2008-2009 Grand Prix, Jermuk

I added the crosstable and PGN for the fifth Grand Prix event at Jermuk to my page on the 2008-2009 Grand Prix. In my previous post on the Grand Prix (see 2008-2009 Grand Prix, Nalchik), I mentioned that the venue for the sixth and last event, to be held in December, is unknown. As far as I know, this is still true.

The FIDE site giving details on the full series of six events, grandprix.fide.com, has already announced that Levon Aronian will be the overall winner.

With his joint second place finish, Aronian has already clinched first place in the overall Grand Prix cycle, which is doubly impressive, given the fact that there is still one leg left to be played, and that he has yet to play in his fourth tournament. Congratulations to Levon Aronian for his overall accomplishment in winning the Grand Prix series.

Since there are two places allocated from the Grand Prix to the
2010 Candidates Event, the player who finishes overall runnerup will also be seeded into the candidates event. The current standings (see grandprix.fide.com again) show that a number of players still have a chance to win this qualifying spot.

More on the Zonal Cycle 1993-1996

Continuing with my post on the Zonal Cycle 1993-1996, I added more clippings to my page on the cycle: Zonals 1993-96. Most of these were again from Europe Echecs, although the crosstable for the 1992 U.S. Championship at Durango came from Chess Life.

2009-Q2 FIDE Announcements

Since my last summary of FIDE announcements (see Two Overlapping World Championship Cycles), FIDE has issued a number of communications. I added them to the relevant pages on my WCC site.

• 2009-04-24: Anand-Topalov Match bidding procedure • 'The FIDE Presidential Board, during its meeting in Istanbul 7-8 March 2009, decided to open a bidding procedure for the FIDE World Championship Match 2010 (FWCM 2010) between the current World Champion GM V. Anand (India) and Challenger GM V. Topalov (Bulgaria).'
  
  
• 2009-05-06: Meetings in Khanty-Mansiysk regarding World Cup 2009 and Olympiad 2010 • 'On May 6th, the FIDE delegation met the Organising Committee of the World Cup, which will take place this year in Khanty-Mansiysk, starting November 19th. Deputy President Mr. Makropoulos and Mr. Bondarev, Head of the Organising Directorate, signed the contract for this event.'
  
  
• 2009-05-12: FIDE Press Release • 'FIDE announces that the negotiations with Universal Event Promotion (UEP), the original bidder for organising the final stages of the World Championship cycle 2009-2011 (Candidates Tournament and Final Match), did not reach a final agreement. FIDE is already in contact with other organisers and sponsors interested in holding these events.'
  
  
• 2009-06-17: Presidential Board Meeting • 'The PB accepted the new regulations for the World Championship Candidate matches.' • 'In connection with the World Championship cycle, the PB emphasized that the continuation of the Grand Prix series can be approved only if all the contracts with the organizers of the 2010-11 GP events will be in place for approval before the Executive Board meeting to be held in October 2009'
  
  
• 2009-06-22: Regulations for the Candidates Matches 2010 • 'We are publishing the approved Regulations for the Candidates Matches 2010.'

I also added a link for the FIDE Grand Prix in Jermuk, Armenia. I'm expecting a flurry of new communications after the summer vacation doldrums end in a few weeks.

Zonal Cycle 1993-1996

I added a page for the cycle Zonals 1993-96 to my page on The World Chess Championship : Zonals. These were events that qualified players into the 1993 Biel FIDE Interzonal Tournament.

All of the initial clippings on the new page are from the June 1993 issue of Europe Echecs, which had a two page summary of zonals compiled by Christophe Guéneau. The summary also had an explanation of how certain players qualified through means other than zonals, an overview of which top players were missing and why they had not qualified, and a list of all qualifying players. For a mainstream chess magazine, the EE article was an unusually thorough compilation of zonal activity.