Showing posts with label C28: 2017-18. Show all posts
Showing posts with label C28: 2017-18. Show all posts

09 January 2019

2018 FIDE Congress : Whither the World Championship?

For the tenth time -- the first was 2009 FIDE Executive Board : Whither the World Championship? (December 2009) and the most recent was 2017 FIDE Congress : Whither the World Championship? (November 2017) -- a 'Spectating' post on my main blog leads to a 'Whither' post on this blog. For the 'Spectating' post, see Spectating the 89th FIDE Congress (December 2018), and for the 'Whither' post, read on.

The rest of this post is based primarily on the minutes of the '89th FIDE Congress; General Assembly; Batumi, Georgia; 3-5 October 2018', which can be found via the 'Spectating' post. I normally start a 'Whither' post with the introductory speech of the FIDE President, but the 89th Congress was anything but normal:-

1. Report of the Deputy President. • Deputy President G. Makropoulos did not make a report to the General Assembly.

As the Congress was to include a FIDE election and Makropoulos was one of three candidates for president, I imagine he did this for political reasons. For veteran World Championship watchers like me, the most important question after 'Who will win the election?' is 'What is the situation with Agon?'. Another candidate for president also raised the issue:-

Mr. Short asked why the revised contract with Agon had not been publicized and was advised that it had been discussed and made public at the Antalya Executive Board meeting.

I couldn't recall having seen the contract and located a copy at Agon Agreement on Financial Obligations (chess24.com; PDF). It starts,

This agreement is approved on the 12. of October 2017 by:
a) World Chess Events Limited, having its registered office at [...], and Agon Limited, registered address at [...], hereinafter collectively referred to as "World Chess",
b) Federation Internationale des Echecs, having its registered office at [...], hereinafter referred to as "FIDE",

The heart of the document is a schedule of payments from World Chess to FIDE. The most important paragraph is a termination clause:-

9. It is agreed and fully accepted by World Chess that in case of the delay in performance of any of the above financial obligations by World Chess, the Promotion and Event Organization Agreement will be automatically terminated. However, a delay in payment for up to 7 (seven) days will not be considered a delay for the purpose of this agreement. In the event of the agreement being terminated in accordance with this clause, World Chess will propose to the sponsors to assign the relevant sponsorship contracts to FIDE.

As for the new FIDE management, the minutes of the 89th Congress later state,

6.6. Agon Limited. • It was agreed to refer this matter to the Presidential Board.

Another, later report, List of Decisions of Q4 2018 Presidential Board (fide.com; November 2018), says nothing about Agon or World Chess. The only other item in the minutes relevant to the World Championship was the report from the responsible commission (WCO):-

7.22. Commission on World Championship and Olympiads.
7.22.1. FIDE World Cup 2019. • The event shall be held in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. 4-30 November 2019.
7.22.2. FIDE World Cup 2021. • The event shall be held in Minsk, Belarus.
7.22.3. FIDE World Championship Match 2018. • The event shall be held in London, UK, 9-28 November 2018. Mr. I. Merenzon [NB: Agon] informed the General Assembly and gave a presentation of the venue and answered questions regarding broadcasting and the tax discussions over the New York match.
7.22.4. FIDE Candidates’ Tournament 2020. • The matter is referred to the next Presidential Board.
7.22.5. FIDE Grand-Prix. • The matter is referred to Presidential Board.
7.22.6. FIDE Women’s Grand-Prix series. • The Presidential Board at its meeting in Bucharest, 9-10 July 2018 has approved the organisation of the Women’s Candidates Tournament instead of Women’s Grand-Prix series. Annex 26 is a letter from the Governor of Colima, Mexico, in this respect.
7.22.7. FIDE Women’s World Championship Match 2018. • The event took place in China, Shanghai, Chongqing, 2-20 May 2018. Annex 27 is Chief Arbiter’s report.

As I reported in FIDE Commissions 2018 (December 2018), the WCO appears to have been disbanded. Exactly what has replaced it is not entirely clear.

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12 December 2018

2018 Carlsen - Caruana, Wrapup

This is the sixth consecutive post on this blog about the 2018 Carlsen - Caruana title match, and as with past title matches, I'll use it to summarize my other posts about the match. The first link in the next list contains summaries of pre-match posts and of wrapup posts for past title events.

On my main blog I also wrote a number of posts about the match.

One good turn deserves another. In the first post on this blog listed above, 'Warmup', I noted that GM Ian Rogers had mentioned my blog in his own article titled 'Couch Potato’s Guide' (uschess.org). A week later, in the post 'Chess @ 538.com', I noted that Rogers had abandoned the contract with USchess after a dispute over their censorship of his coverage of an unfortunate video released during the match. The GM continued to issue periodic reports on Lichess, where I found the following articles:-

Another journalist, GM Jonathan Tisdall, an expert in the key skills of chess, reporting, and the Norwegian language, also issued a series of in-depth reports via a well known online play site:-

For more from both journalist GMs, see their Twitter feeds, @GMIanRogers and @GMjtis.

