Competing World Championships in 1998

Continuing with Small Projects 'On the Cover' (October 2023), the next follow-up is small enough that I have time to handle a second project. Together the two follow-ups provide a snapshot of the World Championship in 1998.

(1) August 1973 & 1998 'On the Cover' (August 2023) • The two part match report by GM Leonid Shamkovich started in the July 1998 issue of Chess Life and ended in August 1998. Since I gave the full introduction to the first part of the report in the August 'On the Cover', I'll repeat only the first paragraph of that intro here:-

Two outstanding young grandmasters, [Kramnik and Shirov], crossed chess swords in the best of 10 World Chess Council (WCC) World Championship candidates' match. The match started May 24 and finished June 5 in the small Spanish city of Cazorla, in Andalusia. Alexei Shirov, who won the match with a score of 5.5-3.5, will meet Garry Kasparov in October for the WCC World Championship.

The rest of the report included annotations for all nine games of the match. GM Shamkovich, after commenting on the ninth game, closed the article saying,

This game turned out to be a final brilliant ending to a relatively dull duel.

An inline text box accompanying the article added,

The World Chess Council (WCC) World Championship Match between defending champion Garry Kasparov and challenger Alexei Shirov will begin October 16 in Seville, Spain. Besides the WCC title, $1.9 million will be on the line, with $1.235 million to the winner and $665,000 to the loser. We will pass along more information on the match as it becomes available.

All in all, largely because the Kasparov - Shirov match was never played, the 1998 Shirov - Kramnik match must be one of the most neglected high-level matches in chess history.

(2) July 1973 & 1998 'On the Cover' (July 2023) • The post provided some background and introduced an important historical speech by (then) FIDE World Champion Karpov.

Karpov's presence in Las Vegas [for the National Open] was explained in the story '1998 National Open, Part II: "A Really Big Shew"' by Jerry Hanken. A sidebar to the story, titled 'Karpov Speaks', started [...]

Karpov's speech covered many topics relevant to the World Championship in the last decades of the 1900s. Following are the sidebar's bullets (in bold text) and its main points. There is much more of historical value behind the '[...]s'.

• Karpov on his trip to America to play in San Antonio: "I remember 1972, my second trip to the U.S. (The first was to Puerto Rico for the Student Team Championship in 1971.) 1972 was a serious tournament which happened in November. Fischer and Spassky had played in the summer, and when I came through New York in November it was not possible to buy a chess set or book, because all America was crazy for chess and all books and sets had been sold. [...]
  
  
• Karpov on meetings with Fischer: "My first meeting was actually in San Antonio. He was invited by Bill Church, and was to appear at the last round. He was, as usual, late. So the organizers didn't want to start the round. He came and greeted all the people and grandmasters, and then he disappeared almost immediately." [...]
  
  
• Karpov [on] later meetings with Fischer: "Even after '75 we met three times. At the meeting in Washington in 1977, we were very close to signing a contract and agreement to play a match. All the problems were solved. We already had pens in our hands to sign, and then Fischer said, 'OK, we play. We agree to everything but one point. The match should be called ...' [...]
  
  
• Karpov on Kasparov: Karpov disputed Kasparov's contention that the Fischer - Spassky match of 1992 was an amateur level match. He thinks some of the games were quite good and could rank in the top ten games of 1992. [...] • Also: Kasparov's claim to be World Champion, Kasparov's claim that Karpov was not a legitimate World Champion, and a private match with Kasparov.
  
  
• Karpov on the last [1997] FIDE Championships: Anatoly noted the criticism (which came from some American magazines) of his entering the matches at the end. [...]
  
  
• Karpov on the future of chess: 'For [chess] to be in the Olympic Games would be very good. Chess is not a sport in every country, and you can get much better support from sponsors and official organizations [once you are part of the official Olympics]. [...]

Wouldn't it be enlightening to have the full transcript of the talk? I suppose it is lost to us forever.

Small Projects 'On the Cover'

Last week's post, Small Projects Checkpoint (September 2023), was all about establishing a plan for the next few months on this blog. For example,

One topic demands attention -- documenting the qualification paths for the most recent World Cup, '2023 World Cup, Baku' (August 2023).

On my main blog, 'Chess for All Ages', the past year has seen a dozen posts on various aspects of the World Championship. It's useful to summarize these posts in order to group them chronologically using this blog's system of labels. Posts marked '(*)' need further attention to develop some interesting aspect which was only mentioned in the original post.

