THE WEEK IN CHESS 808 3rd May 2010 by Mark Crowther

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1) Introduction

My thanks to Igor Kragelj, Luiz Roberto Da Costa Jr, Miklos Orso, Adolivio Capece, George Mirijanian, Dave Clayton, Allan Herbert, Rohan Waithe, Haroon Or Rashid, Dirk Austin, Alex Holowczak, Mitko Iliev, Frank Berry, Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh, Mikhail Golubev and everyone else who helped with the issue.

This has been a very long and wearying week. The World Chess Championships has been a lot of work. It has to be said it has been rewarding work with some really excellent and entertaining chess. Anand scored a smashing victory in game 4 but the other games have been hard fought draws. Let me say before anyone can accuse me of bias later on, the match is too short. I understand these are hard economic times and 12 games is the best we can do at the moment, but if sponsorship picks up then I think 16 would be a better number. Also from what I can see the match has been excellently organised so far with fair play to both players.

In addition to the world championship we've had the new FIDE rating list (Carlsen still top, top 7 remain the same). A bit of a surprise event in the relatively unadvertised President's Cup with Kramnik coming out on top. We've also had French, Italian and UK league weekends.

Today we had the news of the death of former FIDE President Florencio Campomanes. I didn't have a lot of time to write about him. What I would say was that his love of chess was clear and he played chess until nearly the end which did at least meant he understood the issues, even if I disagreed with many of his decisions.. However I have less good things to say about his legacy in FIDE. I am a strong believer that most political leaders are past their best after 8 years. A change to a two term limit for the FIDE Presidency is, for me, a must, if you can't achieve what you want in 8 years, you're pretty much not going to do it, ever. If Campomanes had left in 1990 he would have left FIDE in a strong position financially and a solid if sometimes controversial legacy. However his last 5 years saw FIDE descend into bankruptcy and a split in the World Chess Championship. His solution to the financial mess was to bring in a millionaire Kirsan Ilyumzhinov to bail FIDE and indeed himself out. Ilyumzhinov is not really a chess player and he is definitely of the "President for Life" school. I call this legacy "Campomanes Revenge", a punishment for those who successfully unseated him. Of all the controversial decisions, this is the one I dislike the most.

Hope you enjoy this issue.

Mark

2) World Championship Match Anand - Topalov

The World Chess Championship takes place in Sofia, Bulgaria 23 April (1st round) to 12 May 2010 (possible tiebreaks). The match is between World Champion Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov.

After the first two games were decisive Anand took the lead with a crushing win in game 4. However the other games have been drawn and we're entering the key phase of the match. Topalov has had an excellent couple of days drawing twice in a row with black. This double white for Anand in the middle is to my mind wrong but it hasn't decided the match, now its the rush to the line. Topalov is a point behind but he has three whites left, Anand now only two.

The main TWIC site has daily coverage and reports on the games.

A huge number of websites are covering the event, many excellently.

Official site: http://www.anand-topalov.com/. I've particularly enjoyed watching the webcam of the match during play. Now if they can only stop cameramen standing in front of it before the start of play.

3) President's Cup

The President's Cup took place in Baku, Azerbaijan 29th April - 2nd May 2010.

The main event was a single round robin rapid tournament (last year was a Scheveningen team event) with half the players from Azerbaijan and half from abroad.The time control was 25 minutes per player per game. Vladimir Kramnik took first place from Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Gata Kamsky on tie-break after all finished on 5.7.

There was a blitz tournament on the final day, May 2nd 2010. Shahriyar Mamedyarov and Vladimir Kramnik finished on 10.5/13 - but this time a tie-break match was held which Mamedyarov won. Teimour Rajabov finished third with 9.5 points.

The President of Azerbaijan is Ilham Aliyev but the cup is named after his father Heydar Aliyev who was the leader of Soviet Azerbiajan and then President of the Independent State for a period of 30 years and died in 2003.

Players: Azerbaijan: Mamedyarov, Radjabov, Mamedov and Guseinov. Rest of the World: Kramnik, Kamsky, Polgar and Sutovsky.