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05 December 2018

2018 Carlsen - Caruana, PGN

I added the crosstable and PGN game scores to my page on the 2018 Carlsen - Caruana title match, recently concluded. Then I added the event against both names on the Index of players. Somewhat curiously, the players are next to each other on the list: ..., Cardoso R, Carlsen M, Caruana F, Castro O, ...
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28 November 2018

2018 Carlsen - Caruana, the Third Week

Another week in the 2018 Carlsen - Caruana World Championship match, another four games, another four draws. After twelve regulation games, twelve draws, the two players tied at 6.0 points each : the match moves to tiebreak.

Continuing with the same mainstream media source seen in the previous post, 2018 Carlsen - Caruana, the Second Week, here is a graphic overview of the entire match. The credit for the evaluation of individual games goes to Stockfish.


fivethirtyeight.com (538.com)

While the squiggles might show an overall advantage for Black during the first six games, the trend reversed course for the last six games, when White retook its traditional advantage. Here are the reports from 538.com for games 9 through 12:-

Later today a series of tiebreak games will decide who will be the World Champion for the next two years. Opening preparation has played an important role in the first twelve games, played at slow time control. What role will it play in the faster tiebreak games? Last year, on my chess960 blog, I quoted GM Caruana in a post titled Caruana on Chess960 (April 2017). In response to the question, 'What about Chess960?', he said, 'Maybe preparation plays a big role in classical chess, but in blitz and rapid it doesn’t play much of a role at all.' In a few hours, in the tiebreak, we'll get some clues about whether he was right.

***

Later: Magnus Carlsen won a World Championship match for the fourth consecutive time. After 12 consecutive draws in the regulation games at a slow time control, he won three consecutive tiebreak games at rapid time control. Here is the final report from the same mainstream news source I've used in the previous posts on the match.

And once again, from the same source I've been relying on throughout the match, here is a squiggle chart showing the progress of each of the three tiebreak games.


fivethirtyeight.com (538.com)

For sure, there will be discussions and even arguments about the fairness of the tiebreak system used in the match. Will that system be changed? We'll find out in the next World Championship match, currently scheduled for the year 2020.

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21 November 2018

2018 Carlsen - Caruana, the Second Week

Last week's summary of the World Championship match currently underway in London, 2018 Carlsen - Caruana, the First Week, started with:-
The first four games of the match all ended in draws.

It ended with:-

By this time next week, another four games will have been played.

This week's summary could start with:-

The next four games of the match all ended in draws.

Eight games and eight draws -- is this unprecedented? No, because the 1995 Kasparov - Anand PCA Title Match, also started with eight draws. GM Anand won the ninth game, but World Champion Kasparov came roaring back with four wins in the next five games.

Back to the 2018 match, last week on my main blog I identified a new resource for mainstream reporting on top level chess events: Chess @ 538.com. I wrote, 'A unique feature of the reports is a graphic overview of the match so far.' Here is a similar graphic for the match status after eight games. Note that after game six the players switched assignment of the White pieces for the remaining games.


fivethirtyeight.com (538.com)

The squiggles tell the story behind each game. In week two Caruana held an enduring advantage in three of the four games, where he had excellent chances to score a win in game six and good chances in game eight. Game seven, the only game where Carlsen held an advantage, tracked game four. For a more detailed analysis, see the week two game reports from 538.com:-

That somewhat snarky headline for game six, 'Chess World Rattled As Someone Nearly Wins Game', was echoed by many other reports coming out of London (and elsewhere). In FIDE WCCM Game 8: Dubious Record Tied (fide.com), the ultimate responsible for the match declared,

With a draw on Monday in Game 8 of the World Championship match in London, Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana equaled the record for the most consecutive draws to start a title contest. In 1995, Garry Kasparov and Viswanathan Anand also drew the first eight games of their title match in New York City.

Is this the first time that FIDE has admitted that the rival 1995 PCA match was a legitimate match for the World Championship? Twenty three years after the fact, 'misery loves company'.

By this time next week, the last four regulation games will have been played and the match might be in tiebreak. We are guaranteed to have at least three more regulation games and will have four unless one of the players is leading by two games after game eleven. Who said draws are boring?

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14 November 2018

2018 Carlsen - Caruana, the First Week

Every time the World Championship hits the global village, the hubbub is even louder than it was for the previous event. It's impossible to keep up with all developments, so I'll just note some of the highlights and set some pointers to find more.

