Euro Ch Hijinks

I'm pretty sure your guess for why there was only 29 spots is incorrect, since I saw the reduced number being mentioned on several sites many days before the tournament was over.

Let's look at the maths: According to the FIDE regulations there are 46 World Cup qualifiers from Europe. According to TWIC 598, 16 were determined in the 2006 European championship (including Naiditsch, Georgiev and Gurevich, who thus didn't have to play the tie-breaks this year). Apparently Zhigalko was also exempted from the tie-breaks, possibly as the European junior champion. Now with 16 qualifiers from 2006, 29 from 2007 and 1 from the juniors that would make perfect sense. Then where did the number of 33 come from? Has FIDE announced to increase the number of European qualifiers from 46 to 50 and then reversed that decision? If there are indeed 50 European qualifiers, how are the 4 remaining spots going to be filled? Or has someone gotten the math wrong and wasn't able to calculate 29+16+1=46?

I am confused...was the decision announced to cut number of qualifying spots while the tournament was ongoing? If so, how could they have known how many guys who already qualified would finish in top 33? If it was announced after the tournament was over, how could Khalifman have dropped out?

Apparently Khalifman dropped out when he found out about the reduced number of qualifying spots after the regular part of the tournament, but before the tie-break. But my guess is that there was never a decision to cut the number, that it was always supposed to be 29 and was only mistakenly announced as 33 on the official website. 29 is certainly in line with the published FIDE regulations. In any case it doesn't seem connected with the number of players who were already qualified, it just looks like a coincidence that there were also 4 of them.

That makes sense, littlefish. Perhaps Rule #1 then should be to announce rules and regulations of the tournament correctly and consistently beforehand.

Mig,

I agree with Zakki - the official pages said (in german) a couple of days before the last round that there were 29 qualification spots (instead of 33).

Like "Rank Zero" posted earlier, 7 places went to the 8 point finishers (29-7=22 places left), the next 10 places went to those with best tie-break scores (median BH, BH, wins, progressive) and the remaing 24 players played tie-break matches for the 12 remaining places. But wait - there weren't 34 players at 7,5 points, but 37...

Enter Euro Champs 2006:

1 GM Kozul Zdenko CRO 2606 8,5
2 GM Ivanchuk Vassily UKR 2731 8,0
3 GM Georgiev Kiril BUL 2677 7,5 (3)
4 GM Naiditsch Arkadij GER 2664 7,5 (4)
5 GM Izoria Zviad GEO 2647 7,5 (5)
6 GM Inarkiev Ernesto RUS 2602 7,5 (6)
7 GM Nikolic Predrag BIH 2596 7,5 (7)
8 GM Belov Vladimir RUS 2599 7,5 (8)
9 GM Macieja Bartlomiej POL 2584 7,5 (9)
10 GM Baramidze David GER 2545 7,5 (10)
11 GM Jobava Baadur GEO 2646 7,0
12 GM Miroshnichenko Evgenij UKR 2608 7,0
13 GM Mamedov Rauf AZE 2538 7,0
14 GM Nijboer Friso NED 2584 7,0
15 GM Fressinet Laurent FRA 2633 7,0
16 GM Palac Mladen CRO 2561 7,0
17 GM Balogh Csaba HUN 2576 7,0
18 IM Czarnota Pawel POL 2529 7,0
19 GM Gurevich Mikhail TUR 2643 7,0
20 GM Socko Bartosz POL 2606 7,0
21 GM Berg Emanuel SWE 2539 7,0
22 GM Sakaev Konstantin RUS 2637 7,0
23 GM Gagunashvili Merab GEO 2560 7,0
24 GM Zelcic Robert CRO 2525 7,0

The numbers in parantheses indicate placement after tie-beak matches for the podium - or bronze medal, actually (just like number 1-7 was for the podium this year).

The Euro 2006 also served as qualification for this year's WCC, see http://www.eurochess.org/content/view/47/46/

"16 Men and 12 women will be qualified for the next chain of World Cup."

[Complete regulations here: http://www.tsf.org.tr/images/stories/2005_2006/kusadasi/individualregulament_2006_men.doc]

There were 14 players finishing with 7 points, of which supposedly 6 should qualify to the WCC. However, the home page of the tournament is gone, the WaybackMachine only had incomplete results, and I haven't found the results of the tie-breaks of 2006 for the WCC anywhere else. However, my search _did_ establish that Gurevich qualified from Euro 2006.

