Press release
I don’t know how many times I have said to myself that it makes no sense
at all to keep getting involved in chess politics and that I should just concentrate
on my work etc. But the recent FIDE “developments” possibly made
many late great champions turn in their graves. That means the living chess
players should speak out.
According to the Russian totally non-free chess journalist Yuri Vasiliev (fortunately
not the most reliable one whom we know for bringing up the ghost of Alexander
Chernenko) Ilyumzhinov has already stated* that Vasily Ivanchuk might get severely
sanctioned for the doping test refusal after his game against Gata Kamsky.
Can we believe such news? A player who has been in the very top for more than
twenty years since winning New York Open in the beginning of 1988, an absolute
record from currently active players, gets banned simply because he wanted to
calm down after a lost game? Boris Spassky has already given his opinion about
the situation, but it’s not published anywhere. Suddenly Ilyumzhinov wants
to say that the rules are the rules.
But the rules don’t seem legal to me unfortunately. IOC has never guaranteed
that chess would become the Olympic sport, so the FIDE policy in licking their
posterior is at least questionable. After the success of Intellectual games
festival in Beijing it’s time to STOP trying to get into the Olympic movement.
I personally feel guilty for participating in the Olympic exhibition in Sydney
2000, but at least then it seemed that the chessplayers were going to be welcome
with open heart. As it hasn’t happened we have our way and we cannot lose
our best representatives like this.
If FIDE and Ilyumzhinov don’t stop destroying our intellectual sport
something should be done. At least step by step. I hope Mr. Hans-Arild Runde
would not mind to keep calculating Ivanchuk’s results, so any organizers
who still respect our game should deal with him and no longer give the official
rating reports to FIDE. In fact the rating reports are generated automatically
nowadays, but somebody should still control that they are not changed by cancelling
results.
The second part of this press-release will include some of my thoughts about
the latest changes (nothing unusual, of course) in the World Championship system.
Of course, with Ivanchuk ban the whole system loses its sense but there is still
a chance that his case will be resolved. In fact I don’t think the idea
of the Candidates tournament is as negative as some people think, adding the
second place in the Grand Prix and the World Cup is a nice compensation for
changing the format as long as the tournament is attractive for players and
chess lovers. But giving the direct seed to the loser of Topalov-Kamsky match
seems totally senseless as long as the player can prove his strength in the
next World Cup or qualify by rating. He should be replaced by the second highest
rated player in my opinion. Unfortunately this opinion cannot even theoretically
be supported by the ACP board as one of their leading forces, Emil Sutovsky,
is the manager of Kamsky and the most of the rest are his cronies!
Ok, time to stop writing. Let others express their opinions on this FIDE news.
Alexei Shirov
Riga, 02.12.2008
* Yuri Vasiliev's report in Sport
Express: "Kirsan Ilyumzhinov said that Vassily Ivanchuk could face
a two-year ban, and also that all his games at the Olympiad would be annulled.
This could cost Ukraine the Gaprindashvili Trophy, which they won for the best
combined male-female team score." Interestingly in the original it says
literally that Ivanchuk "is threatened with" a two-year ban, but his
games "will be" annulled. We do not know whether the difference in
tense is significant.