• 2022-11-18: 'A Clock Without Hands' • '"We're nearing the end of this blog's 'Fischer Friday' series". I'll end the series with a post on "1975 Fischer forfeits to Karpov" (m-w.com)'; also summarizes previous posts in Fischer series
• 2022-12-23: Wayback to Chess.net • 'What did former World Champion Karpov say exactly?'
• 2022-12-30: World Championship Columnists • 'In the mid-1990s, both Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov -- bitter rivals at the time -- wrote separate columns for the USCF's Chess Life'
• 2023-01-03: January 1973 & 1998 'On the Cover' • 'Interviews of Fischer, Spassky, and Gudmundur Thorarinsson, president of the Icelandic Chess Federation'
• 2023-01-05: Chess at Trump Tower • 'Intel World Chess Championship Quarterfinal Matches'
• 2023-02-02: February 1973 & 1998 'On the Cover' • CL: 'Anand cuts through FIDE knock-out to challenge Karpov'
• 2023-03-09: March 1973 & 1998 'On the Cover' • 'Karpov defended his FIDE World Championship title'; 'Kasparov will finally defend his PCA World Championship title'; 'Ilyumzhinov has announced plans to make the knockout world championship an annual affair. Las Vegas is high on the list of possible sites for 1998.' (*)
• 2023-04-18: April 1973 & 1998 'On the Cover' • 'Byrne's progress in that World Championship cycle' [needs better intro in post]; ' news of Kasparov's non-FIDE World Championship title; see also the letter from Karpov' (*)
• 2023-07-20: July 1973 & 1998 'On the Cover' • 'FIDE World Champion Anatoly Karpov addressed more than 200 players'
• 2023-08-15: August 1973 & 1998 'On the Cover' • IZ 1973 Leningrad; Shirov/Kasparov news (*)
• 2023-09-12: September 1973 & 1998 'On the Cover' • IZ 1973 Petropolis, Brazil; '"Bronstein replaced Stein", doesn't square with related info on my other pages. More research needed' (*)
• 2023-10-03: October 1973 & 1998 'On the Cover' • Vukcevich; Kasparov - Shirov (WCC); *1998* FIDE World Championship, Las Vegas (*)

I trust that the title and description of each post is sufficient to place it chronologically.

'Chess on Olympus'

Last week's post was about the 1998 Karpov - Anand FIDE Title Match. The post, Chess Heaven in Lausanne (March 2023), was based on Elizabeth Karnazes's report in the March 1998 issue of Chess Life. Summarizing the report at the end of the post, I noted,

The entire piece was more about the ambience surrounding the event. [...] As good a story as it was, I'll try to add a post that focuses more on the chess played in the match.

This current post is based on 'Le jeu d'Echecs vers l'Olympe' (English: 'Chess on Olympus') by Christophe Bouton, the introduction to a 16-page report that appeared in the February 1998 issue of Europe Echecs. Just like I did in Sanghi Nagar: The Kamskys vs. the World (March 2023), I'll use Google Translate together with my high school French to understand the report. It used the following photo at the top of the first page.

The photo didn't have a caption. If it did have, it might have been something like this:-

At the board: Karpov (left), Anand (right) • Behind the board: (left to right) FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Juan Antonio Samaranch, Match Arbiter Geurt Gijssen • Photo: SIPA/Sichov

The report started,

Suffocated by a hug from his French representative, Jean-Paul Touzé, at the end of his victory in the second game of the tiebreak, Anatoli Karpov finally relaxes. Head bowed, he immediately takes refuge with a few members of his team in the three-meter-squared box which served as a relax room during the match, on the side of the hall of the Olympic museum where he faced the Indian Viswanathan Anand for a week. And he cries.

That's not the behavior one normally imagines from the winner of a world class competition, and Bouton's article was no normal report. Why did Karpov cry? Because, 'The tension was too great.' And Anand?

At the other end of the room, Anand sports a strained smile. His dream came crashing down in just over a hundred minutes [for both tiebreak games]. His wife Aruna is at his side and does not stray far. He responds mechanically to timid questions and slips away discreetly so as not to be bothered by many fans, disappointed and sad.

From the above excerpts, we can be cetain that Bouton was an eye-witness to the match. From Karnazes's report we also know that there was a side-event for journalists without chess titles, in which she played. According to EE, in a small box attached to the full report, Bouton won the event and pocketed US$ 9000 offered by 'His Excellence' Ilyumzhinov. Bouton's understanding of current chess events permeated paragraphs like the following.

But is Karpov really champion of the world? Anand fans doubt it, the best players in the world laugh at it, the numbers speak: to qualify for Lausanne, Anand played 23 games and eliminated six of the best players in the world. Meanwhile, Karpov was preparing in peace, because he was directly qualified.

He and Kasparov were to enter the semi-finals. Kasparov did not follow up, as expected. And Karpov dug in behind the leonine [one-sided?; inequitable?] clause which stipulated that if one of the two "K"s did not play, the other went directly to the final. With this victory thanks to semi-rapids -- because finally in long games, Karpov drew 3-3 against Anand (two wins and two losses each) -- Karpov, sixth player in the world in the January international ranking, is champion of the world until the year 2000.

Bouton's two-page report, including more photos from the same photographer featured above, was followed by annotations of all games, three of them with detailed notes by GM Joel Lautier, who was ranked French no.1 (World no.28) at the time. I have access to about 35 years of Europe Echecs and it might be useful to inventory the many other world class events covered by the magazine.

Chess Heaven in Lausanne

My main blog is often the inspiration for posts on this World Chess Championship blog. Consider the following two 'On the Cover' posts, where the quotes are from the introduction to the respective issues of the 1998 Chess Life (CL):-

• 2023-02-02: February 1973 & 1998 'On the Cover' • '[Cover] photo by Elizabeth Karnazes. And she will be providing next month's cover, as well as a photographic essay of the final match, to accompany a report by Larry Christiansen.'
• 2023-03-09: March 1973 & 1998 'On the Cover' • 'Elizabeth Karnazes shot the cover photo of Anatoly Karpov just after he successfully defended his FIDE World Championship title in Lausanne, Switzerland.'

The common element is the cover photo by Elizabeth Karnazes. The February 1998 issue of CL promised a pair of articles on the 1998 Karpov - Anand FIDE Title Match, and the March 1998 issue delivered, more or less.

GM Christiansen's one page report was really about the 1997 FIDE Knockout Matches, held in December at Groningen, where he played. Photographer Karnazes two page report was about the final match held in January at Lausanne, which she spectated. The report started with a half page of photos. Two of them are reproduced below along with their original captions.

