Gareev Takes Vegas

The future of professional chess should not be dependent on the selective generosity of a sugar-daddy who has demonstrated a propensity for weirdness and possible corruption thereby turning away potential corporate sponsors. Karpov, no matter what you may think of him, and his team offer the real possibility of attracting corporate sponsorship and an innate understanding of the world of the GM.

@Karpov..and his team offer the real possibility of attracting corporate sponsorship

There is no reason to believe that.

IF there were such opportunities they would have become apparent in the last 10-20 years (i.e. after 1990s and the collapse of the soviet state subsidized system). If Kirsan's authority and lunacy would have stood in the way, these financial opportunities would have led to the emergence of parallel professional organizations (or simply to individual contracts) which would have simply ignored, bypassed FIDE ...IF there were money to make.

>>>There is no reason to believe that.

>>>IF there were such opportunities they would have become apparent in the last 10-20 years...

Yea, Intel and IBM wouldn't touch chess back then.

The Chess organizations should just leave the lunatic in charge.

@yea..the Chess organizations should just leave the lunatic in charge.

I didn't say that, they should remove him (should have done it long time, no later than 1998 and the Larisa Yudina case, they would have saved their-and chess'-reputation ) but they should not try to deceive themselves and others that Kirsan was/is the cause of their money problems, and not talk themsleves into believing that Karpov-Kasparov team is any mircale solution to this problem.

Ovidiu - You are wrong on all counts.

"There is no reason to believe that." That is your opinion.

"IF there were such opportunities they would have become apparent in the last 10-20 years (i.e. after 1990s and the collapse of the soviet state subsidized system)." How do you know this? Perhaps they were apparent and Kirsan failed to avail himself of them? Kasparov seemed to attract plent of attention and sponsors for his events during this timeframe and since.

"If Kirsan's authority and lunacy would have stood in the way, these financial opportunities would have led to the emergence of parallel professional organizations (or simply to individual contracts) which would have simply ignored, bypassed FIDE ...IF there were money to make." Well let's see; there's the ACP, which has hosted events, and again, Kasparov and Karpov managed to generate the biggest story of 2009 with their exhibition match, which attracted plenty of sponsors.

Your arguments don't hold water!
"

@ Karpov is running on the empty "Kirsan is bad - vote for me" platform.

Actually in this case it is good enough (or Kirsan that bad that anyone, except Kim-Yong-Il, would better for FIDE-Pres).

My posts only tried to underline the hypocrisy inmplied in the K-K campaign. Who is Kirsan, how huge deservice it does to the chess image to have this murderer and despot as representative has been known by both, and by the chess elite for a long time. They have had plenty of time to stand up but they didn't until now when it seems that Kirsan has run out of money.

As you well put it in a post, Kirsan is not the cause Kirsan is the consequence of the willingness of the would be "chess professionals" to morally compromise themselves in order to follow the money.

@If Karpov cannot put forth positive ideas, then he is no better than KI.

He can easily avoid the bad ones and that's enough to say that he is better.
FAR MUCH BETTER. For instance you (most people in fact) haven't put fort (and likely you will never do) any great postive ideas in your entire life but at least you (I hope) have abstained to from murder, theft etc.

@Kasparov tried to destroy FIDE before Kirsan ever came into the picture. Should he get a second chance to finish the job?

Yes, I think so, it should have been done already in 1995. Mark Crowther wrote in his obituary to Campomanes (they who brought us Kirsan so as to bail out FIDE)

"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."

I could not agree more, FIDE needs major restructuring, a rebuilt for scratch, and for this it has be dismantled first.
Unfortunately K-K are not the people to do this. You can not reform a system with the people who supported and profited from it and K-K are too tainted by their own dealings with Kirsan.
Back in 2002 --period when Kasparov was kissing up to Kirsan hoping to corner Kramnik to give him a rematch-- Mig was writing : "It's touching to read Shirov biting the hand that has fed him so well over the past few years. After reading his "moral bankruptcy" comments at TWIC, Ilyumzhinov must have wondered how much money he has paid Shirov in the FIDE tournaments."

