the only thing I really think I should have stopped at some point. For a while Karpov was trying to come late every game and try to get his time back on the clock. Couple of things like that. I've experienced it a few times. I would say the peak of these was the Fischer era, the Cold War era and the Kasparov - Karpov matches. I think subsequent generations generally let go of it. With Kramnik, we had a go at each other in the press. Before the match you get ready for it. Basically I didn't expect every day some door slamming or things like that (in Bonn).

On Opening Preparation: (See also my post on World Championship Opening Preparation in 2010.)

Q: For a match of this magnitude it would take 6-8 months of lead-time?

A: I think here again work expands to fill the time. If you have more time you can chortle away. You have to get the right discipline. When the match comes you stop worrying about whether you done enough and get on with what you have done. You can always feel incomplete and work more. I think there it depends on how much time you have for these things. In the 90s and so on match experience counted for more. And maybe having played earlier matches counted for more as you tended to have a lot of background material. A bank of ideas you used then. That you had for the match, didn't get to use and carried over. For instance, Kasparov when he was playing Short or me, he had notebooks full of ideas that he could draw on. Nowadays that cushion is vanishing much faster. Almost all the variations played in matches people soon explore in tournaments and catch up.

Q: For every game you have to remember all the openings, all the variations. Is your memory infallible or do you have black-outs occasionally?

A: You have lapses for sure. It's funny, you may remember every single thing. But if you don't remember that you remember that is also a problem. There are quite a lot of players who remember every single detail of their preparation but they are not sure that they remember. And the effect is the same as not remembering. Or not having analyzed. With the volume of information that is growing, that is clearly a challenge. It is something you have to keep a grip on. It is really the amount of information that is out there. A computer allows you to generate a hell of a lot of work and lots and lots of analysis. Then to remember all your conclusions very efficiently is a good part of what I would call peaking before the match.

Q: You don't have to memorize it, you just have to look at it, like a photographic effect?

A: Well, you try to remember what is important. It should make sense to you. It should fall into a picture. If it's like an exam and you remember this answer, this answer and this answer and the teacher has changed one or two details. It has got to fall into some sort of picture. What you can't remember you should be able to work out very easily. It is a mix between understanding, familiarity and memory. The junction of all three. You can't hope to remember everything either but clearly forcing yourself to do all the work at the board is suicidal in these circumstances.

On Match Length: (See also my post on Intermediate Scores as a Match Predictor.)

Q: You have played a 20 game match. Now it's down to 12 games. What are your thoughts on that?

A: I find it hard to imagine how people once upon a time played even 24 games. Not to speak of the ones which went to 32 and 48. I find them completely absurd. In our modern era that you can spend 4 months on something - it's beyond belief. I think, already, 12 games is the maximum. It shouldn't get any longer. In that era, especially between two Soviet opponents, they didn't really have to worry about spectators. Then again, interest in their country was very high so they managed. Nowadays to get two teams and put them in a city for months on end doesn't make sense to me. [...] Also with the amount of computers involved in preparation, to play 24 games I think is madness. So in our modern era we should be trying to make it shorter. 8 games is pushing it, for already the effect of one defeat becomes much higher. You fall a little bit behind and suddenly there are only so many games you can reverse it. You don't want a situation where one early game sets the course too strongly. So maybe 12 is an ideal compromise. I don't feel it should go any longer.

On Tiebreaks:

Q: The one important difference is that earlier the champion retained the title in the event of a tie. The challenger had to at least win one game more. Now you have rapid tiebreaks. How have the dynamics changed?

A: I think this system is fairer. Essentially the old system kept perpetuating itself on the basis that it was once unfair for the challenger so he should be compensated when he is champion. Almost all the privileges you could justify this way.

On the Schism:

Q: You mentioned the era of chaos [1993 to 2006]. Do you have any regrets that the bulk of your playing years was in this era?

A: No, it doesn't get you anywhere. In the years of chaos, I got onto other things, I had some good years. I got on with enjoying chess. In a non-clichéd way I think that's what really it's all about. Maybe that's why my desire in 2007 was so strong. In 2005 also I was motivated but it doesn't always have to happen ia the first instance. But in 2007 I was very motivated and I had a very good year. Maybe there was some pent-up hunger and you just leave it at that. I wouldn't say I never resented it. Maybe in 2002 I resented it a bit. But at some point it stops being an issue, you get used to it and you move on. Maybe a year or so it bothered me. [...] Between 2002 and 2005 there was no real chance to play for the title. Even before, 1995 to 1999 there wasn't a convenient way. Groningen – but you had Karpov with all these ridiculous privileges. So there was some time you lost. It pushed me. The second time I became world champion I was 37, which is late. It's just the way it is. I wouldn't say I am a late bloomer. Clearly I came very close to the world title at a much earlier age. That was simply the way it worked out. I became world champion at 30 which isn't too late.

***

Also relevant is commentary from Chessninja.com's They Give Interviews: Anand.

Two Post-Match Interviews with Anand

2010-06-09T10:54:00.000+02:00

From EuropeEchecs:-

Anand's Exclusive Interview (6:22) • 'The World Championship after the game'

Live Indian TV Show (7:41) • 'Anand answers by telephone on air!'

2008-2009 Grand Prix, the Players

2010-06-02T15:27:00.001+02:00

I added the 25 players who participated in the 2008-2009 Grand Prix to the Index of Players for all World Championship events. One player, Yannick Pelletier of Switzerland, was initially slated to participate but was dropped for organizational reasons. Although I didn't include him on the 'Index of Players', I'm not sure this is consistent with other events where players were unable to participate, notably the World Championship Knockout tournaments.

FIDE has added the overall results to the official page, FIDE Grand Prix 2008-2009 - Standings (grandprix.fide.com). On that page, many of the players, e.g. Radjabov, are listed with three events played rather than four. I'm not sure why that is. The FIDE announcement, Final FIDE Grand Prix Standings (www.fide.com), shows the same but includes a spreadsheet for download. If I find the time, I'll examine it to determine the reason for the discrepancy.

2008-2009 Grand Prix, Astrakhan

2010-05-26T08:45:00.000+02:00

I added the crosstable and PGN for Astrakhan 2010 (official site) to my page on the 2008-2009 Grand Prix. Although the overall results for the six events haven't been posted to the FIDE page -- FIDE Grand Prix 2008-2009 - Standings -- tentative results are available on the Wikipedia page, FIDE Grand Prix 2008-2010.

I'll add the players to my Index of Players as soon as I get a chance. Because of the many changes that occurred during the two years it took to play the event, I have to do a little research first.

2009-2010 Women's Grand Prix, Nalchik

2010-05-19T15:28:00.000+02:00

I added a crosstable for Nalchik 2010 to my page on the 2009-2010 FIDE Women's Grand Prix. The official site of the event, the third of six in the Women's Grand Prix series, is Women GP - Nalchik.

What a Match!

2010-05-12T16:07:00.004+02:00

I added the crosstable and PGN game scores to my page on the 2010 Anand - Topalov title match. What a fantastic match it was! Everyone associated with it in any way -- the organizers, the officials, the commentators, the journalists / bloggers, and, especially, the players and their teams -- deserves a warm congratulations and a hearty handshake.

