Bill Gates denies attendance at World Championship

by Albert Silver
11/5/2016 – Readers will recall the recent announcement made by FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov that both Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, the foremost tech moguls of our age, would be visiting the World Chess Championship in New York City. In an interview to TASS, a Russian news agency, he stated that invitations had been tendered to both, and had been accepted. Wishing to follow-up on this in order to learn more, we reached out to them.

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Since both of these notable men have already demonstrated an interest in chess, and been in touch with world champion Magnus Carlsen, as reported in the past, the possibility of their visiting New York in order to witness a world championship match  themselves, however briefly, hardly seemed very far-fetched.

Would they be rooting for either of the players? What did they think of the match taking place in Manhattan? Etc.

Unfortunately, it would seem that the announcement was made precipitously, since a reply from the private office of Bill Gates denied this. “Mr. Gates will not be attending the World Chess Championship in New York City this month.

While this does not exclude Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg from attending, from whom no reply has been forthcoming as yet, it does cast it in doubt.


Born in the US, he grew up in Paris, France, where he completed his Baccalaureat, and after college moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He had a peak rating of 2240 FIDE, and was a key designer of Chess Assistant 6. In 2010 he joined the ChessBase family as an editor and writer at ChessBase News. He is also a passionate photographer with work appearing in numerous publications, and the content creator of the YouTube channel, Chess & Tech.

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