Left: 'A little slice of chess heaven.' (taken from the photographer's Lausanne hotel?) • Right: 'Anatoly Karpov and his wife, Natalie Karpova, as they emerge from the Olympic Museum, just after Karpov defeated Anand.'

The report carried the same title as the photo on the left, 'A Little Slice of Chess Heaven' by Elizabeth Karnazes. It started,

Nestled on the shores of Lake Geneva high in the Swiss Alps lies the charming town of Lausanne, Switzerland. Lausanne is the Olympic Capital, headquarters of the International Olympic Committee and the Federation Internationale des Echecs [FIDE]. It is the site of the Olympic Museum, which hosted the FIDE World Chess Championship Finals under the auspices of the IOC from January 1-9, 1998. Lausanne is also the home of the Beau-Rivage Palace, arguably one of the top ten hotels in the world. Most importantly, Lausanne is where I first experienced a little slice of chess heaven.

The next paragraph set the tone of the entire piece, which was more about the ambience surrounding the event. Asking for directions to Lausanne while in a Parisian McDonald's is roughly equivalent to asking for directions to Lake Champlain while in a New York City McDonald's.

After a grueling ten hour drive over the top of the Swiss Alps from Paris with my usual caravan of luggage and two young sons in tow, I saw a glittering array of lights leading me to my destination. As it turned out, there was a shorter route via a major highway, which would have placed us in Lausanne five hours earlier. Surely the charming employees of McDonald's Paris, who provided me with directions for the journey, were having a great laugh at the silly American woman in the Volkswagen. No matter, the view was spectacular and we were on our way to witness two of the world's greatest chessplayers, Anatoly Karpov and Viswanathan Anand, vie for close to two million dollars in prize money and the right to be called World Champion. (Deeper Blue and Garry Kasparov notwithstanding.)

The 'two young sons' (ten-year-old twins) were also chess players and participated in a junior event held during the match. Their Mom played in a different event for journalists without chess titles. As good a story as it was, I'll try to add a post that focuses more on the chess played in the match.

1994 Sanghi Nagar

Last week, on my main blog, I developed a table overviewing Chess Life columns written by Kasparov and Karpov that covered the period when the two were World Champions for rival organizations, FIDE and PCA; see World Championship Columnists (December 2022). Many of the columns discussed World Championship events, so I summarized them in the following extract from the table.

The Kasparov columns are dated through 1994-06; the rest are Karpov columns. Of immediate interest are the four Karpov columns discussing the FIDE Sanghi-Nagar events. These are summarized on my page 1994-96 FIDE Candidates Matches (m-w.com). I'll look at these four columns in more depth in a future post.

Smartchess Interviews Karpov

Yesterday's post on my main blog, November 1972 & 1997 'On the Cover' (November 2022), was partially based on the November 1997 issue of Chess Life. I ended the post saying,

An article by Rachel Landry featured an interview with then FIDE World Champion Anatoly Karpov, plus his relationship with GM Ron Henley and Smartchess Online. Is this worth a follow-up?

Indeed it is worth a follow-up. Karpov gave his side of two hot topics from the second half of 1997. The first topic involved a reunification match that was never held. For background, see FIDE/PCA Chronology (m-w.com; Feb 1993 - Oct 1996).

RL: There have been many rumors circulating about a World Championship rematch in Compiegne, France. Carol Stroe, the proposed organizer for this event, said in a press release that you and Garry Kasparov were close to signing a formal accord. Mr. Kasparov's publicity agent fervently denies these rumors. Were you approached about such a match?

AK: Yes, but no agreement was signed.

RL: What is the true likelihood of a World Championship rematch between you and Kasparov?

AK: It is possible but not in October, and as I said before, nothing is definite until an agreement is signed and a prize fund is agreed upon.

The second topic involved the introduction of the much-criticized knockout matches to determine the title of FIDE World Champion.

RL: Will you be playing in the FIDE World Championship Knockout matches?

AK: Yes. I'm playing in the final as defending champion.

RL.: A letter signed by sixteen grandmasters was delivered by Vladimir Kramnik to the 68th FIDE Congress in Moldava. This letter conveyed these players' concerns about seeding arrangements in the upcoming FIDE World Championship Knockout. Can you shed any light on what took place in Moldava with regards to this letter?

AK: I heard Kramnik would be there with the letter. Kramnik read the letter to the assembly, and gave his point of view. Later, I addressed the assembly. Subsequently there was a vote by the FIDE Congress to uphold the original arrangements under which the Championships were organized: that is if Kasparov and myself were playing, then we would both be seeded into the semifinals; whereas if one us was not participating then the other would be seeded automatically into the final. Indeed, the original papers I signed regarding my participation were based on this exact arrangement, and Kramnik amicably agreed that he would abide by FIDE's decision. Incidentally, I met the former President of the New Jersey State Chess Federation, E. Steven Doyle, in Moldava, and we discussed a number of interesting things.

All of this was happening at the same time I was building my WCC site, as I documented earlier this year in The First Quarter Century (September 2022). I researched the 'FIDE/PCA Chronology' partly because I wasn't sure who the *real* World Champion was.

The Karpov interview included many more details related to Smartchess Online, one of the earliest chess web sites. Its first capture in the 'Wayback Machine', dated January 1999, shows the following home page.

Source: http://smartchess.com/ (web.archive.org).