The 2006 tie-break results were supposed to be found here: http://euro2006.tsf.org.tr/en/tiebreak_files/sheet001.htm

I used the WaybackMachine and found them here: http://web.archive.org/web/20060426130514/euro2006.tsf.org.tr/en/tiebreak.htm

And so the following qualified from Euro 2006:
* Finishers 1-10 above
* Gagunashvili by beating Sakaev and Jobava by 1,5-0,5
* Gurevich by beating Nijboer 1,5-0,5
* Fressinet by beating Czarnota 1,5-0,5
* Balogh by beating Palac 1,5-0,5
* Berg OR Miroshnichenko 1-1, no further results, Berg initially beat Zelzic 3-1
* Mamedov OR Socko 1-1, no further results

From the general rules for the WCC from FIDE, we have that Europe has 46 places from continental qualifiers (see http://www.fide.com/official/handbook.asp?level=DD103). However, this was based on 128 places in the WCC. According to the latest ideas of Kirsan, this has been shrunk to 126 places (see http://www.fide.com/news.asp?id=1277) and I guess Europe has had to yield one of its places, bringing the total down to 45 places.

The initial 33 qualifying spots, added to the previous 16 already given out, would give 49 places, which Europe at no point has had the right to (so, ECU were wrong in their initial invitation). Alas, the number had to go down, at least to 30 for the Euro 2007, but given my assumption above, Europe somehow only had 45 places instead of 46, and voila: we've got the number 29. 29+16 = 45 continental qualifiers.

So, 44 - 7 players on 8 points = 37 - Gurevich - Naiditsch = 35, but there were only 34 non-prequalified players at 7,5 points, and who else of those placed number 18-44 did NOT play tie-break matches? The answer is Sergei Zhigalko - who also apparently is pre-qualified to the WCC 2007. Zhigalko is in because ... (I eventually realized) ... he won BU18 in the 2006 European Youth Championship!

So, the only thing remaining now about continental qualifiers from Europe, is who qualified of Berg/Miroshnichenko and Mamedov/Socko. The rest of the regulations of WCC 2007 is nowhere to be seen, though. What happens to the remaining candidates (Malakhov and Gurevich have qualified)? What happens to the "unsuccessful" Mexico contestants? It's anybody's guess, really...

I just posted a rather complete explanation, which was held for approval for some reason. Anyway, scroll to the bottom of this page on chessgames.com (http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=56750&reply=411) and read the two posts by TheGladiator there.

In short:

16 qualifiers from Euro 2006 (including Naiditsch and Gurevich)
29 qualifierse from Euro 2007
1 qualifier from 2006 European Youth Championship's BU18 (Sergei Zhigalko)

So, the initial 33 from the ECU was wrong, as they'd alrady given out 16+1 qualification spots. Therefore the trio of Naiditsch, Gurevich and Zhigalko didn't have to play tie-break matches, but all 37 players with 7,5 points were initially considered.

And Zakki's right, the official site said 29 qualifiers (in the german version) a couple of days before the final round.

littlefish:

A few things,

1) Khalifman was paired in the tie-break matches, but didn't play as he was protesting against the reduction from 33 to 29 places

2) Georgiev wasn't at 7,5 points and was never considered for playing tie-breaks here.

3) The number of 33 has been there all the time in the official regulations posted at the pages of the ECU (www.eurochess.org)

4) You wrote: "29 is certainly in line with the published FIDE regulations." Which FIDE regulations are you thinking of? Are there any for the WCC 2007, or were you just thinking of 29+1+16 becoming 46, like we both (obviously) have pointed out above?

There are too many Georgievs... ;)

Correction:

Vladimir Georgiev finished at 7,5 points but lost his qualification match against Bartosz Socko (3-1, see all results here: http://chess-results.com/Download/tiebreaks_Dresden.xls)

Kiril Georgiev finished at 7 points and so wasn't considered for tie-break matches in 2006, but he qualified from Euro 2006 by placing number 3 then.

And the link parsing thingy wasn't smart enough, try instead this:

http://chess-results.com/Download/tiebreaks_Dresden.xls

and the above should read (s/2006/2007/) like this:
"Kiril Georgiev finished at 7 points and so wasn't considered for tie-break matches in 2007" - that is, in 2007 :)

"In any case it doesn't seem connected with the number of players who were already qualified, it just looks like a coincidence that there were also 4 of them."

Well, I guess it's just an even bigger coincidence, since there actually were only 3 pre-qualified players among the 37 players in position 8-44... :) [When the Georgievs are counted correctly.]