Official site: http://www.chess.az/

4) French League Top 16

The French League Top 16 saw the 2nd weekend of games 29th April - 2nd May 2010. Group A was in Marseilles and Group B in Mulhouse. After this weekend the top 4 in each group will go into Poule Haute (Top Group), the bottom 4 into Poule Basse. The teams that haven't met so far (each team will have already met three teams) in the competition will meet in the final rounds in Bretagne 3rd-6th June 2010.

Games from Round 7 of Group A not yet available.

Time control 90mins for 40 moves, 30mins for the rest, 30 seconds per move from move one.

First weekend of games: 26th-28th March 2010. There are two initial groups, each with two venues. Group A took place in Vandoeuvre (Deauville, Drancy, Montpellier and Vandoeuvre) and in Evry (Evry, Noyon, Guingamp and Marseille Echecs). Group B took place in Chalons-en-Champagne (Cannes, Lyon, Strasbourg and Chalonnais) and Clichy (Metz, Mulhouse and Clichy-Échecs-92 (Bischwiller can't raise a team)).

French Chess Federation: http://www.echecs.asso.fr

Venue Links: http://www.lechiquier-chalonnais.com - http://www.clichy-echecs.org/ - http://www.evry-grandroque.com/ - http://www.vandoeuvre-echecs.com/ - http://marsechecs-top16.blogspot.com/ - http://www.philidor-mulhouse.net/ (who deserve praise for the clarity of presentation, you don't need French to understand where to find anything)

Compiled game files: http://www.echecs.asso.fr/Tournois/2010/Equipes/2.pgn and http://www.echecs.asso.fr/Tournois/2010/Equipes/3.pgn.

5) 3rd Women's Chess Grand Prix Nalchik

The 3rd Women's Chess Grand Prix takes place in Nalchik, Russia, 25th April (arrival) - 8 May (departure) 2010.

Official site: http://nalchik2010.fide.com/

6) 4NCL

The 4NCL took place Sat 24th Oct 2009 - 3rd May 2010. The final rounds took place 1st-3rd May 2010. My thanks to Dave Clayton and Alex Holowczak for their excellent coverage. I will round up the results and final standings next week. You can check the website below before then.

Official site: http://www.4ncl.co.uk/

7) Italian Team Championship

The Italian Team Championship took place April 29th-May 2nd 2010. In the main group (Master) 14 teams competed. The Pesaro team had GM Alexey Shirov. GMs Paco Vallejo, Maceja and Marin plays for Chieti. GMs Hubner, Gyimesi and Godena for Marostica. GM Leon Hoyo for Perugia. Fabiano Caruana leads the Padova team (winner of the title in 2009) with GM Kiril Georgiev.

Obiettivo Risarcimento from Padova won the Italian Team Championship with a round to go. Padova beat Marostica (a draw between Huebner and Caruana on top board) and Chieti beat Pesaro (Shirov beat Vallejo). So after 6 of 7 rounds Padova have 12 points, while Pesaro and Chieti have only 8. The last round will decide the second and third places.

The Italian Team Championship for Women was also settled with a round to go. Cheti (with WGMs Martha Fierro and Olga Zimina) took the title.

Official site: http://www.federscacchi.it/cis2010/

8) 9th Weiz Stadt-Schachmeisterschaft

The 9th Weiz Stadt-Schachmeisterschaft took place 15th-18th April 2010. Sergey Kasparov won with 4.5/5. News: Igor Kragelj.

Results: http://chess-results.com/tnr29345.aspx

9) FIDE Grand Prix Astrakhan

FIDE GP Astrakhan 2010 (Astrakhan RUS) Sun 9th May 2010 - Tue 25th May 2010

Grand Prix (14 players 13 Rds SRR Indiv TC:120m:60m:15m+30spm(61))

The top two in the Grand Prix standings qualify for the next FIDE Candidates cycle 2010-11. Levon Aronian has enough points to secure qualification so decided not to play this event.

Official site: http://astrakhan2010.fide.com/

10) FIDE Rating Lists

Magnus Carlsen remains top of the FIDE rating list for May 2010, this time by just one point. Carlsen didn't play any games in this period whilst Veselin Topalov closed the gap with his good win in Linares. If Topalov beats Anand for the World Title he'll no doubt take the top spot back as well.

