Zonal Qualifiers C17 - Qualification Paths

Continuing with the 1997 World Championship, FIDE Knockout Matches (Groningen), I ended my previous post, Regulations for Qualifiers C17, with

The regulations plus the list of qualified players plus the clippings from 'Zonals 1995-1997', allowed me to work out how most/all(?) of the players qualified for the knockout tournament. For my next post, I'll check this work once more before adding it to the new page on 'Zonal Qualifiers 1995-1997'

Good thing I rechecked, because I found a number of unclear or inaccurate points. First I added a new clipping -- Europe Echecs 1997-11 -- to the 'KO Qualifiers' section of

• C17: Zonals 1995-1997

Then I added a list of the qualified players -- 105 by exact count -- to

• C17: Zonal Qualifiers 1995-1997

The same page ends with a list of qualified players who did not compete, e.g. Kasparov and Kramnik.

The table on the left counts and summarizes the qualification paths of the 105 players. The letters in the left column correspond to the bullets from paragraph 12.12 of that 'Zonal Qualifiers 1995-1997' page ('Regulations for the 1997/8 World Championship'). For example, 'a' counts Karpov and Kasparov, who both received special treatment; 'e' counts the players who qualified from a zonal.

The rest of the counts match the regulations nicely except for 'j' ('Nominees of the Organizing Federation') which should be two nominees. The count for 'k' ('sufficient number of the highest rated players') includes all names that couldn't be placed elsewhere, which was guesswork on my part.

One other point deserves mention. Section 12.13 of the regulations states,

d) Where Kamsky fails to enter, his place in Round 3 [of the 1997 Groningen KO] shall be taken by the loser from Round 3 of the previous Candidates match.

Kamsky did not enter and his place was taken by Gelfand. According to my page on the 1994-96 FIDE Candidates Matches, in the last round Gelfand lost to Karpov, and Salov lost to Kamsky, thereby setting up the Karpov - Kamsky title match. It's not clear to me why Gelfand was favored over Salov for rule 12.13(d).

With that little mystery in the back of my mind, I'll move on to qualifiers for C16: 1993-96.

Regulations for Qualifiers C17

I ended the post on Zonal Qualifiers C17 with

Matching the list of qualified players with the players who eventually showed up for the tournament, then showing how they all qualified, will be a separate exercise.

Using some work on my main blog, Early Chess on the Web, I located the document 'Regulations for the 1997/8 World Championship'. I then added that link and relevant portions to a new page Zonal Qualifiers 1995-1997 (C17). Essentially, it explains the (complicated) structure of the 1997 Groningen tournament, aka 1997 FIDE Knockout Matches.

The regulations plus the list of qualified players plus the clippings from Zonals 1995-1997 (C17), allowed me to work out how most/all(?) of the players qualified for the knockout tournament. For my next post, I'll check this work once more before adding it to the new page on 'Zonal Qualifiers 1995-1997'.

2014-15 GP

I ended my previous post, 2014-2015 Grand Prix, Khanty-Mansiysk (GP), with a promise 'to add the participants to the index that cross-references players and events'. For the results, see World Chess Championship : Index of players.

The chart on the left is similar to the chart I developed two years ago for 2012-13 GP / 2013 WCC. It shows the 16 players who competed in the four Grand Prix events, along with the total score accumulated in the three events where they played. Is this the first GP -- for men or women -- where there were no additions to or substractions from the original list of players?

In the 2012-2013 Grand Prix, GM Caruana had the best overall score, but did not qualify for the subsequent Candidates event. In the 2014-2015 Grand Prix, he was one of three players to finish with the best overall score, GM Tomashevsky being the odd man out who failed to qualify. You can look at this in two ways. Either the qualifying process is inherently random -or- the GP scoring adds another dimension to a closely contested series. I'll take the additional dimension.

2014-2015 Grand Prix, Khanty-Mansiysk

I added the crosstable and PGN for the 2015 Khanty-Mansiysk event to my page on the 2014-2015 Grand Prix. Since this was the last of the four scheduled tournaments, I also added the calculations that determine the overall winner and qualifiers to the Candidates event next year. I still need to add the participants to the index that cross-references players and events.

I also added a new page for the 2015 World Cup, to be held September/October at Baku. While I was researching the FIDE announcements for this event, I found five reports of trips by FIDE personnel to Baku:-

• 2012-08-16: FIDE President's visit to Baku
• 2012-11-28: Working visit of FIDE delegation to Baku
• 2013-05-13: Working visit to Baku
• 2014-06-13: FIDE delegation visits Baku
• 2015-02-13: Inspection trip of the FIDE delegation to Baku

The FIDE calendar currently lists the Candidates Tournament for '9-Mar-2016 to 28-Mar-2016', without venue.