Anyway: the official inviatation from the ECU had the number 33 in it - and actually still has, see

http://www.eurochess.org/component/option,com_docman/task,doc_download/gid,3/Itemid,70/

which is linked from

http://www.eurochess.org/content/blogcategory/48/117/

Any one seen the Khalifman draw where El-Khalif (i believe in round 6)just blunders first a Knight and they draw in four (awful) moves more? Is it a mistake by the relayer?

The organizers ought to have structured the
tie-breaks so as to generated 4 alternate qualifiers, so that they could be readily "plugged-in" by FIDE, in the likely event that FIDE changed its mind, or that some of the duly Qualified players opt not to compete.

Gladiator, the only published FIDE WCh regulations I can find are those at http://www.fide.com/official/handbook.asp?level=DD103 , which say there are 46 European qualifers. Those may not be up to date since they still mention the 2005 World Cup, but I can't see a newer version, so I would assume the number of qualifying spots has not been changed for the current cycle. There are only two possible scenarios I can think of: 1.The ECU has mistakenly announced the number of qialifers from the Euro 2007 as 33, or 2.FIDE has considered increasing the number of European qualifers from 46 to 50, but then reversed that decision (but in that case it's strange there's no information about such changes available).

And yes, you're right about the Georgievs. So there were in fact only 3 pre-qualified players. Btw, has the rule that the European junior champion is qualifed for the World Cup been published anywhere? I'm just guessing it must be a rule since Zhigalko didn't play the tie-breaks.

Official hotels, the same old ripping-off story, changing of rules in FIDE. I am about to give up chess soon. I really, really want a fresh start outside off FIDE and the euro-corruptionists. How can we do it?

Despaired - I really, really want a fresh start outside off FIDE and the euro-corruptionists. How can we do it?

Get the USCF to take a lead ?! Get Sam Sloan to lead a task force to clean up chess...

I went to the Torino Olympiad. First thing you would realize there is that we have Ilumzhinov for years, the man is like a money fountain for thos who count (or vote if you get the idea)

I think El-Khalif is wrong and FIDE is right (at least once). It would have been dangerous to have allowed the guys who already qualified to play in the tie-breaks. Since they have nothing to lose, they can potentially ensure spots for a friend / money etc. by tanking.

Now if only FIDE can do something about Kramnik's incentives in Mexico ...

More than four links in one post sets off the moderation anti-spam filter.

I cannot understand how everything is blamed to Kirsan.. Ok the european championship is organised by the European Chess Association, that is controlled by pro-Bessel people (and ACP). You can accuse (or applause) Kirsan for the organizations in Elista (or in Greece), but not for this.. He is not the sourse of all problems.

Before we assign blame we should first establish what really happened. Did FIDE change the number of qualifying spots, or did the ECU just make an erroneous announcement?

"Despaired - I really, really want a fresh start outside off FIDE and the euro-corruptionists. How can we do it?

Get the USCF to take a lead ?! Get Sam Sloan to lead a task force to clean up chess..."

Hmmm....Sam Sloan's leadership vs. Kirsan's money: I wonder which would win the battle for influence there.

There are only two real scenarios where a change of leadership takes place. 1) Kirsan's patrons in Moscow lose power (or find a better toady) OR
2) Somebody with real money is willing to outspend Kirsan to wrest control of FIDE.

Of course, if a George Soros type were to suddenly have the idea to reform chess, he'd probablyh start from the ground up, by creating a new World Chess Federation, to rival FIDE.

The USCF bureaucrats are plenty corrupt when it comes to FIDE. Time after time, we have seen the USCF delegates to FIDE make unsavory alliances and craven compromises. The weird thing is how they are willing to do this, without having any real benefits redound to them. Sure, they get Kirsan's gift bags, and they get to stay in 5 Star Hotels, but one must imagine that the price of a Euro-Delegate is much higher.

From GM van den Doel:

"Lunch and dinner in the hotel were extremely poor. Both in terms of quality and quantity. Our complaints to the waiters did not have any effect. After some seven days I spoke to the cook. He told me he couldn’t change the situation since he had been ordered to prepare meals for the players for value of five euros. And indeed five euros average seems like a good indication for what we got, although it could also have been less.

