1998 Zonals 2.x References

In the previous post, 1998 Zonals 2.x (January 2024), I discussed several updates related to the 1998-99 zonal cycle (C18) and that concerned the American continent. For this post, I added the corresponding references to two of those zonal events:-

2.0 San Felipe 1998-10 (A)
2.1 Denver 1998-10 (B)

Both events now have additional info on the page covering the events for that cycle: (C18) Zonals 1998-1999 (m-w.com). Here are a couple of notes for the two events:-

(A) This was a new event that I had previously overlooked while developing the index page for The World Chess Championship Zonals.
(B) I added a link to the post for '1998 Zonals 2.x'. The focus of the post concerned the playoffs for the preliminary ('group') stage of the event, a U.S. championship.

There might be even more to the story. I had overlooked the '2.0 San Felipe' event partly because the winner of that event, Alexander Ivanov, was listed by FIDE as qualifying through one of the 'Nominees by Continental President'. In a feature article for the April 1999 issue of Chess Life, GM Ivanov wrote,

I was happy to hear the news from the last FIDE Congress in Elista (Kalmykia), held during the last Chess Olympiad, that a tournament called the Pan American Championship, to be held in San Felipe, Venezuela from October 25 through November 5, 1998, would be a qualifying event for the coming FIDE World Championship in Las Vegas.

According to my page (C18) Zonal Qualifiers 1998-1999 (m-w.com), there were four nominees in the same category as Ivanov:-

Nominees by Continental President
15. Africa: H. HAMDOUCHI (MAR)
16. America: A. IVANOV (USA)
17. Asia: AL-MODIAHKI (QAT)
18. Europe: L. ARONIAN (ARM)

Did any of the other three nominees qualify via a competition? My preliminary investigation said, 'No', but I am not yet convinced. TBD.

1998 Zonals 2.x

A post from earlier this month, World Championships from 50 and 25 Years Ago (January 2024), uncovered a couple of details about the 1998-1999 zonals. The relevant info is in the following clipping which was taken from that post.

All of that together prompted me to comment,

The qualification of GMs Gulko, Ivanov, and Kudrin, is not consistent between the two sources. GM Ivanov's qualification is confirmed in TWIC 209, but the details about the other two GMs need further investigation.

TWIC 209 reported,

12) Panam Championship in Venezuela • GM Alexander Ivanov took the single qualifying place for Las Vegas scoring 6.5/9 ahead of Alexandre Lesiege on 6.

As far as I can tell, this was the first Continental Championship to serve as a qualifier for a World Championship. The same issue of TWIC, 'The Week In Chess 209 - 9th November 1998 by Mark Crowther', also carried news about that year's U.S. Championship.

3) US Championships 1998 • In group A Nick DeFirmian and Dmitry Gurevich progressed to the knockout stage and Seirawan, Dzindzichashvili, and Kudrin played off for third place seeing Kudrin qualified for Las Vegas eliminating Seirawan, possibly one of the US's best prospects. • There was a four way tie in group B and Gulko, Benjamin, Fedorowicz and Shaked played off seeing first Benjamin qualify after a round robin involving the players, then Shaked beating Gulko to take the other place.

TWIC had no crosstables for the playoffs. The February 1998 issue of Chess Life also gave no details. In GM Nick de Firmian wins the 1998 US Championship! (archive.org -> uschess.org), USchess.org reported,

Standings: Group A after 7 (Top 2 Advance to Semi-Finals); de Firmian and Gurevich Advance; Kudrin takes 3rd in play-offs • de Firmian and Gurevich qualify for the two Semi-Final spots from this group and do not need to go through the play-offs. Kudrin wins the play-offs to take third in the section and qualify for the WCT ['World Championship Tournament'].

Standings: Group B after 7 (Top 2 Advance to Semi-Finals) Benjamin and Shaked advance to SemiFinals; Gulko takes 3rd. • There was a play-off on Sunday between Gulko, Benjamin, Fedorowicz and Shaked to determine both the two who would advance to the Semi-Finals on Monday and the 3rd place who would also qualify for the 1999 FIDE World Championship Tournament event. Benjamin and Shaked advanced to the SemiFinals; Gulko took 3rd.

Since the U.S., aka Zone 2.1, produced six qualifiers with only five qualifying spots, I'm guessing that there was some sort of arrangement among American chess officials to have both Gulko and Kudrin qualify using a spot reserved for the Las Vegas organizers ('Nominee by the Administrator').

I'll add all of this to the page (C18) Zonals 1998-1999 (m-w.com), under '2.0 San Felipe (VEN) 1998-10' [new] and '2.1 Denver 1998-10'. I'll also add any further info if I discover it.