Special congratulations to World Champion Viswanathan Anand! To overcome such an incredibly strong player as Topalov is no small achievement. And a special handshake to GM Veselin Topalov who showed that he is a superb fighter and one of the great champions.

My only regret about this match is that it did not reach the tiebreak phase. It would have been a special treat to watch these two masters of the chess struggle go head to head at increasingly faster time controls. Now we have to wait at least two years for the next match, Anand vs. ???, to see more chess at this rarefied level.

FIDE Ethics Commission Judgement 04/06

2010-05-05T17:35:00.001+02:00

I added the July 2007 statement of the FIDE Ethics Commission to my page on the 2006 Kramnik - Topalov Unification Match. The section titled 'CHRONOLOGY OF THE FACTS' is an excellent, objective, third-party account of the events that came to be known as Toiletgate.

The original document published by the Ethics Commission can be found on Fide.com's Judgements by the FIDE Ethics Commission (29 August 2007) under the link 'Judgement 04/06'. A translation of Topalov's interview with a Spanish newspaper, the source of one of Kramnik's two complaints, is on Chessbase.com's Topalov: Kramnik will never admit that he cheated... (19 December 2006).

Zonals 1978-81 & 1981-84

2010-04-28T16:23:00.001+02:00

Continuing with More Zonal Resources, where I discovered that I had overlooked Informants as a source of clippings, I added events from four Informants to my pages on World Chess Championship : Zonals:-

Together with the first batch, these new clippings cover somewhat less than half of the new Informant references I have at hand. I'll tackle the rest as soon as I can.

Anand - Topalov News Sites

2010-04-21T16:05:00.003+02:00

Since the opening ceremony for the Anand - Topalov match takes place today, it's a good time to post a note on useful news sources for the match. First, there is the official site Anand-Topalov.com. Unfortunately, my reservations as to the site's impartiality and fairness that I expressed shortly after the site first opened (see Holding Your Breath) haven't decreased.

A glance at the site's home page reveals two news items -- 'Communication from the Organizing Committee' and 'Official answer of the Bulgarian Chess Federation' (BCF; I've circled the items with an oval) -- related to Anand's travel difficulties and his subsequent request for a postponement. Both items are negative responses by Bulgarian officials to Anand's request. The request itself is buried as an attachment to the BCF document.

A more balanced site would have presented one news item on Anand's struggle with the volcano's impact on travel followed by one with statements from match responsibles. Furthermore, both responses by the Bulgarians are as unaccommodating as they can be without being openly hostile. There is absolutely no sympathy shown to Anand for his travel situation, a case of force majeure that stranded many thousands of travelers around the globe and affected millions more. The Organizing Committee said,

This chess event has exceptional meaning not only for the chess community all over the world but also for Bulgaria as a country. Therefore the whole organization of this event is under the direct leadership of the Bulgarian Prime Minister - Mr. Boyko Borisov who is also the Chairman of the Organizing Committee.

There is not a word about the 'exceptional meaning' to Anand, who is World Champion and one of two central persons in this drama. Are Bulgarians such hard-hearted people that they react to Anand's trials without any note of sympathy? I don't think so. There are many ways to say 'No!' without being nasty about it.

If the official site continues with its unofficial bias, where can we go for unbiased news? Another site with strong ties to the Bulgarians is Chessdom.com. They frequently have news from Bulgaria before other sites, are less overtly biased, and have an index page with links to all stories related to the match:-

Chessdom.com: Topalov - Anand 2010.

The site hasn't learned that good journalism requires reports to be dated, but we can always hope. A few other important news sites often have index pages related to major chess events, which are presently missing for the latest match (I'll add them if they become available).

Chessbase.com (Later: Eventlist - World Championship Sofia; see my post ChessBase.com Eventlists for other index pages).
Chess news by ChessVibes
The Daily Dirt Chess Blog

Those last two are particularly interesting because they always have tons of comments by the game's keenest fans. Besides the main chess news sites, many good chess blogs will have informed commentary on all aspects of the match. The blogs I follow are listed on my Blogger Profile, also linked as About Me on the top right corner of all pages on this blog.

With all of that ace reporting to look forward to, it should be a real spectacle. Enjoy the match!

More Zonal Resources

2010-04-14T17:18:00.001+02:00

Thanks to a couple of tips from Massimiliano Orsi, a correspondent from Italy with an interest in the zonals, I added a few new images to my pages of zonal clippings. The first tip was for:-

Zonals 1963-66 • The crosstable for Torremolinos 1962 came from a Dutch language site, Schaakhistorie en andere [zt1962], created by Nikolaas Verhulst and specializing in events where Belgian players participated. A search for 'zon' on the site's home page, Schaakhistorie en andere reveals other pages on the zonals, many with PGN game scores.

The second tip was a reference to zonals in an Informant from the 1980s. I realized that although I had already noted many zonal references in old Informants, I had never checked them against my list of clippings. After developing the appropriate database query, I identified Informant references for missing clippings in an early cycle:-

Zonals 1975-78 • See references from Informant 20 (1975H2).

I'll follow this up with subsequent cycles. It's always great to discover that other people are interested in the zonals!

Holding Your Breath

2010-03-31T16:58:00.003+02:00

I added the URL of the official site to my page on 2010 Anand - Topalov. Here are some of the most important regulations from the FIDE Handbook: 10. Rules & Regulations for the FIDE World Championship Match (FWCM) 2010.

2. Schedule

2.1 Match System: The World Chess Championship Match Anand - Topalov will consist of 12 games and if necessary, tie-break games.

3.4 Drawing of colors

3.4.1 The draw for colors will be conducted during the opening ceremony. The colors shall be reversed after game 6. (The player getting the white color in game 1 shall play game 7 with the black color).

3.4.2 For tie-break games, there shall be a separate drawing of lots conducted by the Chief Arbiter of the match.

3.5 Time control

3.5.1 The time control for each game shall be: 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting after move 61 has been made.

3.5.2 The games shall be played using the electronic clocks and boards approved by FIDE.

3.6 Conditions of victory / Replacements

3.6.1 The WCM shall be played over a maximum of twelve (12) games and the winner of the match shall be the first player to score 6.5 points or more. A tie shall be broken according to Article 3.7 below. If the winner scores 6.5 points in less than 12 games then the organizer can re-schedule the Closing Ceremony for an earlier date.

3.6.2 If a player refuses to participate in the World Championship Match, he will be replaced as follows: GM Vladimir Kramnik replaces the World champion Vishy Anand and GM Gata Kamsky replaces challenger GM Veselin Topalov. In case any or both players refuse to participate when invited, the rating list of January 2010 will be used to determine their replacements.

3.7 Tie-breaks

3.7.1.a If the scores are level after the regular twelve (12) games, after a new drawing of colors, four (4) tie-break games shall be played. The games shall be played using the electronic clock starting with 25 minutes for each player with an increment of 10 seconds after each move

3.7.1.b All tie-break games shall be played according to the following: 1. Play is governed by the World Championship Technical Regulations (annex 1), which apply with the exceptions mentioned below in (2), (3) and (4). [...]