A footnote to the interview mentioned that it first appeared on Smartchess Online in September 1997. I tried to find the original interview via the Wayback Machine, but failed. Smartchess.com appears to have been built using techniques that are incompatible with Wayback assumptions. The period in which Smartchess was active was a controversial time for the World Championship and its association with Karpov might provide valuable background material. I'll try to look at its Wayback records another time.

In the meantime, some other subjects for 'normal' web searches related to Smartchess are GM Ron Henley, Rachel Landry, Paul Hodges, Irina Krush, R&D Publishing, and Hikaru Nakamura. The home page pictured above leads to the 'November - December 1998' issue of Smartchess Online, with the following headlines:-

• '1998 US Championships: SmartChess Online coverage with GM Ron Henley & NM Irina Krush. • Congratulations! SmartChess Online Columnist Irina Krush, 1998 US Women's Chess Champion!'
• 'Press Release: "Krush Challenge" Series. Irina Krush to play a match against GM Walter Browne'
• 'Press Release: SmartChess Online welcomes its new Columnist - NM Hikaru Nakamura'

Krush was 14 years old at the time. Nakamura was 10.

In his interview with Smartchess, Karpov mentioned a couple of video series he was developing for Smartchess's 'WWW Chess Superstore'. I've featured two of these in posts on my main blog:-

• 2012-06-15: Karpov on Fischer • 'Game 6: 1972 World Chess Championship Match - Fischer vs Spassky'
• 2012-08-24: Karpov - Henley on Karpov - Kamsky • 'Karpov's Best Games Vol 4'

How many more of these videos are still available on Youtube? That makes a second topic for follow-up.

Another Azmai Controversy?

One of the events on my page (C17) Zonals 1995-1997 is '1.2b Struga (Macedonia) 1995-03', with a clipping attributed to 'Europe Echecs, 1995-09, p.50'. A note under the entry says,

EK: Europe Echecs wonders why Azmaiparashvili played in this zone. He was representing Bosnia & Hercegovina at that time, which can be seen from the rating lists of that time. So he was in the right zone after all.

My reaction when I first copied the comment to that page was 'Oh, OK', and I've since re-read it many times without giving it a second thought. On the latest reading it occurred to me that in 1995, Bosnia was in the middle of a civil war. This is confirmed by Wikipedia's page Bosnian War that says,

The Bosnian War was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. The war is commonly seen as having started on 6 April 1992, following a number of violent incidents earlier in the year. The war ended on 14 December 1995.

Did GM Azmaiparashvili really change his nationality to a country involved in a civil war? It happens that there is another page on the web Zonal 1.2b, Struga 1995 (olimpbase.org), with a full crosstable of the event. That OlimpBase page lists three participants under the Bosnian flag:-

• GM Azmaiparashvili, Zurab
• GM Kurajica, Bojan
• GM Dizdarevic, Emir

The three GMs finished 1st, 3rd, and 5-7th, respectively. To verify the EK explanation, I turned to my rating database and queried the three Bosnian participants for four consecutive years. The following image shows what I found.

I have one rating list per year, dated 1 January each year. My public page, FIDE historical ratings, points to one more file that is not in my database, 1995-07.ZIP, for ratings dated 1 July 1995. It also lists GM Azmaiparashvili's nationality as GEO (Georgia). On its own Elo lists, Europe Echecs (EE) had

Jan 1995 • 'Azmaiparachvili GEO 2610' at 44-46th in the world
Jul 1995 • 'Azmaiparachvili BOS 2620', 39-44th in the world.

In other words, EE confirms EK. For 1996, EE had the Georgian GM back in GEO at mid-year.

Feb 1996 • 'Azmaiparachvili BOS 2660' 15-17th in the world
Jul 1996 • 'Azmaiparachvili GEO 2670' 12-15th in the world

Azmaiparashvili's career has been dogged by controversies, including one in 1995. His Wikipedia page, Zurab Azmaiparashvili, says (with references),

Azmaiparashvili was alleged to have rigged the results of the Strumica [Macedonia] tournament of 1995 [month?] to boost his rating.

That particular World Championship cycle was itself controversial. Instead of The Last, Lost Interzonal (February 2012 on this blog), the chess world saw 1997 FIDE Knockout Matches. GM Azmaiparashvili was seeded into the second round and eliminated in the fourth round by GM Krasenkow.

***

For further investigation:-

• How was Azmaiparashvili's transfer GEO -> BIH -> GEO handled administratively within FIDE?
• Why don't the historical rating lists reflect the transfer?
• How much more than 'Zonal 1.2b, Struga 1995 (olimpbase.org)' is available on Olimpbase?

I doubt the first two questions can be answered so many years after the fact, but the third should be easy.

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'.

Zonal Qualifiers C17

As I mentioned in Zonal Qualifiers C18-C21,

Working backwards, the next three cycles are going to be more challenging, because I have little information about their organization.

I located a list of the players qualified for the 1997 FIDE Knockout Matches (Groningen, XII, 1997), and added it to the page Zonals 1995-1997 (C17). That 1997 Groningen page says,

Kasparov (ranked 1st in the world), Kamsky (7th), and Z.Polgar (Women's World Champion) declined to participate. Kramnik (2nd) declined on the grounds that Karpov's direct entry into the final was unacceptable.

but that was just the tip of the iceberg. 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.

World Championship Chess on Christmas

Even though I've been respecting WCC Wednesday since 2007 (the post Global Chess BV, May 2007, started the habit), this is the first time it falls on Christmas Day. What to write about? My first idea was to identify World Championship games that took place on 25 December. I thought of three events that fell over Christmas.