World Championships from 50 and 25 Years Ago

Last week on my main blog, I encountered a few World Championship topics that needed more time than I had. In the post January 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (January 2024), I commented,

That mention of Fischer and Marcos deserves further exploration, but I'm worried it might lead me down a rabbit hole from which I won't return in time to finish this current post. Maybe later...

That comment referred to January 1974, while a second comment in the same post referred to January 1999:-

The cover introduction continued with news about two World Championships. [...] Once again, that news 'deserves further exploration'.

The post quoted 'Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)':-

The great Philippines International Tournament, the most important chess event ever held in Asia and the Pacific area, ended November 6. The significance of the event was highlighted by the ceremonial presence of World Champion Bobby Fischer and Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos.

Re Fischer/Marcos, good thing I didn't go any further for that post. I've already dealt with the meeting in posts on both of my blogs:-

• 2012-09-19: The Philippine Connection • (WCCB) '1973 Manila: Fischer visits tournament; meets Marcos, Campomanes'
• 2014-07-03: Treated Like a World Champion • (CFAA) 'I [found] a 1973 Fischer photo that doesn't yet seem to have been made available on the web'

Here is that Fischer photo again.

Re the 1999 'news about two World Championships', the first concerned the FIDE Knockout Matches; Las Vegas, VII-VIII, 1999 (m-w.com). The post quoted 'Chess Life (25 Years Ago)':-

De Firmian, Benjamin, and the other semi-finalists, Dmitry Gurevich and Tal Shaked, qualified to participate in the FIDE World Championship, along with Boris Gulko and Sergey Kudrin, both of whom qualified by previous performance or rating; and Alexander Ivanov, who qualified by winning the 1998 Pan American Championship, which was held in Venezuela in October. Gata Kamsky has also been invited (by rating).

My page Zonal Qualifiers 1998-1999 (C18) (m-w.com) has info on all eight players:-

Zone 2.1
55. J. BENJAMIN (USA)
56. N. de FIRMAN (USA)
57. D. GUREVICH (USA)
58. T. SHAKED (USA)
59. B. GULKO (USA)

Nominee by the Administrator
14. S. KUDRIN (USA)

Nominees by Continental President
16. America: A. IVANOV (USA)

Qualified by ELO (average January-July 1998)
85. G. KAMSKY (USA) (2720)

The qualification of GMs Gulko, Ivanov, and Kudrin, is not consistent between the two sources. GM Ivanov's qualification is confirmed in TWIC 209, but the details about the other two GMs need further investigation.

Re the 1999 news about the second World Championship, the January 1999 CL said,

Alisa Galliamova-Ivanchuk forfeited her match with Jun Xie. China was awarded the bid for the match; Alisa wanted to play at least half of the match in Russia, so she didn't show up at all. Jun Xie, the former women's world champion, will now challenge the current champion, Susan Polgar.

The reference is to an unprecedented sequence of matches for the 1995-99 cycle outlined on the World Chess Championship for Women (m-w.com). The Candidates final match is listed there as 'Xie Jun - Galliamova (forfeit)'; the subsequent World Championship match is listed first as 'Xie Jun - Z.Polgar (forfeit)'; and then as 'Xie Jun - Galliamova'. I've already posted twice about these matches:-

• 2017-02-08: 1995-1999 Women's Cycle
• 2017-02-15: The Last Standard Women's Cycle

There is nothing more to add here.

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.

GM Shirov in 1998

The previous post on this blog, Small Projects 'On the Cover' (October 2023), identified a number of World Championship posts on my main blog that need a follow-up. The first post I'll tackle is the most recent on the list: October 1973 & 1998 'On the Cover' (October 2023). There are three topics worth developing, all involving Alexei Shirov. From the October 1998 cover introduction:-

• 'The Kasparov - Shirov World Chess Council (WCC) championship match will not take place in 1998, if indeed it takes place at all.'
• 'Beginning with next month's issue, Alexei Shirov will author a series of articles for USCF members.'
• 'Shirov will also be in the country in time to participate in the FIDE World Championship tournament, which begins November 29 and ends December 27 [1998].'

Re the Kasparov - Shirov match, I have a page, 1998-99 World Chess Council (and more) that places the match in context. See the section titled, 'The WCC loses its sponsors'.

Re the Shirov articles, I found five in a column titled 'Shirov's Inferno' which appeared irregularly. The first article was in the November 1998 issue of Chess Life (CL), the last in August 1999. In February and March 1999, Shirov wrote a two part article, 'Consolation Match', that discussed the collapse of the Kasparov match and a replacement match with GM Zybnek Hracek. [NB: The page 9899GKIX should explain the connection between the two matches.] See also World Championship Columnists (December 2022, main blog): 'Back in the mid-1990s, both Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov -- bitter rivals at the time -- wrote separate columns for the USCF's Chess Life (CL)'

Re the 1998 FIDE World Championship tournament, the October 1998 issue of CL carried the following advertisement. It echoes that issue's 'On the Cover' introduction.