The first four games of the match all ended in draws. Of the seven most recent matches, all with 12 games at standard time control, the first three (2006, 2008, 2010) saw the eventual winner jump into the lead after four games. The last four saw a tied score after four games, where only one (2014) had decisive games. The other three matches started with six consecutive draws (2012), four draws (2013), and seven draws (2016). In the 2018 match, Carlsen achieved a near-decisive advantage playing Black in game one, after which the other games were more balanced.

So far I've collected relevant links into four posts scattered across two blogs:-

Since that last post from a few days ago, Worldchess has released more videos. This one gives some idea about the physical atmosphere at the match itself.


World Chess Championship 2018 Venue Introduction (2:26) • 'Published on Nov 12, 2018'

The description says,

Anna Rudolph, hosting the World Chess Championship 2018 in London, presents the playing venue along with exclusive highlights from day one!

For additional background from people who are geographically closer to the match than most of us, see 2018 World Championship in London (ecforum.org.uk). Although the thread started in May 2017, skipping ahead to page 10 (out of 20 currently) brings us to end-October 2018, when Agon started once again to threaten competing broadcasters. Following that are first-hand reports from chess fans who have visited the match venue, mixed with many relevant links (including frequent Twitter spats).

Today is a rest day. By this time next week, another four games will have been played.

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07 November 2018

2018 Carlsen - Caruana, Warmup

With the 2018 Carlsen - Caruana title match due to start in two days, the entire chess world turns its attention to London. First, here's a summary of pre-match posts on this blog:-

Add to these a couple of posts from my main blog:-

I expected more in pre-match publicity from FIDE / Agon / Worldchess. I should know better than to expect more, but we can always dream. The most comprehensive writeup to date appeared a couple of days ago from another source -- The Couch Potato’s Guide to the 2018 World Chess Championship (uschess.org) by GM Ian Rogers -- and even mentioned my own resources:-

Mark Weeks’ long-running World Championship site and blog cover both history and less well known World Championship news.

How long-running has the coverage been on this blog? Here's a summary of wrapup posts for past title events:-

I haven't noticed much Carlsen - Caruana reporting from the non-chess press and hope I get some material for the next post in the Yahoo series. The most interesting report so far is Marky’s Malarkey: Betting On the World Chess Championship (actionnetwork.com; 'Marky takes a deep look into the world of chess to find out where the value lies.'). I'm not a gambler and Marky’s Malarkey is full of jargon that leaves me baffled: 'prop bet', 'shop for the best line', 'both a Pinnacle and Bovada account', etc. etc.

More in my comfort zone is a countdown series by Chess.com's Mike Klein: The 10 Most Exciting World Chess Championships Ever (started end-October 2018). Here's his list to date.

No.1 on the list is a no-brainer, 1972 Fischer - Spassky, but what about no.2? I'll put my money on 1987 Kasparov - Karpov. The match was tied going into the next-but-last game, the 23nd, which Karpov won thanks to a blunder by his opponent. Needing a win to keep his title, Kasparov presented a classic example of how to handle a clutch game. As I wrote on my highlights page for the match, 1987 Kasparov - Karpov : Highlights,

A few moves into the resumption, Karpov played an inaccurate move and resigned on his 64th move. Thus are the greatest world chess championship matches decided -- two months of mental combat turn on a single move. Since the match ended in a 12-12 draw, Kasparov retained the title for another three years.

In 2018, tied title matches are decided by rapid and blitz tiebreak games. That raises the excitement by several more notches.

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31 October 2018

Worldchess Is Wide Awake

The 2018 Carlsen - Caruana World Championship title match starts next week. After the brief detour on this blog to cover the FIDE Presidential election (last seen in Gonzo Chess Journalism) let's return to the main subject, where the most recent posts were

But what to write about? Maybe the half-dozen emails I received from Worldchess during the month of October? When I went back to review them, I found an ad sitting on top of the list of messages. It looked something like this:-

Worldchess.com [AD] • World Chess - Watch The Championship Online • The World Chess Championship Has Started. See the Official Live Broadcast Today.

After wondering how the ad got there, I clicked on it and was sent to the main page, Worldchess.com. The site has been much expanded since I last visited it and now contains a goldmine of information about the match. Particularly noteworthy are the three links for social media:-

I captured the start of the Instagram page in the following image. The most recent images are related to the flurry of email messages I received from Worldchess in October.


instagram.com/theworldchess/

Even more interesting are a couple of images that appear a few screens down, both posted on Instagram last June. One shows Caruana playing chess against a Donald Trump lookalike. Another is a much racier version of the logo that made headlines last December. I reported on it in a couple of posts at that time:-

When did chess become 'R'-rated?

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24 October 2018

Gonzo Chess Journalism

After the two latest posts on the FIDE Presidential election...