3.7.2 If the scores are level after the games in Article 3.7.1a, then, after a new drawing of colors, a match of 2 games shall be played with a time control of 5 minutes plus 3 seconds increment after each move. In case of a level score, another 2-game match will be played to determine a winner. If still there is no winner after 5 such matches (total 10 games), one sudden-death game will be played as described below in Article 3.7.3.

3.7.3 If the score is still level after five matches as described in Article 3.7.2, the players shall play a one sudden death game. The player who wins the drawing of lots may choose the color. The player with the white pieces shall receive 5 minutes, the player with the black pieces shall receive 4 minutes whereupon, after the 60th move, both players shall receive an increment of 3 seconds from move 61. In case of a draw the player with the black pieces is declared the winner.

13. Prize Fund

13.1 The prize fund of the match, provided by the organizer, should be a minimum of 1,000,000 (one million) euros, net of any applicable taxes. The prize fund will be divided . 60% for the winner and 40% to the loser if the FWCM ends within the 12 regular games. In case the winner is decided by tie-break games, the winner shall receive 55% and the loser 45%.

13.2 The organizer shall pay to FIDE an amount of 20% over and above the total prize fund, net of any applicable taxes.

13.3 If the match is played in the country of one of the players, then the opponent shall receive 100,000 (one hundred thousand) euros from the Prize Fund. The balance of the Prize Fund shall then be shared in accordance to Article 13.1 above.

How much is the prize fund? From the official site, Veselin Topalov: Interview by Yuri Vasiliev for Sport Express:-

Q: I read, that that prize fund sets a record for all World Chess Championship matches, barring the so called 'rematch of the 20th century', Fischer - Spassky [1992], where 5.000.000 US$ were at stake.

A: The prize fund in our match is 2 million Euro – about 3 million US$ - but if Anand would have made even a minor attempt, it could easily go over 5 million. India is a vast market and Anand is very popular in his homeland. But the World Champion preferred that someone else does all the work and even play the victim. 'Well, you see, I prefer not to play in Bulgaria, but there are no other options.' We were prepared to play in India half the games or even the whole match, but Anand didn't make even the slightest effort to arrange anything about this. Even 3 million US$ aren't bad at all, if we remember Kasparov being ready to play his matches – against Shirov, Ponomariov or Kasimdzhanov – for a mere 1 million and no sponsor was found for any of them.

Topalov has been widely criticized for those remarks about Anand and they are certainly inappropriate on the official site. I would have thought that after Kasparov's record with the GMA, PCA, WCC, and Braingames (am I missing any?), top chess players had learned that they should stick to playing, not organizing.

The last World Championship match where Topalov was involved, the 2006 Kramnik - Topalov Unification Match, aka Toiletgate, left chess with a nasty stench. Let's hope that the Anand - Topalov leaves us holding our collective breath in suspense, not our noses in disgust.

Botvinnik Rules

2010-03-24T15:53:00.002+01:00

Throughout 'My Great Predecessors II', Kasparov was critical of limitations placed on Soviet players in the qualifying cycles of the 1950s and 1960s. He wrote the following in the chapter on Botvinnnik (p.186; I've left out details about individual circumstances).

[In 1958] there began a spell of bad luck and vexing failures in Bronstein's career. The cause of this was largely the Botvinnik initiated limit on the representatives from one country (i.e. the USSR) in the Candidates tournaments: not more than five out of eight were allowed.

In the Interzonal tournament in Portoroz 1958 there were six qualifiers, but the four Soviet grandmasters were fighting for only three places (since Smyslov and Keres were already in the list of Candidates), and willingly or not they were forced to play keeping an eye on one another. Both [Bronstein] and Averbakh missed out by half a step.

He was to suffer an even crueller stroke of fate at the Interzonal in Amsterdam 1964, where five Soviet grandmasters were fighting for the same three places. Another to suffer was Stein, who fell victim to the 'Botvinnik rule' for the second consecutive time.

It was effectively on account of this unjust restriction that two such splendid players as Bronstein and Stein missed out on the battle for the World Championship. Their replacements in the Candidates events were not of equivalent strength and it is clear that, with their participation, things at the top of chess could have turned out differently.

Alas, few now remember these human dramas. But meanwhile they reflected the unnatural situation that existed in chess in the 1950s and 1960s, when many of the best grandmasters, occupying most of the places in the world's top 30, had no opportunity to participate fully in the World Championship qualifying cycle -- for the only reason that they were Soviets.

Some will retort: but with this limit, fighting spirit was strengthened and only the very best made it to the top -- that is by the laws of Darwinism, the strongest survived. But just think how much nervous energy it cost these world-class stars to battle among themselves for the right to squeeze through the eye of a needle. And how it must have been to recognize that you are stronger and have occupied a higher place, but it is another player who will go through. Were not these unhealed spiritual wounds one of the causes of the untimely death of Leonid Stein?

(That last sentence deserves special attention, but it takes me too far from the subject at hand; this is not the right place to address it.) In the same chapter (p.215) Kasparov linked the 'Botvinnik rule' with the right to a return match.

In 1956, soon after Smyslov's second victory in the Candidates tournament, an event occurred that was to have a strong influence on the entire modern history of chess: FIDE granted the World Champion the right to a return match. The decision was adopted together with the aforementioned 'Botvinnik rule', and also not without the participation of [Botvinnik] (I should remind you that his friend Ragozin was a FIDE Vice-President).

Although earlier, in the late 1940s, in his plan for the contesting of the World Championship, he had rejected the idea of the return match, since 'it's organization would disturb the periodicity of the system, and in the interests of chess this must not be allowed', and he had gained the right for a defeated champion to play a match-tournament with the champion and the challenger three years later (this FIDE rule operated in the 1951 and 1954 matches).

The inescapable conclusion is that Botvinnik was behind both the limitation on Soviet players and the return match because these rules gave him better chances to retain his World Championship title. While I have no particular argument with this conclusion, I still wonder to what extent the 'Botvinnik rule' was a consequence of other federations' fears of Soviet collusion, as described in Collusion and Consequences. Perhaps it wasn't really a 'Botvinnik rule', but rather Botvinnik seeing personal advantage in a rule favored by the other chess federations.

In 'Predecessors IV' Kasparov dismissed the idea that Soviet collusion was responsible for Fischer's mediocre showing at Curacao in 1962. 'At that moment Bobby was not yet ready to win such a tournament -- irrespective of whether or not there was such a pact. Averbakh: "If Fischer could have beaten the Soviet grandmasters, as was to happen later in the early 1970s, no amount of draws would have been able to stop him."' (p.300). In other words, to win against collusion, a player had to be significantly better than the Soviet opposition. Tightly contested tournaments would always favor the Soviet bloc.

FIDE implemented matches to eliminate collusion in the Candidate tournaments. Was the primary objective of the earlier 'Botvinnik rule' to eliminate collusion in Interzonals rather than to favor Botvinnik?

