Clippings for C19, C20, & C25

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)

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

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.

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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

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

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.