Now it was time for some calculation. We paid 98 Euros. The normal rate for a single room including breakfast (Which could, for example, be found on a billboard next to the entrance) is 70,50 euros. 98-70,50 = 27,50 euros left for lunch and dinner. Lunch and dinner together had a value of ten euros so 27,50 -10= 17,50 euros per person per day disappeared! That is 245 euros per person for the whole stay."

Snap! It looks like a new concept in European hospitality: "Continental" Lunch and Dinner to go along with the Continental Breakfast.

American travelers get shafted like this all the time, when they tour in Europe.

It's good to complain, just to let the bureaucrats know that they are being watched. Otherwise, the skimming operation would be even more brazen.

So, perhaps Dresden still is more Eastern European culturally, than it is German. The whole event seemed to lack the German efficiency which we have come to take for granted.

Well I'm more than glad this event has finished. Working on Monday to get the results out was a real trial. Lets hope they learned some lessons for the Olympiad.

Anyhow Holger Lieske sent me a file of playoff games such as they were. They weren't necessarily in the order they were played in the file but I matched the colours of the games against the colours on the results sheet. Which means I may have confused some rapid and blitz games but I'm hopeful that will only be a very small number. I noticed at least one error at the end of a game, not sure how many bad games there are.

Oh dear, seems I was the only one who had these games...I was going to delete them. It does not surprise that much that you couldn't find anything on the official site.
A few words to the Dresden event: they have a huge potential to improve for 2008.

Don't blame Kok for the Dresden crew. The Torino olympiad and Palma Olympiad organizations were not great either. The responsibility lives with the National Federation. As everyone knows, the reason Kirsan wins is because of poor countries. They have nothing, so Kirsan promised them a little bit of concrete stuff and they got it. Obviously, there was some corruption as well, but in desperation one can understand the decision of these poor countries. The other side made grand and vague promises, but that seemed(and probably was) unrealistic. The only way to win is to have a much smarter strategy with these countries--- to really convince these countries that the status of chess in their countries can be much bigger than the status quo, which I guess euro-centric Kok failed to do. Note that most European countries will already be voting for whatever is not Kirsan. The key is to focus on the rest of the world.

Yes basically Bessel did not bribe the poor countries representatives, i was at Torino, the rumour was that these guys took photos of the voting note with their mobile phones before voting and they sent them to... well, you don't need to be very smart to know the message destinatary. Now i am not saying this was happening with every representative but corruption is present for sure. Also The right move had one stand next to the playing hall, Kirsan's party had like three with computers avalaible for everybody that wanted to surf the net for free, the right move never stood a chance, it was a nice dream though.

>>> "Official hotels, the same old ripping-off story, changing of rules in FIDE. I am about to give up chess soon. I really, really want a fresh start outside off FIDE and the euro-corruptionists. How can we do it?
Despaired at April 18, 2007 10:20"

Always makes me smile.
FIDE has been in this mess ever since Campomanes took over.
Look up how long ago that was.
Just like nobody has ever learned anything from any world war, history will repeat itself ad infinitum, it's a human condition, apparently.

There also seems to be some confusion about the number of qualifiers for the women's WCh. It was announced as 13, but Foisor and Lomineishvili played a tie-break match for 18th place, so there must be 18 qualifiers. What's that all about? According to the FIDE regulations there are 28 European qualifers, 12 of which were selected in the Euro 2006. That doesn't add up with either 13 or 18 from the Euro 2007. It would be nice to get a comment from ECU and/or FIDE to clarify the regulations.

"Always makes me smile.
FIDE has been in this mess ever since Campomanes took over.
Look up how long ago that was.
Just like nobody has ever learned anything from any world war, history will repeat itself ad infinitum, it's a human condition, apparently."

It is like attempts to reform the United Nations, although FIDE leadership is far more corrupt than even UN leadership (obviously, the UN squanders far more money, but....)

It might be a good idea to emulate the UN in one regard: give 5 or so National Chess Federations a strong Veto Power, in much the same way that the original Allies (The USA, USSR, UK, France, and China) were given special regard. The "Chess superpowers" might be Russia, China, India, Germany, the Ukraine and maybe one or two others from Western Europe.

Of course, the tiny countries will probably never go along with that, so the only practical solution is not to join FIDE, but to beat it:

The Western Countries ought to create a Euro-American dominated "World Chess Federation", and only have a limited membership, with obvious invitations to India and China to join, as well as places like Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. The entire continent of Africa can be given just one vote (as would be the case for the continent of Australia)

Yeah, once Campo took over, there was no turning back.