...I should move on to the forthcoming 2018 Carlsen - Caruana World Championship match, but I have one more post on the election. While I was collecting material, I found a set of election reports in an unexpected place, rec.games.chess (rgc). Twenty years ago, rgc would have been a first choice for chess reports of any kind -- see An Early Digital Clock (August 2015) on my main chess blog for one example -- but it's not 1998 anymore, it's 2018. The reports were by Sam Sloan, the same person I once featured on that same blog in Sam Sloan and Gulf News (July 2014). Sloan has a unique angle on chess reporting, which some might liken to Gonzo journalism. As Wikipedia explains,

Gonzo journalism is a style of journalism that is written without claims of objectivity, often including the reporter as part of the story via a first-person narrative. The word "gonzo" is believed to have been first used in 1970 to describe an article by Hunter S. Thompson, who later popularized the style. It is an energetic first-person participatory writing style in which the author is a protagonist, and it draws its power from a combination of social critique and self-satire. It has since been applied to other subjective artistic endeavors. Gonzo journalism involves an approach to accuracy that concerns the reporting of personal experiences and emotions, in contrast to traditional journalism, which favors a detached style and relies on facts or quotations that can be verified by third parties.

In Sloan's first report,

he started,

I am here at the World Chess Olympiad in Batumi Republic of Georgia in the visitors gallery. The first round is about to begin. It is 24 September. There is no WIFI in the visitors gallery or on the playing floor. This is no doubt an anti-cheating measure because otherwise I could look at the games from here, find the best move on my laptop computer and then acting as an accomplice signal the right move to a player down below. There was also a drug-sniffing dog being led of a leash. No doubt this is an anti-drug measure although there is no known instance of a drug being used to improve a chess players performance.

For the record, here are Sloan's other reports in chronological order. They are a mixture of reporting on the Olympiad and on the FIDE elections:-

In case there's any doubt, the reports are Sam Sloan's thoughts, not mine.

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17 October 2018

In with the New!

2018-10-10: Out with the Old! (this blog)
Letter of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov to Delegates of 89th FIDE Congress: 'I congratulate Arkady Dvorkovich on his victory in FIDE presidential election.' (fide.com)

[The following links are all from chess-news.ru, translated by translate.googleusercontent.com]

2018-10-03: Arkady Dvorkovich: "It's all not black and white ..." (interview)

E. SUROV: You apparently do not manage to eat well during the day?
A. DVORKOVICH: Yes, the election campaign, especially its last hours, requires constant concentration. But we lived like that for two months. In general, the campaign was quite successful. Of course, there is good news, and for sure we made some mistakes - in particular, not all countries managed to visit, it was very difficult to do.

2018-10-03: Arkady Dvorkovich - New FIDE President

The election of the FIDE President has just ended in Batumi. With the exception of small emotions at the very beginning of the General Assembly meeting, everything went smoothly. Candidates' speeches cannot compare in brightness with those sounded four years ago in Tromsø by Ilyumzhinov and Kasparov. Nigel Short expectedly starred in favor of Arkady Dvorkovich ; The last speaker, Georgios Makropoulos, condemned the grandmaster’s deed and announced that he was going to win the race. However, the result was in favor of the Russians: 103 votes against 78.

2018-10-03: Putin congratulated Dvorkovich. He hopes that chess "will remain a clean sport from politics"

2018-10-06: Short, Mamedov, Khodarkovsky. Who else became FIDE Vice President?

After the election of Arkady Dvorkovich as FIDE President, the Congress delegates identified the vice presidents. Five were chosen, five were appointed.

2018-10-10: Great combinator. Why Arkady Dvorkovich headed the world chess federation (originally from theins.ru; Denis Bilunov)

FIDE consists of 189 countries, it is the third largest sports federation in the world - after football and athletics. Voting in such organizations is based on the principle of “one country - one vote”, and it is not difficult to guess what character the election campaign usually takes.

2018-10-12: Arkady Dvorkovich: "If it is necessary, I will leave the structures subject to sanctions risks"

During a press conference in Moscow, Arkady Dvorkovich responded, in particular, to the question about the Kremlin report , the so-called “waiting list” of persons to whom the US Treasury may subsequently impose sanctions. The name Dvorkovich is present in that list.

Next: ???

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10 October 2018

Out with the Old!

2018-10-03: 2018 Carlsen - Caruana, ChessCasting (this blog)
While I was writing this post, I learned that Arkady Dvorkovich defeated Georgios Makropoulos in the FIDE Presidential election. The vote count was 103 to 78.

1996-06-15: In the Republic of Kirsanstan (vedomosti.ru; Matt Taibbi)

ELISTA, Kalmykia -- Like most places, the tiny Russian republic of Kalmykia has its own bad joke about a fisherman who catches a golden fish. Their version goes like this: The fish begs the fisherman not to eat him, saying that he'll give him three wishes in return for his freedom. "You can have anything," the fish says. "Money, power, women ..."