The top 7 remain the same, Wang Yue moves from 10 to 8 in the world, Pavel Eljanov and Alexei Shirov displace Boris Gelfand and Peter Svidler.

Baadur Jobava jumps from 40 to 26 in the world, Ian Nepomniachtchi from 78 to 42, Zahar Efimenko jumps straight back into the list at 53 after falling out last time. Anish Giri is in the top 100 for the first time at 97 in the world.

For the first time in a very long time the rating to make the top 100 has fallen, 2643 last time, 2640 this.

Source: http://www.fide.com. The full list is available for download there.

11) Florencio Campomanes 1927-2010

Former FIDE President Florencio Campomanes has died at the age of 83. Campomanes was President of the International Chess Federation FIDE in the period 1982-1995. His period of presidency was a highly controversial one. He suffered injury in two major car crashes. The one in 2007 left him in intensive care. Campomanes was born Manila February 22, 1927 and died of cancer May 3, 2010.

Florencio Campomanes had a degree in Political Science from the University of the Philippines in 1948. Then, he studied at Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island), where he earned his M.A. in 1951. He undertook doctoral studies at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., from 1949-54.

Although not an outstanding player he was of National Master strength a played in five Chess Olympiads: Moscow 1956, Munich 1958, Leipzig 1960, Varna 1962, and Havana 1966.

One thing that can be said about Campomanes is that he did genuinely love chess. Whilst he spent a lot of time campaigning throughout the world maintaining his support base amongst the Federations it can also be said that these visits often "degenerated" into late night blitz chess sessions, which to be clear, I think is a good thing. He also continued to play in chess competitions such as the Malaysian Open until very near the end of his life.

A national delegate for the International Chess Federation FIDE he came to prominence in organising the World Championship match in Baguio, Philippines, in 1978, between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi.

As an official with FIDE he traveled the world making contacts with almost all the Federations. When he came to stand against Fridrik Olafsson in 1982 he won the election and forged a power base amongst the smaller chess nations that still remains.

His first major decisions were defaulting Kasparov in the Candidates before his match against Smyslov. This match was then rearranged. Then one of the moves controversial moments in his career was the calling off of the 1984 World Championship Match between Gary Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov without result after 5 months and 48 games. The match was first to six wins (a typically impractical Bobby Fischer idea) and Karpov in particular looked pretty much dead on his feet. This decision earned the enmity of Gary Kasparov who thought he could win the match. Whilst I'm all for sticking to the rules once a contest starts, his decision was not quite a ridiculous as his critics made out. However his motivation for doing so, health and fairness, or just a wish to help the Soviets and Anatoly Karpov have never been fully established.

With a return to a more sensible 24 games for a world title match he presided over further matches between Kasparov and Karpov in 1985, 1986, 1987 and finally 1990. Kasparov won all of these except the drawn one in 1987. Both players became rich as did FIDE (and indeed prize funds in chess as a whole were very good in that period). However FIDE started spending money profligately and when the economic recession hit in the early 1990s they could not turn this spending back.

Nigel Short expected the prizefund for his 1993 match against Gary Kasparov to be somewhere in the same ball park as that of the Paris 1990 match. This proved impossible and so he and Kasparov decided to split away from FIDE and hold the match themselves, thus taking out FIDE's cut from the equation. Whilst FIDE immediately defaulted them from their system and held a match between Anatoly Karpov and Jan Timman to keep the "official" title in their hands. This split lasted until a reunification match in Elista between Veselin Topalov and Vladimir Kramnik in 2006.

Meanwhile FIDE's finances were in turmoil and in 1995 it became clear that FIDE was bankrupt and that Campomanes had lost the support of the Federations. He didn't give up however and he found a young Russian multi-millionaire, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov who ran his own former Soviet Republic (Kalmykia), to bail the organisation out and he got the support for him to be elected. I believe that FIDE should have been allowed to go bankrupt and the officials should have faced the consequences of their profligacy. Also that was the time for a long needed root and branch reform of the organisation. Campomanes became an honorary life President with a large stipend from Ilyumzhinov.

