• Batumi Chess Olympiad 2018 Round Four Press Report

    From samsloan@21:1/5 to All on Thu Sep 27 12:21:10 2018
    Batumi Chess Olympiad 2018 Round Four Press Report
    A sensational result was achieved today when the USA defeated India on Board One, with the USA board one Fabiano Caruana defeating former World Champion Vishy Anand.
    India had thought they had a good chance to win the Olympiad for the first time ever with Anand coming back to play for the first time in a decade, but with this loss it will be difficult for India to catch up.
    The other three games were drawn with So drawing Harikrishna, Nakamura drawing Videt and Shankland drawing Sasikaran, so the USA won 2.5 – 1.5
    All four games were exciting nail-biters, with the results in doubt until the end.
    Poland defeated Russia 2.5 – 1.5 with Kramnik who hardly ever loses a game of chess losing to Tomczak of Poland.
    It is noteworthy that we have a Hollywood Movie Star playing in these Olympiads so we watched as The Queen of Katwe with Phiona Mutesi playing board one for the Uganda women's team drawing a match with the Irish women's team rated two hundred points
    higher.
    If you want to see some really weak moves, you need go no further than Playing Hall No. 2 where I saw a player making illegal moves and an arbiter explaining patiently why those moves were not allowed.
    The Reserve player of the US Woman's team has lost two games to players rated hundreds of points lower than her.
    Every player has the right to have a bad tournament but we have the right to ask how she got on the team.
    The USA is blessed with a child prodigy Carissa Yip aged 13 who is rated 2410 and has achieved several International Master norms. She is rated 20 points higher by the USCF and three points higher by FIDE than the reserve player who is on the US team.
    Why wasn't Carissa Yip sent?
    Another player who should have been considered is Annie Wang aged 15 who tied for first in the US Woman's Championship, finishing ahead of all five players on the current US Woman's Team.
    These players may not be on the team for long. We also have moving up quickly Rochelle Wu aged 12 rated 2245 and Rachael Li aged 8 !!!! who just went over 2000.
    Yesterday I reported that Mohd Al-Mudahka and Zhu Chen husband and wife grandmasters of Qatar are not here. I was mistaken. They are both here but they are apparently spending their campaigning in support of Arkady Dvorkovich of Russia who is running for
    FIDE President.
    Without Mohd Al-Mudahka and Zhu Chen playing on the Qatar Team, Qatar has one of the weakest teams in the Olympiad and are down on the bottom boards, but if they had played Qatar would be one of the strongest teams.
    Zhu Chen is a former Woman's World Champion. She is one of the few women strong enough to play on the “men's team” for her country.
    My thanks to Ian Wilkinson of Jamaica for pointing out this error.
    I suspect that the decision by Qatar to back the Russian Candidate for FIDE Election has more to do with World Politics rather than with chess politics. Qatar is now being boycotted by other Arab Countries but is supported by Russia. The USA supports
    Saudi Arabia.
    FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov cannot run for FIDE re-election because he has been placed on the sanctioned list by the USA State Department. The State Department says that because Kirsan met with Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Gaddafi of Libya and Bashar al-
    Assad of Syria, he has violated UN Sanctions and as long as Kirsan remains President of FIDE then FIDE itself is an outlaw organization.
    Kirsan was not allowed to attend the World Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Karjakin in New York because of being on the Sanctioned list.
    FIDE's bank account has been frozen because of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov being president of FIDE and being on the sanctioned list.
    Kirsan will say that he was obliged as part of his duties as President of FIDE to meet with Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Gaddafi of Libya and Bashar al-Assad of Syria because those countries are members of FIDE and as President of FIDE he is required to meet
    with their leaders.
    I disagree with the US State Department but I have no say in this.
    If you do not like it, go tell the boss, Mr. Trump.
    Arkady Dvorkovich who is running for FIDE President is a Russian public servant and economist, who was Deputy Prime Minister in Dmitry Medvedev's Cabinet from 21 May 2012 until 7 May 2018.
    Chess players will have to address the question of whether it is suitable and appropriate to have a high official of the Russian Government as President of FIDE. FIDE has already had to deal with its bank accounts being frozen by order of the US State
    Department. Now, if an outright Russian official takes over FIDE, what will the US State Department and Donald Trump have to say about that?
    Sam Sloan

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