"Who needs all that?" answers the fisherman. "Just make it so that I went to school with Kirsan Nikolayevich."

2018-10-02: Russia Made The King Of Chess. The U.S. Dethroned Him (fivethirtyeight.com)

In the days following the 2016 election, a large group of Russians gathered in New York to watch one of their own wage war in miniature. They were at the World Chess Championship, where a patriotic Russian grandmaster was challenging the Norwegian defending champion in Manhattan’s South Street Seaport. [...]

One person was especially conspicuous, and he wasn’t even there. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has lorded over the sport as the president of the World Chess Federation, more commonly known by its French acronym FIDE, for more than two decades. But the game’s most powerful figure had been barred from the country hosting its highest profile event.

2018-10-03: Letter of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov to Delegates of 89th FIDE Congress (fide.com)

I congratulate Arkady Dvorkovich on his victory in FIDE presidential election. I would like to thank you, the delegates of the Congress and all the national federations, for this choice. I wish all the success to all of you. who will continue to develop and popularize the ancient game along with the new leader. Chess is the best that humanity has. I am sure that our most important dream -- one billion people playing chess -- will come true. I would like to thank you for your trust that allowed me to win against the most serious rivals in elections several times.

Today. many people remember that difficult time when I came to work at FIDE. Together we managed to rally the chess world! Thanks to our collaboration, I have made many friends in FIDE.

2018-10-08: The Week in Chess 1248 (theweekinchess.com; Mark Crowther)

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was FIDE President from 1995 to 2018. The final ejection of this cuckoo in the nest should be a cause for relief. He claimed a fictional chess career and used the post of FIDE President to further his own business interests. He was both a constant embarassment and directly cost the game many potiential commercial sponsors. I hope chess never sees or hears of him again.

Just as when he was finally removed as Kalmykian President there should be celebration but also the realisation that things are not guaranteed to get better. Ilyumzhinov should also be the last of the long serving FIDE Presidents as Dvorkovich should only be able to serve two terms after new rules were passed. Eight years to make an impact is plenty for anyone.

Next: In with the New!

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03 October 2018

2018 Carlsen - Caruana, ChessCasting

In my previous post, 2018 Carlsen - Caruana, Online, I quoted Worldchess,
Introducing ChessCasting! [...] You can follow the 43rd Olympiad in Batumi on Worldchess.com. The games start this Monday! Based on your feedback, we'll add and improve the broadcasting before the World Chess Championship Match, the biggest event in the sport, that takes place in November of 2018 in London.

and promised,

I'll look at some of the rounds and report on the broadcast for the next post on this blog.

Today the ninth round of the Olympiad is taking place, with two rounds to go. Following is a screen capture of the Worldchess broadcast. It shows the top board of the top match, Duda (Poland) vs. Caruana (USA). The third line showing the players' names is the mechanism to switch between matches and between games within a match.

While the presentation of the game is certainly professional enough, I still prefer the layout used by Chess24.com. There you have an overview of the progress of all games on a single page.

As for the other functions, I never noticed anyone using the chat (large gray rectangle on the right: 'There are no messages yet. Be the first!'), which indicates that the site was not used much during the Olympiad. The video shown above the move list is the Chess24 commentary from Youtube's channel Batumi Chess Olympiad 2018. The scribbles at the bottom of the screen show which rounds of the tournament have already completed.

***

While I was writing this post, I learned that Arkady Dvorkovich defeated Georgios Makropoulos in the FIDE Presidential election. The vote count was 103 to 78.

For my previous post on the election, see Three Candidates in Three Weeks. For a snap, post-election writeup, see World chess gets first new president in two decades as Putin loyalist takes power (telegraph.co.uk).

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26 September 2018

2018 Carlsen - Caruana, Online

I closed the previous post, 2018 Carlsen - Caruana, Schedule, with:-
Looks like I waited too long to get tickets, but I'm glad to see that the match is so popular. Maybe I'll look at online viewing options in another post.

My page on the 2018 Carlsen - Caruana match points to london2018.worldchess.com, which redirects to worldchess.com/london. A screen capture of that page is shown below.

The info on the left says,

FIDE World Chess Championship Match 2018 starts in
44 days : 08 hours : 59 minutes : 29 seconds

With online access, you will have the best seats in the house! Multi-camera view, commentary, access to behind-the-scenes, interviews and press conferences, advanced chat options and more. It's 2018 and chess is spectacular!

Of the options on the bottom of the screen, I tried the first ('get the ticket') in the previous 'Schedule' post. The other two options ('get my 12-month pass' and 'get my online ticket') both go to the same page: worldchess.com/paygate.