• 1990 Kasparov - Karpov Title Match; New York/Lyon, X-XII, 1990 • The 21st game of the 24 game match was played on 19 December, with an adjournment the next day. The draw brought the score to +4-2=15 (11.5-9.5) in Kasparov's favor, meaning he needed only a draw to retain the title. The 22nd game was scheduled for Saturday, 22 December, but Karpov took a timeout. Although there had been pressure from the Lyon organizers to avoid timeouts on the Saturday games (the games were scheduled for Monday / Wednesday / Saturday each week), rumor was that Karpov took a swipe at them for lodging he considered unsatisfactory.
  
  FIDE President Campomanes granted a technical timeout for Monday, 24 December, and the game was played on the 26th. Kasparov got his draw, but the match continued to settle the prize money. This was to be the last World Championship match played using the system of FIDE cycles invented after the death of Alekhine. Before the following title match, foreseen for 1993, the cycle collapsed just after the Candidate matches.
  
  
• 1997 FIDE Knockout Matches; Groningen, XII, 1997 • This was the first World Championship using the system of knockout matches imposed by FIDE President Ilyumzhinov. FIDE Champion Karpov was seeded directly into the final match, making the Groningen event more like a Candidates tournament. The 'quarter-final' (second-to-last round) of Groningen was scheduled to have the standard, long games played on 23-24 December, with the tiebreak on the 25th. Anand beat Gelfand in the standard games, while Adams and Short tied with a win each. In the fifth and last game of their tiebreak, a 5-minutes-to-4 blitz game (now called an Armageddon game), Adams, playing Black, beat Short. Anand beat Adams in the 'semi-final' (last round), which also reached the Armageddon stage, and earned the right to play Karpov three days later in Lausanne.
  
  
• 2000 FIDE Knockout Matches; New Delhi/Tehran, XI-XII, 2000 • The final round was scheduled for standard games on 20-26 December (with a rest day on the 23rd) and a tiebreak on the 27th. Anand drew with Shirov in the first game, but won the next three games to win the title of FIDE Champion. It was his first World Championship title.

If my dates are correct, the only games played on the 25th were the Adams - Short tiebreak series in 1997. Anand won the title on 24 December in 2000. In case I've overlooked any events, I'll add them below. In the meantime, a Merry Christmas to one and all!

The Last, Lost Interzonal

In my previous post, Canadian Zonals in the 1990s, I mentioned, 'I'm not aware that the cancellation of the 1996 Interzonal, which was the action that caused the problems for the CFC, has been documented anywhere.' Since the cancellation was woven into the events that followed the Kasparov - Short match, I put together a timeline based on my own FIDE/PCA Chronology and Mark Crowther's The Week in Chess (TWIC) reports from the mid-1990s.

FIDE/PCA Chronology: December 1994 • 65th FIDE Congress, Moscow. Campomanes re-elected FIDE President, with the support of Kasparov, "to end the current confusion in world chess". J.Durao and B.Kouatly are appointed honorary vice presidents.

The Interzonal was alive in mid-1995.

TWIC 33: 14 May 1995 • According to Egon Ditt there was a FIDE Executive-Council-Meeting on the 22nd-23rd April. Some decisions were: [...] The Interzonal Tournament will be hosted by Armenia at Erevan; the date is not quite clear (because Russia wants first to have the national championship in December 1995), but should be in September/October 1995 (or in March/April 1996). In any case, the Council does not want to damage any of the big events like Horgen or Linares.

Due to the general disruption of FIDE World Championship events, the scheduling was problematic.

TWIC 48: 10 September 1995 • There will be various announcements made on Friday 15th Sept about the FIDE men's and women's [title] matches and the Interzonals in the next cycle. There was some confusion for players like Speelman who will have to play in the upcoming zonal in Spain because he is uncertain whether he will be automatically qualified for the subsequent Interzonal. The decision will be made a few days AFTER the zonal finishes.

Meanwhile, Campomanes' days as FIDE president were already numbered. He lost the support of his own federation.

TWIC 49: 17 September 1995 • There is at the moment a ferocious battle for control of FIDE. 61 countries, digusted by the inaction of FIDE since the re-election of Campomanes in Moscow, have tried to convene a special meeting in France. This heads off a conference in Qatar where it is supposed that Campomanes will have more influence over the delegates.

Kamsky meanwhile is still trying to get backing for his match with Karpov. Raymond Keene said on TV yesterday that Campomanes is deliberately sabbotaging the Karpov-Kamsky match as part of the deal he made with Kasparov in Moscow. It appears from recent FIDE documents that the Philippines Chess Federation has also stopped supporting Campo. The documents appear at the end of this section of TWIC. [...]

FIDE Material and related releases. [...] • Letter from PHILIPPINE CHESS FEDERATION president to FIDE • 8 September 1995 • MR FLORENCIO CAMPOMANES, President FIDE • Mr President: • The Philippine Chess Federation requests that the Extraordinary General Assembly be convened in France within the next two months, in application of Article 4.15 of the FIDE statutes and for the following additional reasons:

1. The FIDE-PCA Agreement for the reunification match did not materialize as announced;
2. The match for the Men's World Championship, Karpov - Kamsky, has no organizer;
3. The match for the Women's World Championship, Xie Jun - Zsuza Polgar, has no organizer;
4. The Interzonal tournament set in mid-1995 has been postponed to 1996;
5. Communication to member-federations regarding important matters has not improved; and
6. Chess will not be a demonstration event in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics as announced in Moscow.