The postponement of the tournament until 1999 (to be discussed in next month's November 1973 & 1998 'On the Cover') had a negative impact on a possible reset of relations between FIDE and Kasparov. From my page on the '1998-99 World Chess Council':-

In December [1998], FIDE Secretary Emmanuel Omuku verbally rejected Kok's offer to finance the match between Kasparov and a FIDE champion. The FIDE championship in Las Vegas had been cancelled, reportedly due to contract difficulties with Karpov, so the FIDE decision may have been due more to the lack of a player than to any fundamental opposition to the idea. Some observers suspected that the collapse of the Russian economy in August may have been a factor in FIDE's cancellation of the event. The cancellation meant that there was little world class chess in December, as most other events had been pushed off the calendar.

Unfortunately, the USchess.org URL mentioned in the CL ad is not available via Archive.org. To explore what is available from the USchess site around the same time, see Archive.org on 1998 USchess.org. For more about GM Shirov's U.S. activities in 1998, see Shirov's SmartChess Videos (December 2022).

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.

Zonal Qualifiers C18-C21

Continuing with Zonal Qualifiers C22-C24, I added four new pages to the series.

• C18: Zonal Qualifiers 1998-1999
• C19: Zonal Qualifiers 2000-2001
• C20: Zonal Qualifiers 2001-2002
• C21: Zonal Qualifiers 2002-2004

The first two of these pages are lacking any sort of timestamp, and all are missing information about their original source. The third has two lists, with some discrepancies between the two. I'll try to sort these out in a separate effort.

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

• C15: 1990 Manila Interzonal
• C16: 1993 Biel Interzonal
• C17: 1997 Groningen Knockout

The C15 and C16 events were Swiss systems. The Interzonals for cycles before C15 were organized as one, two, or three separate round robin tournaments.

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.

Carlsen Quits (Again)

GM Magnus Carlsen's announcement that he would no longer participate in the current World Championship cycle -- Magnus Carlsen drops out of World Championship cycle (Chessbase.com) -- sent shock waves through the chess world and shivers (déja vu style) up my spine. Instead of jumping to any conclusions as to Carlsen's motives, I decided to compile a list of similar incidents. Before I could start, I discovered I had been anticipated by the Daily Dirt (the dates in square brackets '[]' are mine):-

Alekhine dodged Capablanca [>1927]. Fischer disappeared instead of playing Karpov [1975]. Or was he taking a principled stand for rigorous rules? Shirov should have played Kasparov for next to no money. Or was it Kasparov who was dodging Shirov [1998]? Kramnik dodging Kasparov's quest for a rematch, or was he trying to restore a credible cycle [2001]? Kasparov skipping the Dortmund qualifier [2002], Ponomariov and Kasparov never playing [2003], and now Carlsen and, well, Ilyumzhinov [2010]. There are a dozen more we could add. • Carlsen Bails from WCh Cycle (Chessninja.com)

'Only a dozen more?', I thought. Here's a list I came up with after about 30 minutes, mostly spent on verification:-

• 1948: Fine [WCC match tournament]
  
• 1950: Reshevsky, Fine, Euwe, Bondarevsky [Budapest CT]; for several reasons
  
• 1965: Botvinnik [CM]

• 1964: Fischer [Amsterdam IZ]
  
• 1967: Fischer [Sousse IZ]
  
• 1972: Fischer [Reykjavik WCC]; will he or won't he?
  
• 1975: Fischer [WCC vs. Karpov]

• 1971: Huebner [CM qf vs. Petrosian]
  
• 1980: Huebner [CM f vs. Korchnoi]

• 1985: KK1; terminated by Campomanes
  
• 1986: KK3; Kasparov threatened to quit
  
• 1993: Kasparov - Short; played wthout FIDE

• 1996: Ilyumzhinov cancels Interzonal and replaces with KOs
  
• 1997: Kramnik [Groningen KO]
  
• 1999: Karpov [Las Vegas KO]

• 1998: Anand [WCC vs. Kasparov, declined]
  
• 1999: Anand [ditto, cancelled]
  
• 2000: Anand [ditto, declined]

There's some overlap there with the Chessninja list. I could have added more from the FIDE KOs played after 2000, but I became bored with the exercise. More challenging would have been a list of cycles where there weren't any such shenanigans. For a similar overview, see my post Troubled Matches from a few years ago. Maybe it has something to do with chess players not wanting to submit to authority.

Playing Chess at Caesars Palace

Answering last week's question, Who Goes to Caesars Palace to Play Chess?...

...The world's top chess grandmasters, that's who.

Who Goes to Caesars Palace to Play Chess?

And what's the connection...

...with the World Championship?