I've been hoping more information would come out about this, but I admit failure. 10 days ago Reuters reported that Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the president of the Russian republic of Kalmykia and also the president of FIDE, visited Baghdad, Iraq the...
March 2003 Archives
I'm not going to provide daily updates on this, but I don't see any other sources talking about what could be a large issue soon enough. (DD 69, 70, 72) My main concern is becoming to keep everyone talking amicably...
Hardly breaking news, but now we can put up some links to the various obituaries that have come out on the German-based Czech Grandmaster. He reached many more people through his prodigious writings than with his tournament successes. Perhaps his...
It looks like the USCF has put its new rules in opposition to those of FIDE, the international chess federation. According to the FIDE handbook here (scroll down to 2.2 and 3.2), non-citizens need reside for at least three years...
A follow-up on Kasparov's beauty prize tantrum at the Linares closing ceremony (DD 64). According to one of the subjects of Kasparov's wrath, Australian GM Ian Rogers, it was more violent than as presented in initial reports. His Sun-Herald...
More on what will likely be an ongoing story for a while, the reduction to one year of the three-year residency requirement to play in the US Championship and the US Olympiad teams. Since they are somewhat related I'll bundle...
America's Foundation for Chess (AF4C), which runs the US championship, is planning many more big changes for next year. First they changed the event to a large Swiss system and had the women play together with the men, both positive...
I spoke with Garry Kasparov on Tuesday, although much of the conversation was about Iraq. (He's pro regime change, as his upcoming article in the Wall St. Journal makes clear.) (Much more from Kasparov will be included in the...
From the front lines of the Elo wars comes the news that 2003 US Women's champion Anna Hahn is unlikely to make the Olympiad team because of her rating isn't high enough. Even 2002 champion Jennifer Shahade, whose rating is...
It's never too early to take a shot at the "advanced chess" tournament in Leon, Spain. It runs June 5-8. The problem is that this year the Leon event isn't going to be advanced chess. Instead of having Grandmasters play...
Fresh from his Linares victory, Peter Leko gave a brief interview to the Indian website Chathurangam. Vijay Kumar made the slip of calling Leko's match against Kramnik, "a candidates match," in direct violation of the law that says everyone must...
US GM Maurice Ashley has posted at TWIC a long and interesting argument in favor of regulating draw offers. This has been a hobby-horse of mine as well over the years, although I have been more in favor of...
Every year at the end of the Linares supertournament, a prize is given for the most beautiful game. It is voted on by the attending journalists and awarded at the closing ceremony. This year it was given to Teimour Radjabov...
Now that Leko and Kramnik have tied for first place in Linares, maybe it will be easier to get their classical world championship match put together. The latest rumors are that they are sticking with Einstein and hope to have...
Following up the freeze of Kasparov's new project, worldchessrating.com, there is no big news. People haven't been paid since the beginning of the year and they had warned that they would stop work on March 1 unless paid. They will...
I sure hope the second cycle of the world championship goes forward at the end of the year because we sure have a lot of players for it already! As you'll read here in my favorite paper and yours, the...
Fide.com has the official communique from the FIDE Presidential Board Meeting that just concluded in Bucharest, Romania. Mostly it's non-information with lots of "ongoing" this and "reaffirmed the commitment" that with a few "subject to the availabilities" tossed in. They...
Toward the bottom of the FIDE communique is this paragraph: "The Board noted that while FIDE was holding discussions with the WorldChessRating Company on an integrated rating program, it directed that the current rapid rating system be reviewed under the...