There are no reasons to believe that K-K team will change anything fundamental, change things as they should cahnge. They can not bring themselves to tell the elite GM's to get a real job and stop prostituting themselves and thus destroy chess respectability in the eyes of the world by associating themselves with bizarre, immoral, etc. but rich "patrons".
To the contrary, they seem now to want to compete with Kirsan in selling "vasiuki-dreams" : FIDE pensions for GMs (or whatever Krapov has recently delirated in an interview). And ( from a note of Mig here) they now look for another Kirsan, a sheik Hassan bin Kirsan with some petro-money to finance chess..perhaps this guy will require that the crosses to be removed from the Kings and Bishops since they are a christian symbol thus chess is unislamic and should be corrected..or he may want some other aberrations, who pays the piper calls the tune.

But there remains a 3-rd possibily : K-K may just play a deception game. They know very well how hoplessly spineless the elite GMs are, it has been shown tover and over again in the last 15 years of Kirsan, thus they may just pretend and tell what they know it is wanted to be heard so as to get the functions, and only then strike.

Uh whatever you may think of Karpov or Kirsan... Karpov is a multi billionaire (somewhere around 10 billion) so yes he has a pile of money.

Karpov has about $10 billion? Is there a source for this information? How the hell did he get $10 billion? I'm just curious.

Not this old rubbish again! Karpov is NOT a billionaire there is no evidence that he is at all wealthy - all this was debated on the dirt some time back. There was an attempted scam involving "potential" gas reserves on a large tract of land karpov's name got ued on one of the front companies. No gas has been produced and no revenue has arisen. :)

@Personally I wouldn't fund FIDE if Kirsan was in charge so its understandable he hasn't given FIDE money.

You must be joking, according to recent post of Mig here Karpov isn't funding his own campaign from his own pocket, let alone invest money in chess (he is not crazy).
In fact (and just like Kasparov) Karpov has history of acting reprehensibly, and kissing up to the Kamykian potentate, so as to promote his interest or to simply make money out of chess.

Mig has watched these two dubious character strutting and fretting upon the sage over the years : Oon Karpov withdrawing from the 3K's event to play in the FIDE 2001 WCC tournament :

His decision to grab some cash under the table from FIDE and ditch the 3K Botvinnik Memorial for the FIDE KO is just the latest jab in a career of back-stabbing and money-grubbing. Come on, Karpov even led the press conference for the 3K tournament a few weeks before jumping ship! Only a pygmy limbo champion could get any lower than this. I'm not saying he's the first unscrupulous, unprincipled weasel to ever appear on the chess scene, nor will he be the last. Kasparov had his opportunistic rapprochement with Campomanes after years of kicking him in the shins. Fischer was principled, but it turned out he holds some rather disgusting principles. Alekhine avoided Capablanca like a congressman avoids opening his mail. But Karpov's latest might just put him in the lead of this dubious race. – Mig Greengard

Again, I'm not talking at all about the man's moral character or fiber or anything. Nor did I say he was using his own money to fund his campaign (candidates rarely do... perfect example American politics where many candidates are worth millions and never spend a penny on their campaigns). It still doesn't change the fact he IS rich.

@It still doesn't change the fact he IS rich.

you got it backward 'caleague', the fact that he is or he isn't rich doesn't add anything to the debate we were having

I am having not having any debate about whether Karpov is or is not good for fide. I was merely correcting an incorrect fact that stated Karpov did not have money. So yes in fact my point is all that matters since all I wanted to do was correct this incorrect fact. Karpov IS rich. End of story. You can continue to have your debate with whoever wishes to participate. But I did not get anything backward. Again, I was correcting someone else who had Karpov's financial situation backwards.

ok lets have all this old nonsense debated again. Why dont you give your evidence that Karpov is rich - or have you abandoned the billionaire fantasy? Put up your evidence so I can refute it (once again)Stop just repeating that he is rich give your links explanations etc so I can refute them like I did before :)

