Caracas Zonals

At the beginning of the year I posted Che Guevara at the Havana Zonal, written with the help of feedback from Rafael Santana of Caracas, Venezuela. Since then, he has informed me that his own site, Historia del Ajedrez en Venezuela, has pages for each of the six zonals held in Caracas. He has details on each event, including photos, and I added his crosstables, along with links to the originals, to my own pages: C02: 1951-1954, C03: 1954-1957, C04: 1957-1960, C05: 1960-1963, C07: 1966-1969, and C13: 1984-1987.

His page for the first zonal, Caracas 1951 (C02), includes the following explanation (translated from the original Spanish by Google):-

Since 1950 Venezuela joined the FIDE Zone no.6, which covered the region of Central America and the Caribbean. In 1951 the Venezuelan doctor Manuel Acosta Silva was appointed Vice President of FIDE for the Central American and Caribbean Zone, in office continuously until 1966, when it was replaced by the Cuban A.I. José Luis Barreras.

Later the zone was officially numbered '7', then '8', then '2.3', which it remains today. Thanks, Rafael, for clarifying the early record of an entire zone.

2014-2015 Grand Prix, Baku

I added a new cycle covering the period 2014-2016 to my pages on the The World Chess Championship. This is the 27th World Championship cycle (C27 in my shorthand) since the first FIDE championship in 1948 (documented in FIDE Events 1948-1990).

The first page in the new cycle is for the 2014-2015 Grand Prix, where I added the crosstable and PGN for the Baku tournament, the first of four events in the new Grand Prix. For my wrapup post on the previous Grand Prix, see 2012-13 GP / 2013 WCC.

At the start of the Baku event, FIDE also announced Introducing New Look for the Grand Prix Series.

FIDE invite you to take the first look at the new Grand Prix website. We have been working to create a better experience for chess enthusiasts who follow the games online.

Fot more about the new Grand Prix and about the Baku event, see The first stage of FIDE GP series 2014-2015 in Baku.

Zonal Index Update 2014-10-15

A second pass through Zonal Clipping Headers revealed no new problems, so I updated the index page World Chess Championship Zonals ('Last updated 2014-10-15'). Since I now had some extra time, I added a few new clippings that were waiting to be processed. I don't want to list all of the changes I made, but if anyone is interested, the latest clippings can be identified via their directory, Index of /chess/zonals/clippngs, sorted on the 'Last modified' timestamp. The first two characters of the clipping filename indicate the year of the event: '90' = 1990, 'A0' = 2000, 'B1' = 2011 etc. The two character year is a convention I use throughout the site.

One of the new clippings is from Chesshistory.com's 'C.N. 6422. Youngest International Master'. On the same page are 'C.N. 6423. Fischer’s title(s)' and 'C.N. 6429. International Master title'. The last reference mentions an appropriate topic for further research:-

Further evidence regarding Mecking’s IM title would also be welcome. With respect to both Fischer and Mecking, does any reader have access to FIDE’s working documents and reports? More generally, what were the rules on the awarding of the IM title for performances in Zonal Tournaments?

As for the list of tasks in the previous Zonal Index Update (2014-07-16), all but the last is now complete. I'll use that task as the start of a new list of tasks:-

• Identify events where the clippings lack a crosstable
  
• List players qualifying to the next stage (where the list is known)
  
• Split venue into city & country

With a World Championship match due to start in less than a month, it might be a while before I tackle that list.

Zonal Clipping Headers

The maintenance on my zonal pages, outlined in Zonal Index Update, then completed for Inventory of Missing Zonal Clippings and Zonal Months, took another step forward. I compared the index page World Chess Championship Zonals with the clipping pages listed at the bottom of the index, resolved as many header discrepancies as I could, and updated 19 clipping pages. I'll perform the comparison one more time before I update the index page.

FIDE Internet Qualifiers 2001

In the previous post on my zonal project, Zonal Months, I mentioned,

While doing this I noted a few other anomalies that need more research. For example, the page covering Zonals 2001-2002 (C20) starts with '0.0 FIDE Internet Qualifiers 2001-09', but this unique event is not adequately explained.

I added a few more clippings from TWIC to that C20 page, but the coverage is still incomplete. Although I doubt that there is a comprehensive written record of this event anywhere, the original Fide.com reports survive in Archive.org. Following are some of the more informative bulletins.

/02.07.2001/ COMMUNIQUE OF THE FIDE PRESIDENTIAL BOARD MEETING, DUBAI, 1 JULY 2001

The Board [...] further resolved to give FIDE Commerce the support needed for the implementation later this month of the World Internet Championship, which will serve as basis for the selection of 8 qualifiers to the World Championship this year.

/25.07.2001/ Welcome to the World Internet Chess Championship • 'See related material(s):' has all (?) related articles.

The Tournament Zone is OPEN. http://wicc.fide.com

/14.09.2001/ WICC Semifinal Announced

We would like to inform all the Net Chess Players of the terms and conditions of WICC Semifinal. On multiple requests of the Net Players the dates have been shifted from the initially announced. The tournament will start on September 25, 2001 and last till October 5, 2001. It will be played in 9 rounds Swiss system based on rating. 64 winners of the Semifinal will take part in the WICC Final to define the best 8 to qualify to the World Chess Championship 2001. All who completed 4 games before Monday, September 24, 2001 12:00 GMT and occupy places 1 – 256 in the FIDE Net Rating are eligible to get registered for the Semifinal.

/21.09.2001/ 3 easy steps to take part in WICC Semifinal

More detailed information concerning WICC Semifinal you may get here href=http://wicc.fide.com/read.cgi?html=fin1#subm

/08.10.2001/ WICC Final Started

The first phase of the qualification is over. Now, the 68 strongest players of WICC Semifinal will come together to define the 8. There are already surprises. The common opinion was that the Final qualifiers would be only the well-known FIDE-rated players. But... Take a look at the players' list, are you sure you heard of all of them?

/19.10.2001/ Final standings of the World Internet Chess Championship

The whole standing list you may see by clicking here: http://wicc.fide.com/read.cgi?html=fin2a

/05.11.2001/ The official decision of the WICC Appeals Committee regarding appeals submitted by the players disqualified from WICC Final

The WICC Appeals Committee [...] has undertaken an examination of the appeals submitted by...

That same month saw news about another online event -- /29.11.2001/ OFFICIAL WORLD CHESS FEDERATION DISAPPOINTED BY FAILURE OF UNOFFICIAL 'ONLINE WORLD CHESS' EVENT. What was this about? The news lives on in the form of press releases.

• Largest Chess Event on the Internet Starts: OnlineWorldChess.com [2001-10-17]
• World's Best 32 Internet Chess Players Will Play 32 World Top Grandmasters, Including Anand, Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik, and Polgar [2001-10-24]

The challenges in running these online chess events were so severe that FIDE never attempted another online qualifier.