Campomanes oversaw the expansion of FIDE with membership growing by about 50 nations, and at the high point the richest World Chess Championships to that time when Kasparov played Karpov in 1990. One of his campaign promises was that every country should have a Grandmaster (or at least a titled player) and like many politicians he achieved this by simply moving the goalposts. He reduced the standards required to become a titled player, a process that has continued unabated to this day.

Campaigning for re-election in 1990 Campomanes had his first serious car accident in Uganda in which the President of the Ugandan Chess Federation was killed. He was badly injured and it has been speculated that he was never quite the same after that. In 2007 he had an even more serious car accident which left him in intensive care and which may have contributed to his death. There hasn't been much news about him since then.

In February 2003 the Philippine anti-graft court Sandiganbayan convicted Florencio Campomanes, the former FIDE president, for failure to account for the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) government funds amounting to PhP12.876 million (or US$238,746). This decision was somewhat reversed on appeal with Campomanes escaping major penalty on a technicality.

This is a brief run through of his lengthy career. His contributions and deficiencies may very well be discussed more openly now that he has gone.

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florencio_Campomanes

http://www.fide.com

http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/former-fide-president-campomanes-dies-at-83/

ChessBase Obit

Lengthy and indeed very interesting tribute by Casto Abundo (also a download from the FIDE website ).

12) Bitter fight for Russian Chess Federation Nomination

Anatoly Karpov has stepped up his fight to be nominated by the Russian Chess Federation (RCF) as their candidate in the FIDE Presidential elections in late September early October alongside the Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk.

Just a week ago the Chairman Board of Trustees of the Russian Chess Federation, Arkady Dvorkovich announced that a decision had already been taken and that they would support the current president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. Almost immediately Anatoly Karpov disputed the right of Dvorkovich to make such an announcement.

Karpov claims that Ilyumzhinov is trying to get the Russian nomination by "hook or by crook". and also pretty confident that the letter supporting Ilyumzhinov is not legal. (Press Release 23rd April 2010 on Karpov's campaign site). This same press release raises the possibility that Ilyumzhinov may be ousted as Kalmykian President in October too.

Karpov believed he had been promised (or even has the right) that the formal decision will be taken at a meeting of the RCF Supervisory Board on May 14th where there would be a vote of all 32 members of the Russian Regions. It seems now that this meeting will be the moment we know for certain who will get the nomination.

Karpov has raised the possibility (http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/article/2010/04/23/232292) that the Russian Chess Federation could nominate no-one, or, if the regulations allow (which as a matter of fact they don't) both.

Dresden clarification of the rules: "A Federation is entitled to nominate only one candidate for one position."

FIDE Electoral Regulations

Last week I called Karpov's chances virtually over. This was on the basis that the nomination of the Russian Chess Federation for Ilyumzhinov might actually prevent Karpov standing, or at the very least seriously inconvenience him. At the same time Dvorkovich said that he had concluded that Ilyumzhinov already had the support to win. If instead, the RCF nomination isn't settled, and Dvorkovich is openly partisan in favour of Ilyumzhinov then these conclusions don't stand.

Karpov claims that Ilyumzhinov rushed back to Moscow after the opening ceremony of the FIDE World Championship in Sofia in order to try and help the Russian Federation's "decision" stand. All this reflects just how important this nomination is.

Karpov is apparently to be hauled in front of a FIDE Presidential Council on July 22nd in Norway in order to explain comments that Ilyumzhinov's record in Kalmykia brings a trail of corruption to FIDE. Although quite why they'd want to give him the opportunity to list the huge number of allegations that have appeared in the Russian media is anyone's guess.

FIDE (Federation Internationale des Echecs), or World Chess Federation is the governing body of chess. It is an organisation of 158 national chess federations. The statutes of the organisation reflect this structure. Players represent their national federations in international competition, delegates vote on behalf of their federations and FIDE officials take their office, at least nominally, through their own national federations. At least this is how the statutes have been written. This also is why there is such a disparity between what most individual figures want in chess, and what is actually decided. The only votes that count are those of individual FIDE delegates.

This battle over the RCF nomination is important. FIDE statutes state that a Presidential Candidate shall be nominated by "his Federation". Both Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and Anatoly Karpov are from the Russian Chess Federation, so at first sight only one of them can stand in the forthcoming election. In FIDE politics things are never quite as clear as they seem, especially when it comes to Presidential Elections.