St.Patrick's Day = Maintenance

2010-03-17T17:31:00.005+01:00

Today I corrected a number of minor errors which I discovered recently. In the crosstable for the 1959 Yugoslavia Candidates Tournament, I placed Gligoric before Fischer, because the Serb had a better tiebreak than the American (though unofficial). After doing this, I noticed that the 1962 Curacao Candidates Tournament was missing tiebreak completely, so I started a new TODO list.

In the story Vincenzio the Venetian, I mentioned that the name 'Retszch', as spelled in the source, should in fact be 'Retzsch'. Now the page will be found in any search on 'Retzsch'.

After that, I made various PGN corrections brought to made my attention over the past few years. They can be found by looking for the date of this post in Index of /chess/pgn. Thanks to everyone who flagged the PGN errors.

The Threat of Collusion

2010-03-10T14:08:00.002+01:00

In a previous post on the 1952 Interzonal, Collusion and Consequences, I speculated about qualification into the subsequent Candidates event: 'I'm not sure why Reshevsky and Euwe were seeded into the 1953 Candidates Tournament, although it makes sense that it was because of their participation in the 1948 FIDE Title Tournament, won by Botvinnik.' After a little more investigation, I determined that this was indeed the case and then documented the various reasons for qualification on the pages for that cycle: 1952 Saltsjobaden Interzonal and 1953 Zurich Candidates.

As for any collusion in the 1953 Candidates Tournament, I found the following in Chess Review, November 1953 (p.323):

[Reshevsky] entered the tournament not at all certain that the nine man Russian "syndicate" would be overly concerned with "bourgeois" standards of sportsmanship. At Saltsjobaden there had been undeniable collusion by the Russians in a move to freeze out Western competitors. Might not the same tactics be repeated at some critical stage in the present struggle if it became expedient to throw collective support to the Soviet candidate whose prospects had crystallized above those of his fellow Russians? Regarding this possibility, the Australian Chess World remarked in a pre-tournament issue that "we fear the Russians would put patriotism above the canons of sport, as at Saltsjobaden, and make things a bit easier for the top Russian."

While Chess Review has no evidence that such collusion was either planned or practiced in Switzerland, the ever-present threat operated as a mental hazard that could not but adversely affect the play of the Western group. An indication of the peculiar Russian mentality on this point is seen in the intransigent attitude of Ragozin, official spokesman for the Russian delegation, during an interview with the American journalist and master, George Koltanowski. When George started to ask a question beginning, "If a non-Russian were to win this tournament..." Ragozin brusquely interrupted: "Nyet! Never! Impossible!"

Why players of the calibre of Reshevsky, Najdorf, Gligoric and so forth should be ruled out summarily is difficult to see, even if we grant the undoubted capabilities of the Russian stars. Was Ragozin merely voicing a personal opinion as to the probable outcome? Or was he expounding an official a priori dogma that no non-Communist will ever be alowed to win a challengers' tournament if the Russians, by hook or by crook, can possibly prevent it?

Another ugly (and rather astonishing) blot on the tourney, according to information received from one of Chess Review's observers on the scene was the unabashed consultation by the Russian contingent -- "flagrant coaching from the sidelines ... and tips passed from one Russian player to another during games".

Despite the lack of 'evidence that such collusion was either planned or practiced', the threat was as strong as the execution, at least for the editors of Chess Review. The article went on to mention that Reshevsky played the event without a second, which certainly didn't improve his chances of succeeding.

Cumulative Scores

2010-03-03T10:23:00.003+01:00

In Chigorin Stumbles at Hastings 1895, I developed a new database query that generated a table showing the round-by-round progress of the leaders at Hastings 1895. It's a useful tool to identify the critical games in a round-robin (all-play-all) event.

I liked the concept so much that I used it to generate a similar table -- I call it a 'Cumulative Score' -- for each of the following World Championship events...

...i.e. the first FIDE World Championship and the five candidate events covered by the study that I criticized in Calculating Collusion.

The cumulative score for the 1948 FIDE title event, where play was divided between The Hague and Moscow, is shown on the left. The three character codes at the top of the table are abbreviations for the five players who participated in the event: Botvinnik, Euwe, Keres, Reshevsky, and Smyslov; the blank cells (e.g. Botvinnik in Rd.1) show who had the bye in a round; and the dark horizontal lines show the end of each round-robin stage and the beginning of the next.

The 1948 event didn't appear to be particularly suspenseful. Botvinnik took the lead during the first stage, never relinquished it, and was assured of first place after the 22nd round. There was, however, a tight battle for second place, where Reshevsky missed his chance by losing in the 24th round (to Botvinnik).

A cumulative score is useful for understanding first person narratives like that by Keres in 'Grandmaster of Chess - The Complete Games of Paul Keres' (p.295). It started,

In the spring of 1948 I went to Holland in order to contest, at long last, the highest chess title in the world. For various reasons Fine declined to participate and so this left five of us to embark on this momentous conflict. From the very first rounds a fierce struggle developed and this continued right to the very last games. I began the tournament with two wins, against Euwe and Smyslov, but then lost in the ensuing rounds against Reshevsky and Botvinnik and at the end of the first tour I stood equal with Smyslov in third and fourth places.

About the third stage he wrote,

I came to within 1.5 points of Botvinnik and now everything hung on our individual encounter. In the event of a win I would come to within half a point of the leader and the issue of the tournament would be once again wide open.

This deciding encounter had a most complicated and exciting course and constituted a stiff test for the nerves of both players. Out of a complicated middlegame I succeeded in evolving a position of the most promising kind. Then, however, I failed to utilize my opportunities to the best advantage and the scales tipped over in Botvinnik's favor. Then there ensued a whole series of inaccuracies committed by both sides and when the game was eventually adjourned a double Rook endgame with an extra Pawn for Botvinnik had arisen.

When play was resumed Botvinnik did not find the best line and a Rook ending resulted that should have been easily drawn. But the vicissitudes of the game were by no means ended. Both sides conducted the game imprecisely and it was I who made the last mistake. By the time the second adjournment came Botvinnik had an easily won position and I suffered a bitter defeat. With this win Botvinnik had in practice ensured for himself victory in the tournament since with only eight more games to be played he already had a lead of 2.5 points.

The cumulative score indicates that this was the game played in round 15. Keres' description of its 'vicissitudes' is hard to reconcile with conspiracy theorists who claim he was under orders to let Botvinnik win the tournament. Keres' account also shows that the event was more suspenseful than the crosstable alone would indicate.

Calculating Collusion

2010-02-24T11:17:00.002+01:00

Continuing with the series on Soviet collusion in the 1950s and 1960s (see the previous post Solutions to Collusion), in 2006 Charles C. Moul and John V. Nye, both university professors in economics, published a study of the subject: Did the Soviets Collude? A Statistical Analysis of Championship Chess 1940-64.

