Dual Qualification Paths

The ACP is against maintaining the dual qualification to the next stage of the World Championship via both zonals and continental championships.

• 2005-05-24: FIDE - ACP Meeting • 'Zonal tournaments : ACP suggests to abolish Zonals as the players taking part there get two chances to qualify whereas the others have only one – through Continental Championships. FIDE will carefully examine this idea.'
  
  
• 2006-03-25: 3rd ACP - FIDE Meeting • 'Zonal Tournaments: Abolishment of Zonal Tournaments helped to make the European Championship an important and strong event. It also equalized chances of all European players to qualify to the World Cup, regardless of their citizenship. The ACP thinks this model should be extended to other continents as well. It is out of any logic that the winners of national championships in relatively weak chess countries qualify directly to the World Cup, while the winners of national championships in the strongest countries, like Russia or Ukraine have no rights at all. Moreover, some players have 2 chances to qualify to the World Cup (from the Zonal Tournament and the Continental Championship), while all others only 1. FIDE agrees that this is an important, but sensitive problem, and proposes to include it into the agenda of the FIDE General Assembly in Turin. The ACP agrees.'

Re 'FIDE agrees that this is an important, but sensitive problem', that means there are politics involved. I have never seen any specifics on this.

Qualifiers for Khanty-Mansiysk 2007

When I prepared my post on Continental Championships and Zonals (2007-Q2), I overlooked that the recent U.S Championship was a zonal. TWIC didn't mention it in the final report either. Here's a summary in the same style as my first post...

Zone 2.1: 'The Frank K Berry 2007 US Championships took place May 15th - 23rd 2007 in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Alexander Shabalov defeated Sergey Kudrin in the final round to win on 7/9 half a point clear of Alexander Onsichuk.' [TWIC655]

...How many players qualified into the World Cup? The info page on the Official Site (Monroi.com) says, 'The tournament also qualifies five players into the upcoming FIDE World Cup championship cycle (with ties broken by computer tiebreaks if necessary).' Is that confirmed on the FIDE site? Yes, it is. Under the FIDE Handbook I found Cycle for the Individual World Championship, which points to...

01. World Championship General Provision
http://fide.com/official/handbook.asp?level=DD101

...This page says that Zone 2.1, the USA, is entitled to five men and three women. The document appears to be out of date because it doesn't mention the continental championships, which have largely replaced the zonals as qualifiers. While I'm on the subject of the FIDE Handbook, I'll mention two other references...

05 Regulations for the World Chess Championship Tournament
http://fide.com/official/handbook.asp?level=DD105

06. Regulations for the World Chess Championship Cycle 2007 - 2009
http://fide.com/official/handbook.asp?level=DD106

...The first link concerns the upcoming tournament in September at Mexico City. The second link concerns Khanty-Mansiysk 2007 and beyond. It appears that I stumbled on the 'Regulations for the World Chess Championship Cycle 2007 - 2009' as it was being updated. The first time I looked at the page it was blank. A few minutes later it was available, but horribly formatted. A little later, as I was writing this post, it looked much better.

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While I was searching for the qualifying info, I found a press release about the Presidential Board Meeting, held 26-28 January 2007. Two paragraphs are relevant to the World Championship...

'4. World Cup 2007 • The final contract between FIDE and the Organizer of the World Cup 2007 to be held in Khanty-Mansiysk region has been signed. The preparation for the 2007 event has been made in the proper manner and the Cup will take place at November 23-December 14th, 2007 in Ugra, Siberia, Russia. The website of the 2007 World Cup is: www.ugra-chess.ru'

'6. Other tournaments and bids for tournaments • The Presidential Board reviewed preparations and decided on bids regarding the following chess tournaments:-
- Women’s World Chess Championship 2008 will be held on March 8-25th, 2008 in Prague, Czech Republic
- World Junior Chess Championship 2008 will be held on August 2-16th, 2008 in Ankara, Turkey
- World Youth U-16 Chess Championship 2008 will be held on August 15-24th, 2008 in Ankara, Turkey
- World Amateur Chess Championship 2007 will be held on August 10-19th, 2007 in Predeal, Romania'

...The web site for the 2007 World Cup doesn't yet show anything interesting.

2007 African Championship

In my previous post, Continental Championships and Zonals (2007-Q2), I wondered if the 9th African Games, which starts today in Algiers, is the 2007 African Continental Championship, a World Championship Qualifier.

It turns out that it's not. After a little searching, I found a document with details on the 2007 African Individual Chess Championships. It will be held 31 August to 11 September 2007, at Windhoek, Namibia. • 'The 2007 African Individual Championships is a qualification event for the World Chess Cup 2007, Khanty Mansiysk, Russia. The top six players at the end of the tournament will be the African Qualifiers.'

Continental Championships and Zonals (2007-Q2)

Follow-up to FIDE World Cup Qualifiers (2007):-

8th European Championship: 'The 8th Individual European Chess Championships took place 2-16 April, 2007, in the International Congress Center, Dresden (Germany). 11 rounds Swiss system, 90 minutes for 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting from move one. Vladislav Tkachiev won the tie-breaks [...] Initially there were 33 qualifiers announced but then this was reduced to 29 as some players had qualified from 2006' [TWIC650 : 'The Week in Chess' by Mark Crowther, no.650]

Zonal 2.3: 'Zonal 2.3 took place in Santo Domingo 29th May-10th June 2007. Lenier Dominguez won the men's event and Maritza Arribas Robaina the women's both from Cuba.' [TWIC657]

Zonal 2.4: 'Zonal 2.4 took place in Sao Paulo 16th-22nd June, 2007. Gilberto Milos took first place on tie-break from Rafael Leitao after both finished on 6/8 but both progress in the FIDE cycle.' [TWIC659]

Zonal 2.5: 'Zonal 2.5 took place in San Luis ARG, 19th-26th March 2007. Diego Flores won with 7.5/9. Juan Pablo Hobaica won a three way playoff for second place.' [TWIC647]

Zonal 3.5: 'The Chinese Zonal 3.5 took place in Shandong, 28th April - 6th May 2007. Bu Xiangzhi won with 7.5/9 a point clear of Wang Yue and Ding Liren. Two players qualify for the FIDE World Cup.' [TWIC659]

2007 Oceania Zonal: (Zone 3.4?); 'IM Zong-Yuan Zhao of Australia proved to be the toast of the 2007 Oceania Zonal when he finished the event with 7/9points to qualify for the world cup to be held later this year.' [http://www.oceaniachess.com]

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Coming events as listed on the FIDE Calendar 2007:-

American Events: Absolute Americas Continental Chess Championships 2007; Cali, Colombia; 10-Jul-2007 to 20-Jul-2007 • Americas Women's Continental Championship 2007; San Luis, Argentina; 28-Aug-2007 to 7-Sep-2007.

Asian Zonals: Zone 3.2 Championship 2007; Bangladesh.

Asian Events: Asian Individual Championship; Philippines; 18-Sep-2007 to 30-Sep-2007 • Asian Women Individual Chess Championship 2007; Tehran, Iran; 2-Sep-2007 to 12-Sep-2007.

African Events : 9th African Games 2007; Algiers, Algeria; 11-Jul-2007 to 23-Jul-2007 • Is this the African Continental Championship? No other event is listed.