(signed) ARTURO A BORJAL

In that litany of complaints, the Interzonal might seem like small potatoes, but it was important to all world class players who had even a small chance of qualifying for the championship cycle. Campomanes was ousted in November, but it came at a price.

FIDE/PCA Chronology: November 1995 • 66th FIDE Congress, Paris. Questions of financial irregularities arise. Campomanes announces that he will resign if he is succeeded by K.Ilyumzhinov, President of the Republic of Kalmykia. The delegates vote 95-3 that Ilyumzhinov is elected FIDE President for one year and that Campomanes is appointed Honorary Chairman for one year. [See also TWIC 59 & 60]

Ilyumzhinov was a relative unknown, especially in the chess world. It soon became clear that he had his own agenda and that world class chess would never be the same again.

TWIC 64: 2 January 1996 • A letter widely circulated on the internet has come from Willy Iclicki the FIDE treasurer. It shows a President who is both energetic and full of ideas. However his ideas for a knock out for the World Championships are I think almost Universally regarded as ill conceived. They cannot possibly produce an undisputed champion. To my mind a World Championship match tournament of say 4 players playing 8 times against each other, or 6 players playing 4 times would have much more validity and would be even more exciting than his proposals. (there is a problem of how to deal with Kasparov and the FIDE champion equally)

However the cancellation of the Interzonal seems to indicate that the President is set upon this course. Initial reactions to the early days of the Presidency suggest that the President will want his own way. It will be interesting to see how this conflict will be resolved. Here is the letter:

To All Federations, From Willy Iclicki, FIDE Treasurer

As FIDE received many complaints during 1995 of failure to communicate to its members, I have decided to give you, say every two months, a letter to you giving some news and personal views about our organisation. We have now a new FIDE President with new ideas and fresh energy.

First Presidential Board, Singapore 20-22 December 1995 President Kirsan Iljumzhinov invited on his own expenses all members of the P.B to Singapore. The idea behind such an early meeting was to discuss with the PB about ideas regarding about the working of our organisation and the implementing of a new World Championship program.

Opening speech. The President summarised his activities of the last three weeks.

1. Creating a image.
2. Recreate the family - Gens Una Sumus.
3. Popularisation of Chess.
4. World Championship.
5. Chess and Politics : elections at FIDE Congress, Armenia 1996.
6. Campomanes' final speech.
7. Other business.
8. My conclusion.

I've eliminated the details behind each of the bullets. In the next issue of TWIC, Crowther repeated the fourth bullet and added his own comments.

TWIC 65: 7 January 1996 • 4. World Championship. 'FIDE is there to promote chess and should be above all other chess organisation'. With these words the President clearly replies to the PCA concerning the World Championship matches. He wants G.Kasparov to return to the FIDE's cycle for the sake of unity and as best for chess.The President proposes to create, starting at the end of 1996, an annual 21 days Knock-out Championship tournament. Two to four games to decide each pairing.Some players will qualify directly into round two and some to round three. ( The schedule and list of players is already fixed) Kasparov and the winner of Kamsky - Karpov will go directly to the semi finals though they will be paired together only if they reach the final. For the first event the prize fund will amount US$ 5,000,000!! This new idea accepted unanimously by the P.B, will have the direct effect that the Interzonal scheduled for Yerevan, Armenia in April-May 1996 is cancelled.

COMMENT: This proposal is unacceptable. I know of virtually no-one who will speak for it. Questions such as: Does Kirsan Ilyumzhinov have the power to cancel the Yerevan Interzonal? Was the Interzonal unlikely to take place for some reason? Firstly come to mind. As to the annual 21 days Knock-out Championship tournament this event is imaginative and potentially exciting but ... this is not a system capable of producing a meaningful World Champion. I'm sure many would welcome it as an annual event (scheduling problems against other events apart) but it cannot reunite the titles and just no-one would recognise the winner as World Champion. I have for some time thought reform is necessary but this is not a solution. It has been shown when used as a format to produce random results not fully based on ability. Below this section I have proposed such a solution.

By the time the next special, off-year election took place, FIDE had failed to organize the knockout tournament for December 1996.

TWIC 101: 14 October 1996 • FIDE Elections Yerevan 1996. It was very difficult to make sense of yet another complicated FIDE Presidential election. Further stories and accounts are now available. [...] The FIDE Congress in Erevan - by Søren Bech Hansen (President of the Danish Chess Federation) [...] As I experienced it, several times, president Iljumzhinov tried to be re-elected in a few seconds. An example of this was when Andrei Makarov suddenly read aloud a contract, apparently signed by both Karpov and Kasparov, claiming that a match between these two K's should be played for the world championship title. Andrei Makarov ended his speech by saying that only Iljumzhinov could make this happen and that he (Makarov) hoped for a re-election. This speech was immediately followed by the following comment from the FIDE President, chairing the meeting: "Any other suggestions for FIDE President?".

I had the impression that the delegates had to be very quick to prevent this kind of "blitz elections". Actually, Florencio Campomanes was elected a full member of the Presidential Board in exactly this way. It was suggested by Professor Kurt Jungwirth, the European continental president, and followed by a "Comments? No, next one!" from the chairman of the meeting. I believe it took less than five seconds from the time of the suggestion to when Campo was elected. [...]

