2013-2014 Women's Grand Prix, the Players

After posting Women's Grand Prix, Sharjah, the last of the six events for the 2013-2014 FIDE Women's Grand Prix, I created the table shown on the left. It lists the 21 players, their scores across all events in which they participated, and the number of games they played. The table gave me the data I needed to update the World Chess Championship : Index of Women Players.

2013-2014 Women's Grand Prix, Sharjah

I added the crosstable and PGN for the 2014 Sharjah (United Arab Emirates) to my page on the 2013-2014 FIDE Women's Grand Prix. The initial announcement for this Grand Prix (March 2013), stated that the event would be held in Erdenet, Mongolia.

Since this was the last of the six events scheduled for the Grand Prix, I also added the final standings calculated by FIDE. I was pleased to see that these standings were published shortly after the Sharjah event ended. The final results were never published for the 2011-2012 Women's Grand Prix.

TBD: Add the participants to the Index of Women Players, and perhaps develop a table of results across all events, like I did for the 2012-13 GP. • The FIDE calendar lists 'Women's World Championship 2014, 11-Oct-2014, 31-Oct-2014', but there has been no announcement about this event. This would be the same knockout format last seen in World Chess Championship (Women) : 2012 FIDE Knockout Matches.

Zonal Months

Starting with the first zonal cycle, Zonals 1948-1951 (C01), I stepped through all 26 cycles listed at the bottom of the index page World Chess Championship Zonals, looking for mismatches between the year & month shown on the event header (e.g. 'CAN Quebec City 1947-00') and the same info in the corresponding clipping (e.g. 'June'). I found 20 cycles with mismatches and updated the headers.

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

2014 Carlsen - Anand

I added a new page for the 2014 Carlsen - Anand title match to the index page for the World Chess Championship. According to FIDE, the match will take place 7-28 November 2014, 'on the territory of the Olympic village'.

The match still hasn't been confirmed by both players. Chess-news.ru reported earlier this week that Carlsen Postpones Signing of the WC Match Contract At Least for Two Weeks. The current World Champion has washed his hands of FIDE in the past; see my post Groan Prix (December 2008) for details.

Zonal Clipping Update, C16-C20

It's curious that of the ~30 events listed on Inventory of Missing Zonal Clippings, nearly all of them were played during the period 1985-2000. I've noticed this many times before: history that occurred just before or at the beginning of the Internet era is less well documented than both earlier and later history.

Starting with the most recent events first, I looked for available info on the web. While finding a few new clippings, I also found new, relevant info for events from the period that were already documented. For the full table of events, see World Chess Championship Zonals.

Inventory of Missing Zonal Clippings

Returning to Zonal Clipping Updates, last seen for C13-C16, I added a couple of new clippings to Zonals 1995-1997 (C17). Since this exhausted the backlog of clippings I have collected, it's a good time to take an inventory of missing clippings, shown in the following table. 'Cy' and 'Zo' are Cycle and Zone.

Cy	Zo	Event	Venue	Start	ID
5	9	9f	Madras	1961-00	429
13	12	12	Algiers	1985-02	331
13	13	13	Harare	1985-02	330
14	10	10	Doha	1987-03	333
14	12	12	Khemis Miliana	1987-04	332
14	13	13	Luanda (or Cairo?)	1987-05	335
15	8	8 subzonal?	Pinar del Rio CUB	1990-00	111
15	12	12	? (TUN Hmadi)	1990-00	424
15	13	13	? (EGY El Taher & Afifi)	1990-00	425
16	1	1.5a	Zouberi	1993-00	99
16	4	4.2	? (EGY Esam Aly)	1993-00	394
16	4	4.3	? (RSA Gluckman)	1993-00	395
17	2	2.3a	San Salvador	1995-00	75
17	3	3.4	? (Nenashev)	1995-00	482
17	4	4.1	? (Hamdouchi)	1995-00	483
17	4	4.2	? (Ahmed)	1995-00	484
18	1	1.7	Tallinn	1998-07	56
18	1	1.8	Shaki, Azerbaijan	1998-00	485
18	2	2.3.5 subzonal	San Felipe	1999-00	41
18	3	3.1a	Tehran	1997-08	61
18	3	3.1b	Mumbai	1999-03	520
18	3	3.3	? (Liang Chong & Peng Xiaomin)	1999-00	487
18	3	3.4	? (Kasimdzhanov & Kotsur)	1999-00	488
18	4	4.1	? (Bouaziz)	1999-00	489
19	2	2.3	? (Hernandez & Nogueiras)	2000-00	458
19	2	2.3.2	Guatemala City	2000-07	19
19	3	3.1a	? (Al Modiahki)	2000-00	490
19	3	3.1b	? (Barua)	2000-00	491
19	3	3.3	? (Xu Jun & Peng Xiaomin)	2000-00	492
19	3	3.4	Namangan, Uzbekistan	2000-00	493
19	4	4.1	? (Hamdouchi)	2000-00	494

Where venues are marked '?', I have no information about the event.

***

Later: Events that have a new clipping are indicated with a strike.

Zt: 1975 Barcelona & 1976 Arandjelovac (II)

After posting about two controversial events in the 1975-1978 cycle -- see Zt: 1975 Barcelona & 1976 Arandjelovac -- I received more information from two Czech correspondents, both keen chess historians.

The first correspondent, Jan Kalendovský, confirmed that both Smejkal and Uhlmann qualified from 1976 Arandjelovac for the Interzonal phase after the drawing of lots. He also forwarded a column by GM Hort from a May 1976 issue of Rudé právo which discussed the outcome. I added the clipping to my page on the cycle, Zonals 1975-1978 (C10).

Rudé právo (Czech for The Red Right or The Red Law) was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. • Rudé právo [Wikipedia]

The second correspondent, Jan Fiala, commented on the circumstances surrounding the boycott of 1975 Barcelona.

The theory about Pachman is possible. Two chessplayers in the 1970s couldn't play for two years because they played in one tournament with Pachman -- Ján Báňas and Ivan Novák, Stockholm 1974 -- but I didn't read about it anywhere [else]. Moreover, Smejkal in his memories in one interview wrote about it and I think if it was because of Pachman, he would say so.

He also forwarded a translated excerpt from 'Jan Smejkal - Bretislav Modr: Smejkalova padesatka, Sachinfo 4/1996, page 136'.

In time when I was on top and I saw the whole world pink, I should play in next cycle zonal tournament in Spain (in year 1975) and I did not. The day before take-off a telegrame came that tour is not held. And a declaration was published without our knowledge together with Yugoslavians, Poles and Hungarians in which we protest against Franco's regime.

Zonal tournament was held and Ludek Pachman, who lived in Germany yet, promoted [i.e. 'qualified'] amongst others. [...] Finally I promoted to interzonal, together with interest of Russians and Americans but also of organizers of interzonal tournaments and next promoting places were enforced for those who could not start in Barcelona. I promoted but without illusions.

Jan Kalendovský is a published author; see Complete Games of Alekhine on newinchess.com. Jan Fiala maintains a web page on Czech chess history at sachyceskybrod.cz/historie.htm. Thanks to both for the information.

***

Later: I added another clipping, received from the same correspondents, to the 1975-1978 (C10) page. It's under the heading 'Barcelona 1975', captioned 'Rudé Právo 1975-10-03'. A translation was also provided:-

As a Protest Against Reprisals • Yugoslavian chess master D. Velimirovic anounced to FIDE secretariat that he will not take part in zonal tournament in Barcelona as a protest against fascist regime in Spain. At the same time he asks international federation to replace the tournament to other European country.

The correspondents mentioned that there were other published protests.