Here's one article suggesting Karpov is very wealthy now:

http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2007/07/billionaire-world-champion.html

The problem is that karpov does not "own" Petromir he is just a name used on some company documents. The idea that some chess dude is a major player in the russian oil and gas interests is hilarious. Here is a extract from one of the real owners of petromir. A "nice" russian chap called Gennadiy Timchenko former KGB agent and pal of Putin a real billionnaire who DOES appear in the FORBES list unlike karpov. There is an analysis of his holdings on russian mafia .com http://rumafia.com/material.php?id=57 which includes the following:

"A) Angara-Lena gas field, its reserves are proved at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas. (By comparison: the annual production of "Gazprom" - 492 billion cubic meters). The field license belongs to OOO “Petromir”, 50% through offshore company owned by Stroitransgaz; Participation."

Other nice chaps associated with Petromir are Vladamir Potanin and Mikhael Mirilashvili. You can read about them in russian mafia.com also. :)

@a change at the top of the FIDE administration is welcome.

Yes, but will it be a substantial change or a cosmetic change ? A.Karpov --the "pygmy limbo chapmion" with a long career of back-stabbing and money-grubbing-- and his opportunistic, moody and unprincipled ally G.Kasparov, are not exactly the characters from who to expect a genuine reform of FIDE.
Nothing essential will change whatever will be result of the election. Maybe the only real gain from a Karpov-victory will be less mockery of "chessplayers and their bizarre kalmykian patron" by the international media.

Kirsan has for sure achieved positive things during his presidency. I am not in the position to quantify exactly how big his achievements are. (Neither do the many bloggers which I have read, positive or negative. As usual it’s a mess of emotions and approximation). Some see his glass as half full, some as half empty.

Karpov as FIDE president, we can only evaluate after he has done the job, of course. He is neither a saint nor a wizard, but with a competent staff (including GM Nigel Short, among others) I feel content that their output will be at least on the same level as the Kirsan administration.

I think it’s time for a change. If Karpov doesn’t succeed this time, with all his effort and helpers, then I cannot image anybody else will succeed either. Which means we are stuck with Kirsan as lifetime FIDE president. Juan Antonio Samaranch was president of the Olympic committee for 21 years, until he resigned at age of 81.

Kirsan is 48 years now, and has been FIDE president for 15 years. Enough is enough.

Besides I don’t like his “your Excellency, Sir” image. It’s too pompous, and doesn’t belong in an organization like the FIDE. It seems to me, that he is more comfortable travelling to third world countries and dealing with local small emperors. Karpov can probably do the same, but additionally he seems to have a better standing in countries like USA, England and Germany. I would like to see chess regain its status in countries like these as well.

some of the western-african countries are quite strong at 10X10 international draughts(a type of checkers), they have a number of professional IMs and GMs who play in Europe

"Some of the western-african countries are quite strong at 10X10 international draughts(a type of checkers)"

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Excellent idea, Ovidiu!

If he lose the FIDE election, Kirsan should switch game. He allready have the support of leading Checkers countries, so he can just continue as before, more or less. After all "chess is just a hobby" for him, according to an interview. KIRSAN IS THE NAME, CHECKERS IS THE GAME! http://www.wmsg-draughts.org/?page_id=58

Booby, I do not understand this neverending animus against His Excellency, why this ? are you a relative of Larisa Yudina or what ? it is not that he killed one of your relatives or that he failed to get Kramnik to give you a rematch.

Yes. I am the ghost of Larisa Yudina, the ghost of FIDE failings the last 15 years and all other misdoings which trouble Kirsans mind like extra terrestrial creatures in his sleep. I will haunt him until he withdraws to a remote Buddhism temple far, far away on the highest mountain of Kalmykia. With nothing but a game of Checker to play, he will have plenty of time for remorse and a spiritual peaceful life.