One of the first acts of the re-elected FIDE president after the elections was to announce the postponement of the World Championship Knock-out tournament with a 5.000.000 USD prize fund originally scheduled for december 1996. Iljumzhinov mentioned december 1997 as a possible time for the tournament. This resulted in quite a few questions from the delegates that represent countries that expected to organize zonal tournaments in 1997 - Denmark is one of these countries. Considering the current state of the FIDE World Championship, Denmark will not organise a new zonal tournament in the near future. Those who qualified in the zonal tournament held in Reykjavik in February 1995 still do not know what to do with their qualification. The World Championship of FIDE seems like a total mess to me. [...]

Here is another account, this time by the Canadian delegate.

TWIC 109: 9 December 1996 • HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 1996 FIDE CONGRESS • by Phil Haley, FIDE delegate and Zonal President, Canada [...] • The 1996 FIDE Congress was held in Yerevan, Armenia from September 24 to October 2, 1996. Generally speaking the meeting was another poor one. The Central Committee was far too large and ineffectively chaired with no recommendations being made and everything being deferred to the General Assembly. The first session of the General Assembly was an hour late in starting and no one from the executive advised the delegates what was going on, why the delay or when the meeting would start. When the meeting of the General Assembly finally started it also was ineffectively chaired with little effort to stick to the topic or to progress through the agenda. Similar to the meetings in Moscow, 1994 and Paris, 1995 the whole congress was highlighted by political intrigue and night long maneuvering. On the other hand, as is always the case, the various technical committees worked long and hard and deserve commendation for their efforts. [...]

The 1996 World Championship knockout tournament with a $5 million prize fund as proposed by President Kirsan Iljumzhinov will not be held. This is doubly unfortunate in that the 1996 Interzonals had been unilaterally canceled in favour of the new World Championship tournament. It is now planned to hold the first of these events in 1997 and hold them every two years alternating with the Olympiads. No sponsor has as yet been found although President Iljumzhinov assured the Congress that this would not be a problem. [...]

I raised the question of the rights of the zonal winners to have either progressed to an Interzonal or to take part in the 1996 World Championship where they would have been guaranteed a minimum of $6,000. (U.S.) even if they lost in the first round. I also pointed out that Canada now has winners of two zonal tournaments qualified for future events and noted that the fact that the 1996 World Championship knockout tournament would not be held would create problems. The General Assembly referred the whole question of the World Championship to the Presidential Board for review and decision in conjunction with input from the World Championship Cycle Committee and the Organizers Committee.

All the players who attended a talk by President Iljumzhinov had been given "goodie bags" each containing a bottle of Kirsan vodka, a tub of Kirsan black caviar, a gold plated stainless steel Kirsan watch, an excellent hardcover book covering the Karpov-Kamsky match, a paperback on Kirsan Iljumzhinov plus a dramatically written comic book with the life story of President Iljumzhinov. Members of the press and those delegates, including me, who attended a press conference by President Iljumzhinov were given similar gifts.

I understand that President Iljumzhinov, with both his talk and his gifts, made a favourable impression on the members of a number of teams. On the other hand at least some of these players will not be happy that the 1996 Interzonal Tournament was unilaterally canceled, that the 1996 world championship knockout tournament has been canceled and that the future of zonal tournaments is in question . [...]

New elections will be held in Elista in 1998. In the meantime we will see whether President Iljumzhinov can win the respect of all FIDE members while at the same time being successful in resolving FIDE's financial problems as well as all the questions that remain following his unilateral canceling of the Interzonals and the late decision not to run the World Championship Tournament in 1996.

The knockout tournament was eventually rescheduled for December 1997.

TWIC 127: 14 April 1997 • FIDE KO Tournament to start in the Netherlands. FIDE are to co-operate with the organisers of the Groningen Chess Festival in the Netherlands over their knockout event that is to be held at the end of the year.

The Republic of Kalmykia, over which FIDE President Kirsan Iljumzhinov rules were granted the rights to hold the event. In return for this they promised to guarantee the prize money. If the entire event had been held in Kalmykia it could have had very serious affects on Dutch Chess. The traditional events of Groningen and of Wijk aan Zee were both threatened by the participation of many of the best players in the FIDE event. Johan Zwanepol (director of the Groningen foundation) entered into the kind of negotiations that brought the PCA qualifier (their approximate equivalent of the Interzonal) to Groningen in 1993. Zwanepol offered Groningen as a venue and promised to meet the organisational costs.

Also involved in the negotiations was Joop Haasbroek of the Hoogovens Wijk aan Zee tournament. They were obviously very keen to safeguard the Hoogovens tournament in January. The event in Wijk aan Zee is celebrating its 60th anniversary. The FIDE event will finish no later than January 9th to allow players to travel to that event. Groningen will host all the stages of the FIDE event up to and including the quarterfinals.

About the FIDE KO Championships Here are the details, as I understand them:

Dates: 17th December 1997 event starts in Groningen. 9th January 1998 Closing ceremony Elista in Kalmykia. There is the possibility that the semi-finals or finals could be contested in Lausanne Switzerland. This is as a product of the ongoing negotiations between FIDE and the International Olympic Committee which might see chess being included in the Olympic games Indeed it is possible to envisage how the FIDE model might be adapted to produce an Olympic event. [...]

The first round will consist of zonal qualifiers who would have played in the Interzonal tournament that has been cancelled. There will be other players such as the World Junior Champion, Women's World Champion and invitees. In the second round these will be joined by leading players determined by their ratings and players determined by their position in the last FIDE cycle. The third round will see one additional player enter. That will either by Gata Kamsky or if not then Valery Salov based on their position in the last FIDE cycle. If either Kasparov or Karpov choose to play then they will enter at the semi-final stage. Contracts for invitees to the event will be issued in June and the players will have a few weeks to consider their participation, additional reserves will be called up if the number of places is not filled up. [...]