I'm a little confused about Khalifman protest, if it is true. He could thank one million times FIDE and Kirsan for their arbitrary, making FIDE WC title much more accessible, and for the $500,000 he pocketed after winning the title (some of which may well be some of Kirsan's personnal money). And now he would be protesting by shooting himself in the shout?

Having been in Vegas for that same FIDE KO (along with some of the others) I fail to see how El Khalif is in debt to FIDE or Kirsan for his accomplishment. It's not like Kirsan awarded him the title - it was won fair and square. Any chessplayer would have nothing but deep appreciation for Alexander's performance in Las Vegas 1999.
It's sad to read comments such as one above. A vicious attack on a great player and my personal friend for over 20 years.

Yermo, I think the idea is not that Khalifman is debt to FIDE or Kirsan for his win in Vegas - it is the fact that FIDE claimed that Khalifman's performance has won him a chess championship of the world. There is definitely a distinction between the two. One can be in awe of Khalifman's great skill in general and of his performance in Las Vegas in particular, and yet one can hate the fact that that very performance is made out to be the world championship title. I think Khalifman is great but the fact that FIDE claimed he became the world champion in Las Vegas is absolutely ridiculous. I don't think that such a view is an attack on Khalifman at all, it is just exercising common sense. So Khalifman is definitely not in debt to FIDE or Kirsan for his accomplishment. Khalifman won Las Vegas 1999 fair and square and noone questions that. But a case can be made that Khalifman is in debt to FIDE for the fact that they dod bestow on him the title of the world champion for something that was not worthy of being called the world championship.

Also, wasn't there a bit of a scandal after Las Vegas 1999, when some of the prize money was not promptly doled out by FIDE (Kirsan), and some checks to the money winners were even rumored to have bounced. Was Khalifman among those who had difficulties in collecting his prize, or who had to wait for a substantial period of time to get paid?

Whether or not Khalifman ought to have been grateful to FIDE/Kirsan is moot; Even if the FIDE title was a bit of a windfall for him, realistically, he could only win the lottery once, and he held the title for just one year. It is not logical to expect Khalifman to be eternally grateful for a benefit that was of limited duration, and hence, value.

Finally, he might have sat out in order to protest the ineptitude of the European Chess Federation, not out of pique at FIDE.

I think that it is wrong for the organizers to have given a pass to those who finished with the Top 10 tiebreaks, amongst those who scored 7.5 points. It would have been more logical and consistant to simply use the tie-break standings to determine all 22 of the Qualifiers from the 7.5 scoregroup, OR to have ALL of the 34 players (those who had not already earned spots) at 7.5 fight it out with Tie-break games.

According to the standings, based on Tie-breaks, Khalifman finished in 26th Place. That means that he would have been the 19th Qualifier from the 7.5 scoregroup(out of 22), had a straight Tie-break system been used.

Clearly, giving a pass to the Top Ten "7.5"s was an ad hoc solution which is inelegant at best. It was implemented merely for the convenience of the organizers, by making the Tie-break match sequence much simpler. The "hybrid system" was not announced in advance, and to my knowledge, nothing similar had been employed in the past.

True, relying on Tie-break formulae can seem arbitrary (especially to those who lose out), but at least there is the virtue that the criteria are spelled out in advance. Somebody with poor Tie-breaks can still "Go for broke", knowing that the chances are that they will need a win to advance. Perhaps Khalifman was relying on his decent standing amongst the players in the 7.0 point group (as of after Round # 10) when he opted to take a draw against GM Landa in the final round?

I wrote an e-mail to the ECU on this issue and got the reply that details on world championship qualification will shortly be published on the ECU homepage. Whatever that means.

That there seemed to be more qualifying places at the women's tournament might be because some of the players at top positions qualified already last year. Then their places of this year go to the next one.

The format, giving some players a spot in the World Cup immediately, and letting other ones play, is probably in the rules. There seems to be system in the madness: at the men, there were 12 players to many. So they let 24 players play for 12 spots, the rest goes through immediately. Then the number of players is reduced with 12.

At the women, there was 1 player to many. So they let the last 2 play for one spot, and the rest qualifies immediately.

http://www.rochadekuppenheim.de/heco/chess0306.html at June 16 2003 tells the story of the European Championship of 2003. There were 2 players more than qualifying spots, so those 4 with the lowest Buchholz had to play to eliminate 2 players. They refused to do so, because they felt all players with the same number of points should be involved in these play-offs.