Both Karpov (nomination by Germany on the grounds that he is a member of a German Chess Club) and Ilyumzhinov (nomination by the FIDE Presidential Board) are said to have back-up positions. I think both must know that these plans at least have some prospect of failure. The loser of the battle for the RCF nomination will, at the very least, suffer some inconvenience (and that isn't even considering the idea that neither will be nominated).

The absolutely key FIDE Regulation that has brought about this bitter battle.

"1.2 Nominations for the Presidential ticket and Continental Presidents must reach the FIDE Secretariat at least three months before the opening of the General Assembly. To be elected, each candidate shall be nominated by his federation. He/She should have been a member of their federation at least one year before the General Assembly."

My reading of the statutes concludes that only one of the Candidates will be officially in the race after the Russian nomination is settled. All sorts of things seem to be possible at the FIDE Congress itself, and it may take a vote there to get the second candidate on the ballot.

I only have vague recollections of FIDE shenanigans of the past. I think one way to get on the ballot would be to have a proxy candidate for President, have Karpov or Ilyumzhinov on your ticket as Vice President and then at the FIDE congress go, whoops, we've changed out minds, and we want the real guy as president now. They would be past the nominations stage by then so the bit about being nominated by your national federation would be bypassed. It would only be important to have a ticket to do this with. Of course this is completely against the spirit of the regulations.

FIDE fought hard for membership of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Chess hasn't made it to the Olympic games yet. However IOC membership is often extremely helpful to individual federations, in getting state money for the support of their game. Membership also brought in the use of the "Court of Arbitration for Sport" (CAS) in Lausanne for the resolution of sporting disputes. In the past all sorts of funky things happened on the floor of the FIDE Congress, because who was going to stop them? This court may prevent things that were allowed in the past by providing a way for them to be challenged.

I'm sure we're in for further developments in this bitter public fight, possibly to the (political) death over the Russian nomination and the winner will have a huge advantage. Ironically if Karpov loses this battle now it may be that he gains at least some political capital if it is perceived that the FIDE President is using dirty tricks to kill his campaign at birth.

On April 29th there will be a VIP Chess event in the Marusya bar and restaurant in Moscow. Anatoly Karpov is to give a simultaneous exhibition and Arkady Dvorkovich and Kirsan Ilyumzhinov are invited!

Ilyumzhinov said in a radio interview that the Candidates would likely be in Baku and that Armenian Levon Aronian had agreed to play there. Before I even read this I got a press release from Aronian saying that under no circumstances would he agree to this.

Ilyumzhinov also talked about the regulations for the FIDE elections being unclear opening the way for all sorts of things I imagine, but also opening the possibility for Karpov to enter the elections even if Ilyumzhinov is nominated by the Russian Federation (which he already claims is official and lodged with FIDE's office.

13) Serbian Championships

The Serbian Championships took place in Kragujevac 18th April - 1st May 2010. Nikola Sedlak took first place on tie-break from Boban Bogosavljevic after both scored 9.5/13.

The women's event took place in Pancevo 20th-30th April 2010. Andjelija Stojanovic won with 8.5/11.

Official site: http://www.serbiachess.net/

14) IX Asian Continental Chess Championship

The 9th Asian Continental took place 20-30 April 2010, in Olongapo City, Subic Bay, Philippines. Ni Hua won with 7/9 half a point clear of Wesley So, Abhijeet Gupta, Jianchao Zhou and Le Quang Liem.

Official site: http://www.asia-chess.com

Results: http://chess-results.com/tnr33151.aspx

15) Najdorf Centenary Open

The Najdorf Centenary Open took place in Buenos Aires 7th-28th April 2010. Ernesto Real De Azua won with 8/9. The games section is a bit of a mess with games from rounds 5 and 9 missing.

Official site: http://www.cargentinodeajedrez.com.ar/2010/torneos/Abierto_Najdorf/abierto_najdorf.htm

16) 7th Balagne Open

7th International Open Balagne took place 25th April - 1st May 2010. Azer Mirzoev won the tournament with 7½/9.

Official site: http://balagnachess.free.fr/index.html