The idea of a knockout World Championships has been around for a few years now amongst some FIDE officials. The replacement of Florencio Campomanes with Kirsan Iljumzhinov allowed them the opportunity to float the idea again and he has taken to the idea with enthusiasm. The World Chess Championships gradually became the most important element of FIDE finance during Campomanes' reign as president. The importance of this income lead to Campomanes trying to reduce the influence of the players over choice of venue for these matches. The economic crisis of the early 1990's put severe pressure on this. When FIDE had to reduce the prize fund of the Short-Kasparov match from that which had been expected the percentage that FIDE took of the money became an issue. This was the prime reason Nigel Short wanted to hold his match outside FIDE. He was pushing at an open door with Kasparov who was intending to split from FIDE after his match with Short anyway.

The split of the authority of the World Championship title between the PCA title of Gary Kasparov and the FIDE title lead to financing problems in both cycles. Kasparov called his match against Anand a disaster in financial terms, FIDE had even less interest in holding their World title match between Karpov and Kamsky which was only resolved when the event was held in Kirsan Iljumzhinov's own home state. FIDE's lack of income has precipitated a dreadful financial crisis. FIDE had already tried to move from matches every three years to match every two years before.

The Knockout Championships were envisaged as an annual event although this doesn't seemed to have been stressed in the recent press conferences. If an annual event can be organised then it might be the solution FIDE's financial problems. In this first Championships they have additional problems. They hope to reunify any claims to the title. They have offered semi-final places to Kasparov and Karpov with the guarantee of $375,000 for even taking part. There are other restraining factors such as they need the support of the players to hold the Championships and they have a lot of players qualified for an Interzonal that is no longer taking place.

In the past players entered the World Championships because winning it was the ultimate achievement, now there will be many winners, many opportunities but it is not an event to establish the best player definitively. FIDE hope that the event will attract mass publicity for chess (a reason for holding it over Christmas and New year is that it will not clash with other sporting events) and that the format will produce exciting chess. It also answers the objections of those who question the balance of prize money in previous World Championship cycles (a huge disparity between the winner and those who are eliminated just a few stages earlier) with good money throughout the event. However it is certain to produce decisive results but to the purist seems guaranteed to produce chess of very poor quality. [...]

Five such knockout World Championships were held, resulting in a number of FIDE World Champions who would never have won the title if the old system had still been in use.

TWIC 162: 16 December 1997 • FIDE World Chess Championships. The opening ceremony for the FIDE World Chess Championships took place on December 8th 1997 in Groningen in the Netherlands. The event was opened by FIDE President Kirsan Iljumzhinov and expressed the hope that a great challenger will emerge from Groningen to beat Anatoly Karpov in Lausanne.

Prior to the first round 2 players originally in the starting line-up couldn't make it. Esam Mohamed could not make it due to visa problems and earlier 16 year old Taisuke Ichikawa wasn't allowed to play because his headmaster believed the game is not "serious" in the light of Kasparov's loss to Deep Blue. This left the unfortunate Jon Speelman missing out on the Championships. He was assured prior to the zonal tournament that he had already qualified to play in the World Championships so did not play and was the victim of the change of format. Nevertheless a few players did make it by agitating behind the scenes. For instance Smyslov wrote to the FIDE President to ensure his participation. [...]

To read the complete documents from which I've extracted above, plus much more, see the FIDE Archive hosted on the USCF's USchess.org.

Canadian Zonals in the 1990s

Continuing with zonal clippings from the last eight cycles, I tidied some of the work I had done while preparing the last few posts. The most important change involved a clarification for the Canadian zonals from the 1990s, as recounted by their winner.

GM Kevin Spraggett (January 2012, email correspondence): 'Canada decided (around 1995, I think) that since FIDE was undecided about when to resume its own interzonals, to hold regular zonal championships. But as FIDE did not quickly resolve the issue, a number of 'backed-up' zonal champions were put on a hold list. I participated in the 1997 Groningen World Championship because I won the 1994 Zonal. And I played in [1999] Las Vegas for winning the 1996 Zonal.

In the aftermath of the 1993 scandal of Kasparov and Short leaving FIDE and setting up their own world championship system, the CFC [Chess Federation of Canada] had no idea that it would take so long for FIDE to sort things out. It is ridiculous to simply become paralyzed and stop organizing interzonals or their substitute. We only assumed that it would be off by a cycle...instead it was several cycles and when it did return it was never the same format. At one point I offered to 'surrender' one of my backed up zonal titles -- to allow another zonal championship, but the CFC rejected it.'

I updated my index page, World Chess Championship Zonals, to include this information. I'm not aware that the cancellation of the 1996 Interzonal, which was the action that caused the problems for the CFC, has been documented anywhere. It's not mentioned on Wikipedia's FIDE World Chess Championship 1998, and would be a suitable subject for a future post.

Zonal Cycle 1995-1997

I added a first set of clippings for the cycle Zonals 1995-97 to my page on the Zonals. These were events that seeded players into the 1997 FIDE Knockout Matches at Groningen. In fact, these zonals were originally to have seeded players into a 1996 Interzonal, but the event was cancelled by FIDE and eventually replaced by the first knockout event, won by Anand.

Most of the first clippings were taken from Europe Echecs, and while they are little more than stubs listing the dates for the event and the names of the top finishers, they should be useful in locating full crosstables. Countries represented by the top finishers in zonal events usually receive better coverage in their national chess magazine(s).