So I guess it is in the rules. Fair? No. But how to let, e.g., 34 players play for 24 players? In a fair tournament, reasonable amount of thinking time, not lasting more than a few hours?

There seem to be a lot of messing around with qulification rules on the part of organizers. Making the rules confusing or unfair is bad enough, but changing them after the cards have been dealt is outrage.
One latest example. There's a US Women's Championship scheduled for July this year. Three top finishers are supposed to go through to a World Championship. However, the USCF is considering giving two of those three spots to the players who aren't going to participate in the 2007 US Ch. According to their plan, Anna Zatonskih and Rusudan Goletiani will go thru directly, based on on their 1-2 finish in the 2006 US Championship in San Diego. Nothing about World Ch. qualification was announced at that time.
Why the spots should be awarded retroactively? The reason given by US Zonal President IM John Donaldson is very noble: the two ladies in question have/will become mothers and are unable to participate in the 2007 event.
Before you guys unload on me for being sexist, I'll mention that my wife (WGM Camilla Baginskaite) and I have two kids, and that Camilla had skipped her turns when she was unable to play.
It's inconceivable for a woman to ask for preferential treatment at the expense of other women because of childbirth/mother's duties. Unless, or course, her name is Polgar, who had the nerve to demand money from FIDE back in 1996 for that same reason.
I have no reason to believe that Anna and Rusa would do such a thing. Likely, it's a a rear-end covering action from the USCF.
I'd like to go on the record saying that if any of the three legitimate spots are given to anybody who isn't participating in the 2007 US WOmen's Championship, my next action will be to call Kirsan and complain.

Oops, I forgot that some of the top finishers in the women's section were already qualified from last year. But there seem to be only 2 of them, Stefanova and Atalik. That still means that 16 instead of the announced 13 qualifiers for the women's WCh were determined. Of course 16 from 2007 plus 12 from 2006 would be in line with the FIDE regulations.

Btw, the tie-break format looks correct following the ECU regulations at http://www.eurochess.org/content/view/37/42/1/4/ .

In Zsuzsa Polgar's defense, I believe that FIDE had unilaterally and indefinately postponed the originally announced dates of the Womans' Championship Title Match. Polgar then got pregnant, and FIDE ended up insisting on rescheduling the Championship match during the last months of Polgar's pregnancy. Even FIDE ought to be aware that of the basic facts of life regarding childbirth. Of course, there was no compelling reason articulated by FIDE as to why the rescheduled match HAD to take place during Polgar's pregnancy.
At any rate, the International Court of Arbitration seemed to agree with the merits of Polgar's case, since they did award her some money (albeit a rather symbolic amount) for damages.

FIDE really needs to get their act together, and be held accountable for getting all of the funding and organization together for hosting official events WHEN and WHERE they originally commit to.

Well, I can see the logic of the organizers: the players with 7.5 which have the best tiebreaks demonstrated some superior performance (for instance, the top 10, have all >= 2695 perfs), whereas for the middle of pack of the 7.5 is not so clear. Compare their tiebreaks with for instance whose of Ftacnik Lubomir, 7.0 points, eliminated.

To me, it seems hard to argue that the player with 57.5 score on Median-Buchholz has convincingly demonstrated a superior performance compared to one with 57.0 - so actually tie-breaks with chess games would be logical.

I would be all in favor to have tiebreaks games with everyone, however if you look closely: Volokitin has the highest score for tie-breaks of all players, except for rating (3rd rating performance of the tournament). I don't think it would be fair to make him lose his spot.

At the end, the system makes sense: you qualify 1) if you scored well 2) if you scored just at the limit, but on arguably stronger opposition 3) you beat other tied fellows, on the board, in tie-break chess games.

I understand that deciding this, in an arbitrary way, will upset some players. But on the bright side, for every player on the losing end, there is another player who earned a spot. [except for those disappeared ~4 spots]

Here is a very interesting letter titled "Current issues and future of professional chess and impressions about European Championship in Dresden 2007" by GM Oleg Korneev:

http://www.ajedreznd.com/2007/korneev.htm

Unfortunately, it is written in spanish and I don't know if there is an english version somewhere. I think a translation would be worthwhile, but (as should be obvious by now) I don't have the skills to do it.

German translation by IM Georgios Souleidis http://entwicklungsvorsprung.de/?p=157

Some time ago, I needed to buy a car for my firm but I didn't earn enough cash and could not buy anything. Thank goodness my friend suggested to try to get the loan from trustworthy creditors. Hence, I did so and used to be happy with my auto loan.