Given that there are currently no more Agon/Worldchess events on the agenda after the Carlsen - Caruana match, there is no apparent advantage to the $25 '12-month pass' over the $20 'online ticket', so I opted for the less expensive access. This brought me to a panel to enter my Worldchess login credentials and my credit card info ('secured by STRIPE'). Since I've never used STRIPE for payments, I thought I should look into the company before I give them any credit card credentials. In the meantime, this past weekend I received a newsletter from Worldchess.com saying,

Introducing ChessCasting! Welcome to the new World Chess Broadcasting Platform! • Dear chess fans! We are pleased to introduce the new official chesscasting platform: it’s well-designed, has great features that appeal to non-professionals, has the best chess chat ever, will be available for all chess organizers shortly to broadcast events for free (and even make money with it), and it works well. [...] You can follow the 43rd Olympiad in Batumi on Worldchess.com. The games start this Monday! Based on your feedback, we'll add and improve the broadcasting before the World Chess Championship Match, the biggest event in the sport, that takes place in November of 2018 in London.

The link for the 43rd Olympiad went to a Worldchess.com page, Olympiad : Open Section, with an announcement 'Round's pairings will be available soon'. Tomorrow the fourth round will take place. I'll look at some of the rounds and report on the broadcast for the next post on this blog.

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19 September 2018

2018 Carlsen - Caruana, Schedule

It's already been six weeks since I posted News about 2018 Carlsen - Caruana, where I quoted a press release,
The much-anticipated match will be held in London from 9th to 28th November.

It's high time to decide whether I want to travel to London to see the match myself. First, what's the schedule? The official site, FIDE World Chess (worldchess.com/london), only informs,

FIDE World Chess Championship Match 2018 starts in
51 days : 10 hours : 35 minutes : 18 seconds

but 'Watch live at the college : get the ticket' leads to World Chess 2018 | Official Ticketmaster UK Site, which displays a useful calendar. Here's a copy in reverse black & white, which is easier to read in this reduced size.

The small print in the bottom line, which applies to rounds 10 through 12, says,

* : Sales will be open after the end of the 3rd and 4th round.

Second, what about tickets? Details for the first game are at Tickets: World Chess Championship - Round 1, London | Fri 9 Nov 2018 @ 3:00 pm:-

Best Available
Price : £600.00
Section : VIP Area

Ouch! The info button says, 'Event Info : General Admission Only', which probably means there are no numbered seats. The rest of the info informs,

VIP Tickets - with the VIP ticket you will get: separate entrance to the venue with VIP reception and separate coat check; comfortable VIP area with seating zones; bar with free drinks; priority entrance to the Players area; possibility to book seats in the first rows during the games and press-conference; memorable souvenirs.

General Admission Tickets - if you are buying this ticket you are getting: access to the Players area, where you can watch the two best world chess players compete for the chess crown; live commentating of the games by chess grandmasters; entertainment area, where you can try to beat your mate in chess; chess cafe where you can buy snacks and drinks; chess shop with chess souvenirs.

How about round 2? A page similar to round 1 informs,

General Admission Tickets : £70.00
VIP Ticket : £500.00

The related 'Find tickets' button informs, 'Tickets not currently available from Ticketmaster', which is the same message I received for round 3. The first available tickets I could find were for round 4 at £45.00 per ticket. Rounds 5 and 6 were also marked 'Tickets not currently available'. Looks like I waited too long to get tickets, but I'm glad to see that the match is so popular. Maybe I'll look at online viewing options in another post.

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12 September 2018

Three Candidates in Three Weeks

With the FIDE presidential elections due to take place in three weeks, let's return to the subject of 2018 FIDE Election Tickets (July 2018). Last month the Association of Chess Professionals (ACP) endorsed one of the three candidates:-

That second link, 'Why', listed seven areas of concern:-

  • The work of FIDE ['utterly ineffective for quite some time now']
  • Anti-cheating issues
  • World Championship Cycle [*]
  • Women's chess
  • Helping veterans
  • Calendar of official events ['dates of the major events are regularly shifted']
  • FIDE General Assemblies and Terms ['no President should be serving for more than two consecutive terms']

Given that this blog is named the World Chess Championship Blog, the area marked '*' is of particular interest. The ACP board stated,

This is a very troublesome area. To start with, the last title match saw the highest budget for such an event ever but also one of the lowest prize-funds in modern history. That is simply ridiculous. Restoring transparency and respect for the players is a very much needed action. It is not irrelevant to mention that the Grand Prix series suffered a major blow in recent years, mainly due to FIDE’s inability to attract corporate sponsors.

FIDE is composed of national federations. Although the federations are political bodies that don't pay much attention to the thoughts of their strongest players, the ACP endorsement is the strongest statement to date by any single chess organization. The FIDE election has also attracted attention outside chess circles.


