Six million dollar World Chess Championship in Las Vegas?
8/25/2009 – Remember Ripley? A recent announcement tells us that there will be an official World Chess Championship match, starting on December 1st in Las Vegas. No, Anand is not part of it, nor is Topalov, Kamsky, Kasparov, Kramnik or any of the usual crowd. You are going to have to click through to our news page to find out who is playing who. We bring you the official press release.
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Sorry, we simply couldn't resist: here is the press release we received,
which we reproduce in full, including
Press release
"THE WORLD CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP”
World Chess Federation, Inc. WCF TITLE MATCH 2009
WCF “THE WORLD CHESS CHAMPION” Stan Vaughan
versus
WCF official challenger Varuzhan Akobian
WCF “The World Chess Champion” Stan Vaughan, age 52, of Las Vegas, Nevada, is more than twice the age of his 25 year old official challenger Varuzhan Akobian of Armenia.
After the KGB assassinated World Chess Champion Alexander Alekhine in 1946 in order that the Soviet controlled FIDE (International Chess Federation) was able to gain control of the World Chess Championship title, the Soviets held the title until the American Bobby Fischer won it in a match in 1972. That eventually helped lead to the downfall of the Soviet Union which had relied heavily on chess for propaganda purposes to attempt to demonstrate the superiority of the Communist system over the Capitalist system. FIDE stripped Fischer of the title in 1975 after which Fischer set up the WCF which sanctioned his 1992 World Championship rematch with Spassky, the richest title event in history at five million dollars. Fischer won the event and was scheduled to play WCF official challenger Stan Vaughan when he retired in 2001, and has since died in 2008.
Vaughan, the WCF official challenger at the time of Fischer's retirement has the following resume:
- Gold Medalist representing USA in 1980 International Student games
- 29 time US Champion of the American Chess Association including retaining that title in 2008 Robert Fischer Memorial
- 1988 US Correspondence Chess Champion
- 1989, 1995 Mensa World Correspondence Chess Champion
- 1995-2007 WCCF World Correspondence Chess Champion
- WCF “The World Chess Champion 2001-present 2009
- Retained the title in 2007 with an 11-0 title match victory over Francisco Metz, an International Master from Mexico and former 1975 USCF's US Amateur Chess Champion
- Former FIDE and PCA World Chess Champion Gary Kasparov turned down the opportunity to play Vaughan in a match for 5 million in 2008
Akobian is the WCF official challenger. Akobian who this year defeated rival USCF's US Champion in 2 matches in April and also recently won the 2009 USCF National Open after winning also in 2004, 2005, 2006. He also won the American Open in 2003, the North American Open in 2004, the Western Hemopisheres Americas Championship in 2007 and is a THREE TIME WORLD OPEN TOURNAMENT CHAMPION ( 2002, 2004 and 2007).