Abstract: We expand the set of outcomes considered by the tournament literature to include draws and use games from post-war chess tournaments to see whether strategic behavior is important in such scenarios. In particular, we examine whether players from the former Soviet Union acted as a cartel in international tournaments - intentionally drawing against one another in order to focus effort on non-Soviet opponents - to maximize the chance of some Soviet winning. Using data from international qualifying tournaments as well as USSR national tournaments, we estimate models to test for collusion. Our results are consistent with Soviet draw-collusion and inconsistent with Soviet competition. Simulations of the period's five premier international competitions (the FIDE Candidates tournaments) suggest that the observed Soviet sweep was a 75%-probability event under collusion but only a 25%-probability event had the Soviet players not colluded.

Of the five Candidate Tournaments in the study -- Budapest 1950 through Curacao 1962 -- the Curacao event has always received the most attention, largely due to Fischer's public accusation of Soviet cheating. It was, however, the 1953 Zurich Candidates Tournament where collusion, if it occurred, caused the most damage to the chances of the non-Soviet players, Reshevsky in particular. Moul and Nye's findings for the event are summarized in the following table.

Focusing on the line for Reshevsky, the authors wrote, 'Our calculations indicate that he had a 27% chance of winning a fair tournament. With collusion, his chances fell to 8%.' As convincing as these numbers might be, the result is flawed, relying, as it did, on the Sonas Chessmetric historical ratings. On several occasions in the past I've taken issue with Sonas's results when they failed the test of common sense. This is another case.

The last column in the table ('No cartel: % win') is based on the 'Rating' column, as calculated by Sonas. The top three ratings are Reshevsky (2780.99), Smyslov (2764.92), and Najdorf (2753.04), which is the first red flag (the six digit accuracy is also suspicious, but I won't dwell on it). The authors infer from these ratings that 'Retroactive grading has shown that Reshevsky was the favorite going into the 1953 Candidates' tournament.' While he was certainly one of the favorites, I can't imagine that many chess historians, after examination of the games between the two players (Vasily Smyslov vs. Samuel Reshevsky, Chessgames.com), where the post-WWII results give a +4-0=9 advantage to Smyslov, would argue that Reshevsky was stronger than Smyslov in 1953.

The second red flag concerns four players bunched within a range of three rating points -- Bronstein (2723.87), Boleslavsky (2722.33), Stahlberg (2721.93), and Keres (2721.02) -- implying that Stahlberg was the equal of Bronstein, Boleslavsky, and Keres. A look at the historical record shows that Bronstein drew a title match with Botvinnik in 1951, that Boleslavsky drew a playoff match with Bronstein after the 1950 Candidates, losing only in tiebreak, and that Keres finished tied with Reshevsky in the 1948 title tournament. Stahlberg finished behind Bronstein and Boleslavsky in the 1948 Interzonal (Keres was exempt) and behind all three in the 1950 Candidates; had a lifetime negative score against each of the three; and finished 15th and dead last in the 1953 Candidates, 3.5 points behind second-to-last Euwe (Bronstein and Keres finished tied with Reshevsky for 2nd-4th). Stahlberg was an excellent player, one of the West's best at that time ('among the world's best ten for a few years around 1950', according to Hooper & Whyld), but he was not at the same level as the three Soviets.

Why are the Sonas calculations so misleading? My theory is that they fail to account for the Soviet era social barrier ('Iron Curtain', anyone?) between Soviet players and Western players. Soviet players rarely played in Western events and Western players were even rarer participants in Soviet events. The two groups played in different, almost separate chess universes. A comparison of their performances requires a calibration of the separate calculations, using the few events where they actually met. It is as though the Soviets were measured with a meterstick, the Westerners measured with a yardstick, and no one bothered to check that the meterstick and the yardstick were the same length. I also suspect that Sonas overlooked many Soviet events. Moul and Nye wrote,

[The Sonas] rating does require a minimum number of observed games to construct. Games without Sonas chess-ratings for both players are dropped from the sample. While this leads to the omission of a few Interzonal games, the vast majority of dropped games are from URS championships. These omissions will presumably drive up the average observed skill of Soviet players in URS championships, and thereby make our comparison to FIDE events even more compelling.

I have a problem with that last sentence. Because the 'dropped games' would be predominantly wins by the better players, and the kept games predominantly draws between players of equivalent ability, I would presume exactly the opposite. Near the start of their paper, the authors wrote,

For the purposes of econometric analysis, chess has numerous advantages which are not common in other sports. [...] Most important of all is that there exists a rating system which is a precise and accurate reflection of the performances of players and which is an excellent indicator of the relative strengths of players.

This prerequisite was not delivered by the Sonas system. There might have been collusion among the Soviet players, but it is not shown by this study.

More Zonal Clippings

2010-02-17T12:41:00.001+01:00

I added a number of clippings for zonal tournaments. The first, for a Canadian championship, was sent to me via email. This sort of correspondence is always appreciated, thanks very much!

1966-69

The rest are screen captures from the Rusbase page on Soviet era Zonal Tournaments.

My next step on the zonal project will be to create pages for clippings on cycles after 1993-96. I expect to find many of the crosstables already on the web.

Solutions to Collusion

2010-02-10T16:24:00.003+01:00

The previous post, Collusion and Consequences, discussed pre-arranged games at the 1952 Saltsjobaden Interzonal. A few months after the tournament ended, an editorial in Chess Review (March 1953; 'edited and published by I.A. Horowitz'; p.65), presented a Western point of view on the Soviet collusion. I initially planned to give excerpts, but the document makes a number of points relevant to the early evolution of the World Championship, so I give it in entirety.

Syndicate Chess
Russian chess is an instrument of Russian national policy. The government supports an elaborate program of chess activities. Clubs and leagues are organized: competition is subsidized. Chess is taught in the grade schools, with various phases, such as mating with King, Bishop, and Knight, a required subject in each grade. Players are encouraged and, if successful, they are suitably rewarded. In return for this paternal interest, Russian masters must produce. They must win every trophy, title, match, and tournament in sight. They have to show the world that, although the game of chess is one of the two or three things which they have not invented, the Russians, nonetheless, are its most capable exponents.

By and large, this activity has been of benefit to chess. For example, a large number of great players have been developed. The Kremlin cannot supply an individual with talent. But, once they see he has it, they make it possible for him to realize his chess potentialities.

The government, however, is not selfless in its policies. What it wants is for its players to bring it an unbroken string of international successes. The game of chess itself is only a Pawn. The best interests of chess will be sacrificed any time that the bureaucrats in charge of it see the slightest gain in doing so.

The Russian players are good. Very good. They are sometimes not in form. But, when they meet Western players, they are always at their best.

They are soldiers in a war; they are the standard-bearers of Soviet culture. Any time a Russian master is permitted to show his face in the international arena, he must be at concert pitch. He is bound to be in the pink, physically and mentally. He is certain to be armed with all the latest weapons, both offensive and defensive, of opening analysis.