Who will be king? Three-way battle for control rocks international chess
(2 September 2018; theguardian.com)

Of Dvorkovich, the Guardian article said,

The Russian bid sees one of the Kremlin’s most capable and modern lieutenants unleashed on a sport that, frankly, seems small fry for him. Dvorkovich was Russian deputy prime minister for six years and chaired Russia’s World Cup organising committee, which spent an estimated £10bn on the tournament. By contrast, the Fide’s annual budget is just £2.3m.

The article also quoted Chess.com's Peter Doggers, recently seen on this blog in Peter Doggers on Chess Politics (August 2018). His most recent post on the election was FIDE Elections: 'Fake News' And The Call For Transparency, from which we can conclude that GM Short is already the odd man out. For more about the three candidates, see their Wikipedia pages:-

The winner in the election will shape FIDE policy for the next decade and probably longer.

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15 August 2018

Peter Doggers on Chess Politics

In a post last week on my main blog, 2018 CJA Awards, I assigned myself a couple of follow-ups:-
Getting back to those two 'Special Achievement' awards that head the awards list:-
- American Chess Magazine for 'All Four Issues', and
- Peter Doggers for 'Yearlong FIDE Coverage'
Both are worthy of a follow-up post.

Yesterday I closed the first in a post titled American Chess Magazine. Today I'll close the second.

I've referenced Doggers' reports many times on this blog -- most recently Grand Prix Boycott (August 2017) -- and on my main blog -- Ethics in Chess Politics - Stories (November 2015) -- and have also featured his video reports. He's extremely knowledgeable, level-headed, and fair to all sides, even to FIDE, a group often criticized in knee-jerk reactions by the chess press.

Until I started to write this post, I didn't realize there was a Chess.com news category that mainly features Doggers' work: News > Chess Politics. The following screen capture shows examples of his most recent reports.

Another Chess.com category also archives his work: News > Misc. Now I can catch up on the latest FIDE news about chess politics through one or two easy links.

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08 August 2018

News about 2018 Carlsen - Caruana

Four months after the 2018 Candidates Tournament ended, we finally have some news about the forthcoming 2018 Carlsen - Caruana match. Received from Worldchess.com, World Chess Championship Match takes place in Holborn, Central London (email):-
We are very happy to announce The College, a breath-taking historic building in the heart of London as the venue for the FIDE World Chess Championship Match 2018! The 10,000-square foot space in Holborn will host 400 people each day to see Magnus Carlsen defend his world title against US challenger Fabiano Caruana. The much-anticipated match will be held in London from 9th to 28th November.

The announcement carried an artist's conception of the playing area. It was too dark to see much, so I took its negative.


'Render of the playing hall at the College, Holborn'
[reverse black & white]

Before the announcement of the venue, the only other email communication from Worldchess.com was dated 17 June 2018; US President Will Meet the Challenger to the World Championship Title (If You Want Him To!):-

Chess fans from the [USA] contacted us with an idea: to petition Donald Trump to invite Fabiano Caruana, the challenger to the Title, to the White House before the World Chess Championship Match that takes place in London in November. They published a petition today in support of this proposal at the White House’ petitions page. According to the rules, if the petition is signed by over 100,000 in 30 days, the Administration will review and possibly grant it.

The related link to petitions.whitehouse.gov now informs,

Signature Count • 847 signed, 100,000 goal // Closed Petition • This petition has been archived because it did not meet the signature requirements. It can no longer be signed.

In other match related news -- carrying the same date as this blog post -- Unibet secures 'opening move' sponsoring FIDE World Chess London 2018 (sbcnews.co.uk):-

Kindred Group Plc European sports betting subsidiary Unibet has broadened its sponsorship portfolio confirming that it has become the official betting partner to the ‘FIDE World Chess Championship Match’ (London 9-28 November). The bookmaker confirms a ‘ground-breaking deal’ with principal organiser World Chess, becoming the first betting partner of a FIDE syndicated event. World Chess expects a sell-out crowd for its much-anticipated event. [...]

Ilya Merenzon, the CEO of World Chess, backed Unibet as new partner: "World Chess is proud to announce this exclusive partnership with Unibet. We're enabling fans to be even closer to the action in this tantalising match. The tournament is the highlight of the chess calendar and millions of people around the world will follow every move."

Speaking of World Chess, whatever happened to their Grand Prix series, last seen in Palma de Mallorca, November 2017, according to my page 2017 Grand Prix. The FIDE calendar has nothing listed for 2019. Anyone taking bets on whether it will take place next year?

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04 July 2018

2018 FIDE Election Tickets

A couple of months ago, in 2018 FIDE Chess Politics, I wrote,
The situation is changing so rapidly that anything I say is bound to be wrong even before I press 'POST'. [...] In the meantime, let's settle for an overview of the election process. [...] I'll come back to the subject at the beginning of summer.

