Batumi Chess Olympiad 2018 Round Eight Press Report
2 October 2018 The Chess World woke up this morning to the great news that Chess Grandmaster Antoaneta Stefanova, a former World's Woman Chess Champion, gave birth to a baby girl yesterday in Bulgaria.
Some woman professional chess players have postponed having children to further their chess careers.
Antoaneta Stefanova is not here in Batumi for another reason. More than a year ago the Bulgarian Chess Federation made an illegal transfer of more than EUROS One Million to an Offshore Bank. The real European Chess Union has been trying to recover this
money ever since.
Finally, a decision has made to expel the old Bulgarian Chess Federation and to admit in its place the Bulgaria Chess Federation 1928. This will happen tomorrow. After that, the Bulgarian Grandmasters including Antoaneta Stefanova will be able to play
chess again.
I found out the reason the three Polgars sisters suddenly stood in front of me yesterday for a group photograph is they are commentators on www.chess24.com for the World Chess Olympiad that is taking place now.
Today was for meetings of continental delegates. There are four continents recognized by FIDE: Americas (North and South America), Europe, Asia and Africa.
I attended the meetings by Americas (North and South America), Europe and Africa.
In the Africa meeting some delegates complained that they had been promised money from FIDE but the money was slow in coming. They wanted the money faster.
However, other Africans said we should not rely on money from FIDE. We should raise the money ourselves.
The European meeting was concerned with the pairing and tie-break system. Presently ties are broken first by match points, then by game points.
They recommend a change. It should be first pairing by match points, then by S-B points and lastly by game points.
The gave as an example: Four teams are tied for first by 4-0. Two are strong teams, the other two are weak teams.
What they want is each of the strong teams will play one of the weak teams. Otherwise, if the two strong teams play each other they will knock each other out of the lead and one of the weak teams will win the tournament.
By changing to S-B points this problem will be corrected.
They also want the final standings to be determined the way it is done now, first match points, then game points. So the pairings would be done in a different way than the standings.
The delegates could not understand why this is so so the decision was postponed until tomorrow.
Israel made a motion that when a bid is awarded to a country they should require a bank deposit or bank guarantee by the country to be paid if the players are not allowed into the country.
Israel said that Saudi Arabia had allowed Israel to play in the recent world championship provided that there be no Israel Flag, music or songs.
This had been accepted but when Trump decided to recognize Jerusalem as the capital the Arabs were upset and so changed their minds and did not allow Israel to play.
The American meeting was concerned with bidding for junior and scholastic championships. Many countries are bidding for these events so they are establishing a comparative system to evaluate the bids.
Delegate Ian Wilkinson of Jamaica asked the question: When Kirsan Ilyumzhinov ran for FIDE re-election in Tromso, Norway for years ago he promised that if he was elected he would donate 20 million Euros to FIDE. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was re-elected so he
wanted to know if he paid the 20 Million Euros as promised.
Alan Herbert Treasurer of the Americas said that this was the easiest question. NO, Kirsan has not paid any money to FIDE.
Today I met the two representatives of South Korea who are bidding to hold the 2022 Olympiad in South Korea. It happens that my company knows them because my company publishes books on the game of go and her husband is a 9-dan go player. So I happen to
know that they have a lot of money and by that I mean a lot of money behind them. But FIDE so far is rejecting their bid for lack of adequate financial guarantees.
In the chess matches Wesley So lost for the first time he had ever lost in an Olympiad. However, Fabiano Caruana and Sam Shanklin both won their games so the USA won the match and takes the lead.
The FIDE Elections are tomorrow so the candidates had parties tonight. Makropoulos had a party at the Hilton but I did not go as I have known Makropoulos for 32 years and I even beat him in a tournament game.
Arkady Dvorkovich had a party at the Jasmine Restaurant next to a swimming pool near the Sheraton Hotel. I met Arkady Dvorkovich for the first time. In a meeting lasting less than a minute he seemed a personable guy. He said his father had been an
international arbiter so he has grown up with chess all his life. He denied there is any conflict of interest between him being a former deputy president of Russia and being President of FIDE.
I asked Nigel Short is he was holding any parties. Short replied, “We are insurgents. We go to other people's partied. We are “El Cheapo FIDE.”
The election will be tomorrow. I would say Nigel Short has campaigned the hardest although he has spent the least money, no money at all. Short has been going around ever since I got here 9 days ago talking to everybody whereas Makropoulos only talks to
big-shots like Ruth Haring and not to common folk like me. Arkady Dvorkovich has not been talking to much of anybody.
Sam Sloan

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