Since they are modern soldiers, they have lots of service troops. In the World Championship tournament, the Russian representatives -- Botvinnik, Keres, Smyslov -- arrived at The Hague attended by a large contingent of auxiliaries. It included, among others, a doctor, a cook, and a most impressive panel of eminent analysts. Such kibitzers as Kotov, Flohr, Bondarevsky, Alatortsev, Lilienthal, Tolush, and Ragozin worked on the adjourned positions. Or, if Euwe or Reshevsky, the non-Russian competitors, found an innovation in an opening, they would devote themselves to finding its refutation.

The Soviet grandmasters also have an additional advantage. Russia controls the meetings of the FIDE -- the Federation Internationale des Echecs. It has the titleholder, plus a disproportionate number of the world's leading players. Thus, it needs the other countries less than it itself is needed. It has a strong position, and no false scruples stop it from making the most of it. Then, in the second place, most Western chess federations are chronically short of funds. Consequently, there are times when they may neglect to send representatives to meetings. Moscow, on the other hand, fills its entire quota of delegates. So do its assorted satellites. What is more, the Western nations (such of them as do attend) cast their ballots as individuals. The communist states always vote as a bloc. They are therefore able to dictate the time and place, conditions and even the composition of any tournaments which have a bearing on the World Championship.

In themselves, none of the above actions are culpable. In fact, some are even meritorious. It is clearly good for chess to have strong, brilliant players and to have them playing profound, exciting and beautiful games. Insofar as Russian policy produces such players and such games, all of us who love chess are their very grateful debtors.

Alas -- let us face it. We expect a successful football coach or big-league baseball manager to make use of every angle, edge, percentage, or advantage. One or two are even known to occasionally push their weight around. We are not used to anyone treating chess as if it were of a similar importance. If the Russians choose to do so, they are strictly within their rights. We have no right to begrudge them their successes.

Still -- we can't help feeling worried.

Some time later in the year, a large tournament will be held [1953 Zurich Candidates]: its winner will then play Botvinnik for the title. A small number of Westerners and nine -- nine -- Russians will be the competitors.

We are worried by this tournament.

We want it to be won by the best player in it. Or, at any rate, the one who is playing best at the time. We hope that this will be Reshevsky. It it happens otherwise -- if another player wins it -- we will not feel too tragic. We are ready to salute him -- no matter who he is, no matter what his nation -- provide that he wins it fairly.

The Russians have a different attitude. They do not care who wins -- or even how he wins -- just so long as he's a Russian!

But each Russian player is an agent of his state. He is thus allied in a common purpose with the others. This is supposed to be a tournament of individuals. Each player in a tournament is supposed to play his best against each of the others. Then, and only then, is it possible to tell which one is the best among them. But the nine Russians in it form a unit of their own (and the Hungarian, Szabo, may be counted on this, too). They play as a team: a syndicate.

Just how this works was shown in the recent Interzonal tournament at Saltsjobaden [1952]. In it were five Russian competitors. Their own Soviet periodicals have always heaped scorn on so-called "grandmaster draws". In their own all-Russian tournaments, they go in for an aggressive, battle-royal type of chess. At Saltsjobaden, however, such games did not suit their purpose. The members of the Russian syndicate, when they came to play each other, calmly called each game a draw, after 16 to 22 moves!

In this coming tournament, the Russian group will constitute more than three-fifths of the entries. Each of them will play about three-fifths of his games against his team mates. The way in which he plays these games will be determined by what suits Soviet interests. If after several rounds, it seems that no Western player has a chance to win the tournament, we may get an honest contest. If, on the other hand, it should turn into a duel between Sammy Reshevsky, and, say, Vasily Smyslov, we are sure that no Russian will venture to beat Smyslov and thus make him lose the prize.

In this observation, we have mentioned but one hazard. There are others. For example, in a gruelling tournament, a day of rest is an incalculable asset. And, in such a duel as we have suggested, we can be sure that Reshevsky would have to work to the utmost against every opponent, Westerner or Soviet. Whereas, if Smyslov should have rigged games or even routine draws, he would be freed of the strain of tournament tension and resting through the majority of his games. As freshness and alertness count so heavily in chess, this factor cannot be disregarded.

We are casting no aspersions. In the Soviet ideology, the state is paramount. If the Kremlin, for some reason, wants to win a prize at chess, it is then the player's duty to help it get it. If this requires winning, he has to try to win. If it requires losing, he must do his best to lose. According to Soviet lights, he is doing nothing bad. In fact, if he did not do so -- he would then be anti-social. When we hint that Russian players may throw games to one another, we are saying nothing slanderous. Rather we are paying them a compliment. We are saying that Soviet chess players are very good Soviet citizens.

Our sense of ethics is different. A tournament which is rigged fills the Western chess lover with nausea.

Our game has always cut across national boundaries. It should continue to do so. If the Russian chess players play as chess players, then it's proper to have nine, or even more, in a tournament. If they play as Russians, it is a dangerous thing to have even two of them.

We think that the sensible thing is to have two tournaments: one for Western players and another for the Soviets. Let the winners play each other -- and the winner meet Botvinnik.

We are sure the Russians won't agree. We will have to reconcile ourselves to playing the tournament on their terms.

In that case, all we can hope is that unpleasantness can be avoided. That a Russian will get such an early that his allies will feel it safe to play fair and scrupulous chess. Or -- even better -- that some Western player, some Samson like Reshevsky, gets into an inspired streak and wins, in spite of all the machinations of the Soviet Philistines.

Despite a dubious premise or two (I'm not sure that chess was taught systematically in Soviet elementary schools) and an unsubstantiated charge of game throwing ('if it requires losing, he must do his best to lose'), I think it makes a good case that the chess board was not a level playing field for Reshevsky. By introducing matches instead of round robin tournaments, the imbalance was solved satisfactorily for the Candidates. It was solved less satisfactorily for the Interzonals by limiting the number of Soviet players advancing to the Candidates. This led to unforeseen consequences for the Soviets.

Collusion and Consequences

2010-02-03T14:53:00.002+01:00

One of the small tasks in last week's post about Catching up on Maintenance was to review the earliest Interzonals. This led me to an interesting report from the November 1952 issue of Chess Review (p.323) concerning the 1952 Saltsjobaden Interzonal Tournament, which was the qualifier for the 1953 Zurich Candidates Tournament:

Soviet entrants made a clean sweep of the top five places, which qualified them to take part in the World Championship Candidates Tournament of 1953 to determine the next challenger for the world title. Seeded in this coming event are Samuel Reshevsky of the USA, Dr. Max Euwe of Holland, and the first five players in the Candidates' tournament of 1950 -- D.Bronstein, I.Boleslavsky, V.Smyslov, and P.Keres, all of Russia, and M.Najdorf of Argentina.

A noteworthy circumstance in the Saltsjobaden affair was the pacific attitude of the Russian players toward one another. All games among them were drawn! Kotov, for example, who fell with fury upon most of his non-Russian rivals, was content to play the shortest possible "grandmaster draws" with his compatriots: vs. Averbach, 20 moves; vs. Geller, 15 moves; vs. Petrosian, 15 moves; vs. Taimanov, 17 moves. Since Kotov proved to be the class of the tournament, a sterner attitude on his part toward the other Russians might well have enabled an "outsider" to squeeze into the charmed circle of qualifiers.