Earlier today, in Tickets for FIDE Presidential elections 2018 (fide.com), FIDE announced,

FIDE has received, within the specified deadline of 3 July 2018, 17:00 (Athens time), the following three (3) Presidential Tickets of Arkady Dvorkovich, Georgios Makropoulos and Nigel Short for the upcoming FIDE elections 2018 (listed alphabetically):

Arkady Dvorkovich – President
Bachar Kouatly – Deputy President
Sewa Enyonam Fumey – General Secretary
Mahir Mammedov – Vice President
Julio Granda Zuniga – Vice President
Zhu Chen – Treasurer

Georgios Makropoulos – President
Malcolm Pein – Deputy President
Sundar Damal Villivalam – General Secretary
Martha Fierro – Vice President
Chitalu Chilufya – Vice President
Adrian M. Siegel – Treasurer

Nigel Short – President
Lukasz Marek Turlej – Deputy President
Ruth Haring – General Secretary
Olalekan Adeyemi – Vice President
Paul Spiller – Vice President
Panu Laine – Treasurer

What happened to current FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov? Last week, in e.g. Arkady Dvorkovich is RCF’s candidate for FIDE President (chessdom.com), we learned,

24 ballots were received by the RCF Secretariat by 6 p.m. (Moscow time) on June 27th. 22 RCF Supervisory Board members voted in favour of Arkady Dvorkovich and 2 in favour of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.

RCF stands for Russian Chess Federation, and the group voted overwhelmingly Ilyumzhinov out, Dvorkovich in. I can't imagine that anyone outside of Ilyumzhinov's inner circle is sorry to see him go. After nearly 23 years at the helm of FIDE, the quirky Kalmyk has consistently demonstrated that his strongest quality is unpredictability.

As for the three confirmed candidates, they are all damaged goods. Dvorkovich is a puppet of the Putin regime; Makropoulos has been a controversial figure in FIDE for even longer than Ilyumzhinov and has been in bad health; Short has never shown any political acumen and specializes in insulting people. I imagine the election will be decided the same way all FIDE elections are decided, with palm grease.

Of special interest is the upcoming World Championship. With Ilyumzhinov out of the picture, what is organizer Agon's outlook? I'll be watching to see how the three candidates treat all aspects of the Carlsen - Caruana match. Both players are tremendously popular and should deliver positive publicity to world chess. Will the three candidates build on that or will they destroy it?

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09 May 2018

2018 FIDE Chess Politics

If chess players aren't interested in chess politics, why is the chess press running so many stories these days about chess politics? Maybe because there's serious trouble in FIDE's leadership with both a FIDE election and a World Championship match looming later this year.

I last covered the FIDE problems in a couple of 'Yahoo' posts on my main blog -- February Yahoos (February 2018; 'I've been following the sanctions saga since the end of 2016.'), and April Yahoos (April 2018) -- and now I should cover the jockeying for the FIDE election, but the situation is changing so rapidly that anything I say is bound to be wrong even before I press 'POST'.

In the meantime, let's settle for an overview of the election process. The FIDE page Handbook >> A. Administrative Subjects >> 04. Electoral Regulations (fide.com) starts,

1. The Presidential Ticket

1.1 The Presidential ticket shall be six persons, at least one of whom must be a woman. Nominations on the Presidential ticket shall specify the proposed nominees for the offices of FIDE President, Deputy President, General Secretary, Treasurer and two Vice Presidents.

1.2 Nominations for the Presidential ticket and Continental Presidents must reach the Secretariat at least three months before the opening of the General Assembly. Each ticket must be nominated by at least five member federations. The decision of the federation shall be communicated to FIDE by the federation's President. A federation is entitled to nominate only one Presidential ticket.

The General Assembly will take place during the forthcoming Olympiad. The FIDE Calendar 2018 (also fide.com) says,

43rd World Chess Olympiad 2018 • Batumi, Georgia • 23-Sep-2018 • 6-Oct-2018
89th FIDE Congress • Batumi, Georgia • 26-Sep-2018 • 6-Oct-2018

Three months before the opening of the General Assembly will happen around end-June. I'll come back to the subject at the beginning of summer.

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02 May 2018

Three and a Half Cycles

While preparing for the previous post (see the last link below, 'Berlin Candidates - Wrapup'), I assembled a collection of links to similar posts for past events. This was primarily with an eye on maintaining consistency, but the list has other uses, too.

C25: Candidates

C25: Title Match

C26: Candidates

C26: Title Match

C27: Candidates

C27: Title Match

C28: Candidates

C28: Title Match

  • 2018-11-xx: Carlsen - Caruana, London

Only six months to wait before I can start filling in that last list...

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