The two-tiered Soviet dominance is highlighted in the following portion of the 1952 Saltsjobaden page that I just referenced.

Of the ten games played between Soviet opponents, only Taimanov - Averbakh was longer than 22 moves. This apparent collusion had a number of consequences. The Chess Review report continued with the following news item.

Our Stockholm correspondent, Z. Nilsson, reports that a FIDE committee meeting in February [1953] may add to the World Championship Candidates Tournament qualifiers from the Saltsjobaden event. Four contenders tied for the fifth and last qualifying place and though Averbach qualified on S.B. points, the tiebreak was extremely minute [numbers are shown on my page]. The fact, moreover, that Averbach's place completed an all-Russian qualification and puts nine Russians to three non-Russians in the Candidates Tournament, very likely was considered.

I'm not sure why Reshevsky and Euwe were seeded into the 1953 Candidates Tournament, although it makes sense that it was because of their participation in the 1948 FIDE Title Tournament, won by Botvinnik. Chess Review added an item about Reshevsky.

Hermann Helms reports in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle that Samuel Reshevsky, declaring the 9-3 setup in favor of Russians is inequitable, is unwilling to play in the 1953 World Championship Candidates Tournament for which he is seeded. He is willing to meet any of the leading Russians in straight match play, as he has done with Najdorf and Gligoric, but his challenge to Paul Keres, the Soviet Champion, has brought no reply so far. It hardly seems possible that the addition of three Candidates (one from Communist Hungary) will alter Reshevsky's stand.

I suspect that the 1952 Interzonal and 1953 Candidates Tournament were the origin of later FIDE rules that limited the number of Soviet players advancing from an Interzonal to a Candidates event. With the goal of documenting the findings on my various pages specific to the results of these events, this is worth further investigation and I'll spend a few future posts on the subject.

Catching up on Maintenance

2010-01-27T15:03:00.004+01:00

No one, especially me, likes doing maintenance, but once in a while it's worthwhile taking the time to get various odds and ends out of the way. I changed the following pages (listed in reverse chronological order).

2010 Anand - Topalov • I brought this page up to date with the various FIDE announcements from the last quarter of 2009. The match starts in less than three months.
2004-05 Unification • This had links into About.com which were broken since 2008; I converted them to Archive.org.
1998-99 World Chess Council • I added a small crosstable for the 1998 Shirov - Kramnik match.
1979-81 cycle : Candidates Matches • I added the months when a match was played to the description for each match.
Index of FIDE Events 1948-1990 • I had one of the first Interzonals listed as Stockholm and another listed as Saltsjobaden, even though both were played in Saltsjobaden. I corrected this on the index and on the pages for the two events. (While I was doing this I noticed that four of the first five Interzonals were played in Sweden.)

A few more maintenance items on my TODO list will have to wait until I can research certain details.

Zonal Cycle 1995-1997

2010-01-20T14:56:00.002+01:00

I added a first set of clippings for the cycle Zonals 1995-97 to my page on the Zonals. These were events that seeded players into the 1997 FIDE Knockout Matches at Groningen. In fact, these zonals were originally to have seeded players into a 1996 Interzonal, but the event was cancelled by FIDE and eventually replaced by the first knockout event, won by Anand.

Most of the first clippings were taken from Europe Echecs, and while they are little more than stubs listing the dates for the event and the names of the top finishers, they should be useful in locating full crosstables. Countries represented by the top finishers in zonal events usually receive better coverage in their national chess magazine(s).

Global Chess, Chess News Corporation, Chess Lane, and FIDE

2010-01-13T14:40:00.002+01:00

Continuing with my two previous posts -- 2009 FIDE Executive Board : Whither the World Championship? and The Rise and Fall of FIDE's Global Chess, the following is again excerpted from the minutes of the 2009 Executive Board. It concerns discussions on the fate of Global Chess and on its successor.

3.8. Directors' Reports.

3.8.1 Global Chess.

[...] The FIDE President [Ilyumzhinov] took the floor and said during the discussion of Global Chess there was a very important issue raised about sponsorship in chess. During his report he did not touch upon this issue as he was talking about two other main problems: popularisation of chess and joining the Olympic movement. He was glad that this issue has been raised now. First, in fourteen years FIDE has not broken any of its commitments and all FIDE events have been organised for the chess community. We organise all the tournaments which we declare. All these years we have been trying to commercialise chess and find some other sponsors.

Today we recalled Mr. Campomanes who has done a lot for chess, using his own personal relations and connections, and who has brought a lot of investment and sponsorship into chess, including his own country for Karpov-Korchnoi match for example. And now he was continuing this tradition of Mr Campomanes by bringing in his personal friends and political connections among leaders of various countries. This allows FIDE to organise many chess events in respective venues. He had been also trying to create a system, which would be independent from him, which would not need the President and would create sponsorship and invest into chess. In order to create such a system, he had been investing from his own pocket into chess and this is his personal sponsorship of the chess movement.

For fourteen years FIDE has not taken any risk. He was the one who was risking with his own money. He was trying to find large scale business men who would invest into chess with him. The first effort was the creation of FIDE Commerce in London with Mr. Tarasov. We opened an office in London and we organised quite a few events. The expenses totalled to 4 mln USD, but this effort failed as FIDE Commerce did not bring any extra sponsorship. We closed FIDE Commerce and Mr. Tarasov still owes him around 500,000 USD.

Then we tried in Turin, after his personal discussion with Mr. Kok, where it was decided to create Global Chess, where 99,9% belonged to him and only one share belonged to Mr. Kok. He took the obligation to pay all the funds to Global Chess, in order for this company to attract other sponsors. He transferred the amount of 2 mln euro from his personal account to the account in Holland. We have all been witnessing the activities of this company. Global chess was supposed to find potential investors in Europe. He personally participated in negotiations with many companies, alongside Mr. Kok. As a result, we did not organise any tournaments in Amsterdam, Switzerland or Prague.

Therefore, as the main shareholder, he had decided to close Global Chess BV and he announced this officially at the Presidential Board meeting in Krakow. Nevertheless, he was grateful to Mr. Kok for his cooperation. He found it fruitful cooperation. He did not have any personal reservations against Mr. Kok. FIDE did not lose any money either, but it just cost him another 2 mln euro which he had spent for chess from his own pocket.

Mr. Ilyumzhinov said that as for the amount of 250,000 euro which was mentioned during the discussion [owed to FIDE by Global Chess], we should not forget the six Grand Prix tournaments, which have been organised for men, and four women's Grand Prix. This is additional revenue for FIDE from its share of the sponsorship. In addition there were stipends for principals and all FIDE members who participated in the tournaments. He thought that in two years Global Chess did a lot for popularisation of chess by opening new schools and bringing new personalities and new leaders of countries as friends of FIDE.

To date, there is no Global Chess Amsterdam and after his negotiations with his partners in the Arabic world, he had decided to open Global Chess in the UAE, in Dubai. In the summer he had transferred 150,000 euro there. There is money on the account of this organisation. He was transferring another 300,000 to this account by the end of the year. So the main shareholder is his partner and the President invests into it. As an organisation Global chess has no obligation as an investor. The only obligation is further development and popularisation of chess, which brings him moral satisfaction.

He hoped Global Chess would learn its lesson and will bring real sponsors into FIDE in the future. This will bring moral satisfaction and material things which we will see in the FIDE budget. He reiterated that he was risking another one million USD in order to try again to seek sponsors for chess. There is no risk for FIDE in this enterprise and let us hope that Global Chess will be working in the best possible way. Mr. Borg is appointed as General Director of Global Chess and will be working as hard as possible as well. [...]

3.8.2. Development Department.

Annex 62 is the Agreement of Shareholders of Chess News Corporation between Chess Lane SA and FIDE. Deputy President G. Makropoulos informed the Board on the negotiations between Chess Lane and FIDE, especially during the current FIDE Congress. [...]

Honorary Vice President Prof. K. Jungwirth said there is a list of FIDE events in schedule two, with World Championships etc, and in schedule three there is a clause to transfer exclusive commercial rights. He asked what will be the position of a Federation that will make an application for the organisation of such an event.

Mr. Makropoulos said the list is of the official FIDE events organised currently and Chess Lane is aware that the sponsorship for these events is the business of FIDE and that they cannot organise any of these events. If they come with a proposal for an event, they should present a business-plan to FIDE and FIDE will study it. He said that the main aim of Chess Lane is not to organise chess events but to generate business. There is a long list of rights in the agreement. Any agreed project must stipulate the rights to be acquired for that project and first there must be an approval of them by FIDE.

Women's World Champion A. Kosteniuk asked about exclusive commercial rights in respect of the broadcast of chess games.

Mr. Makropoulos said that this list is of possible rights. They are frozen. Chess Lane can get them only if they present a business plan which shall be approved by FIDE. Mr. Makropoulos said that this is a protection for FIDE. The business-plan should be very detailed and it is up to FIDE whether to accept such a project.

Mr. Gelfer said that Board members, especially the Interface, know what is here. Maybe some of the Executive Board members do not know. He said the main difference between this contract and others is that we are used to the President giving and risking his own money for chess development. This contract is with someone whose main interest is to make business through chess. He is not interested in donating money to chess. Although he had been insisting that this contract cannot be signed without professional legal expertise, he can say now, with all necessary cautiousness that Messrs. Makropoulos and Freeman made an excellent job in protecting FIDE rights and avoiding any danger. They have been doing this for months already and other Board members joined them in the last few days during Congress. There are many ways to go out of the contract, to control the books and not to be responsible for anything. Messrs. Sand and Rivello joined the Committee today and raised some juridical questions. We have to be careful when signing for separate projects as this will involve creation of new companies.

Vice President W. Kelleher said he also had a lot of concerns when he first saw the contract. During the past couple of days all the concerns regarding liability of FIDE were addressed. FIDE is not in danger financially or legally. It is important to note that this contract is a structure. We have not seen a specific business plan, and we do not know how they are going to attract business. Mr. Kaplan is very confident that we can make money. In his view this is an open question. We did ask him to guarantee 100,000 USD for the first year. Mr. Kaplan declined to do this. He assumed he did it out of principle and out of confidence in his plans.

Mr. Buthali said he noted the assurances that the financial and legal side is fine. One fundamental aspect which was raised in comments is that FIDE is an institution and its integrity has been proved over the years. We have to be sure who we are dealing with. We need to know the profile of the person and we need to check the records.

Mr. Makropoulos said we have all the information about shareholders. We have a CV of Mr. Kaplan. He apologised for not giving out such details earlier. Concerning Mr. Kelleher's comments, the truth was that when we were insisting on a guarantee when signing the contract, Mr. Kaplan said 'we are partners, you put your rights, I put my money. We will make the profit and we will share this profit according to the contract'. If any project shall be rejected by FIDE, no money is paid by Mr Kaplan. In one year, if there are no projects, FIDE can terminate unilaterally. Mr. Kaplan has spent a lot of money during this period. He will present his projects. Mr. Kaplan is not like our President, he is not an altruist. This is our hope that we are facing a different situation. Also most of the real questions shall be faced, when an actual project is received. The Executive Board unanimously approved the agreement between Chess Lane and FIDE to form Chess News Corporation.

Annex 62 can be found by following the first link in this post.

World Chess Championship Blog

Canadian Zonals in the 1990s

New Zonal Clippings for C18

New Zonal Clippings for C19

New Zonal Clippings for C21 and C22

New Label: Interviews

Let's Hear It for C19

New Zonal Clippings for C23, C24, and C25

2011 FIDE Executive Board : Whither the World Championship?

First Women's Title Match in 12 Years

19th World Computer Championship

Missing Zonal Clippings

Kramnik on Kramnik

ICCF World Championships (2011 Status)

More Feedback on Zonals

2011-2012 Women's Grand Prix, Nalchik

Of Names and Pirates

Complete History of the World Championship

2011 World Cup Players

2011 World Cup Results

Ladies First

A Feedback Loop for Zonals

TWIC Clippings for the Current Cycle (C25)

Clippings for C19, C20, & C25

Zonals for the Current Cycle (C25)

2011-2012 Women's Grand Prix, Rostov

Two Upcoming Title Matches

2011-2012 Women's Grand Prix

FIDE's Got a Secret

Qualifiers and More Qualifiers

Interviews Past and Present

The Rybka Affair

'Prevented from Taking Part for Political Reasons'

Insiders' Guide to the 2011 FIDE Candidate Matches

Pre-match

R1 G1, 5 May 2011

R1 G2, 6 May

R1 G3, 7 May

R1 G4, 8 May

R1 TB, 9 May

Intermission

R2 G1, 12 May

R2 G2, 13 May

R2 G3, 14 May

R2 G4, 15 May

R2 TB, 16 May

Intermission

R3 G1, 19 May

R3 G2, 20 May

R3 G3, 21 May

R3 G4, 23 May

R3 G5, 24 May

R3 G6, 25 May

Post-match

2011 Kazan Candidate Matches

News from the Catwalk

Qualification Paths

Meet Cathy Forbes

Zonals, Current Cycles, and GM Kamsky

Zonal '?'s

'Chess Results' by Gino Di Felice

Forthcoming Zonals++ in 2011

Zonals & Bad Championships

The U.S. Championship as FIDE Qualifier

Names: Certainty and Uncertainty

2009-2010 Women's Grand Prix, Doha

The Ballad of London 2012

2010 FIDE General Assembly : Whither the World Championship?

London, Siberia, Turkey, Siberia, ...

FIDE Rating Reports for Zone 2.x

FIDE Rating Reports for Zonals

Zonal Cycles 2004-2005 & 2006-2007

Zonal Cycle 2008-2009 Index

Fischer in the World Championship

Current Events

2010 Women's World Championship

Zonal Cycle 2008-2009

Zonal Index Updated

Dvoretsky on the World Championship

Kasparov's Character