Batumi Chess Olympiad 2018 Round Ten Press Report October 4, 2018
Elections for FIDE Vice-President and FIDE Commissions were held today.
These elections are taken seriously. One year they resulted in a international court case.
Makropoulos chaired the meeting, not Arkady Dvorkovich. There were 11 candidates for FIDE Vice President. There were five positions available.
In the First Round of voting, it was necessary to get more than 50% of the votes to be elected.
If less than five make it, the remaining candidates contested the remaining slots.
The candidates were as follows:
Casto Abundo - Philippines
Olalekan Adeyemi Nigeria
Almog Berstein Israel
KK Chan Hong Kong
Martha Fierro - Ecuador
Horst Metzing Germany
Akaki Tashvili Georgia
Mohammad Isfar Kumburia Iran
Michael Khodarkovsky USA
Javiar Ochoa Spain
Anastasia Sorokina Belarus
The result of the first round was
Michael Khodarkovsky 109 votes
Martha Fierro 99
Anastasia Sorakina 98
All three were elected as it took 85 votes to get a majority.
I was surprised Michael Khodarkovsky won and he was surprised too. My theory is with the political changes the United States is no longer the pariah it once was so now third world countries want to be friends with the USA as the USSR is out of business.
In the second round of voting, Akaki Tashvili and Olalekan Adeyemi were top two vote getters and were elected.
After that, three of the losers were appointed vice-president including Mohammad Isfar Kumburia of Iran who has been a FIDE Vice-President in the past.
Before all this, the new incoming President-Elect Arkady Dvorkovich appointed six FIDE Vice-Presidents, probably members of his slate.
Changes were made in the rules. From now on, a FIDE President can only serve two consecutive terms of 4 years each. The FIDE delegates do not want a repeat of the 23 years Kirsan Ilyunzhinov served as president.
Of equal importance, voting by proxy has been abolish. Now the delegates must personally attend the meetings to vote.
This is of great importance because in past years Ilyumzhinov and before him Campomanes would come to these meetings with their pockets stuffed with proxies, enough to insure they could not be voted out of office.
Haiti was readmitted as a member of FIDE. Apparently the old president of many years had died in office and only he had the by-laws so a copy could not be provided to FIDE.
The delegate from Uganda who is also president of the Uganda Chess Association was angry they he did not receive the money for the Production of the Movie The Queen of Katwe. Beatrice Marinello who was the actual producer of the Hollywood movie tried to
explain that there was simply not enough money available to give the Ugandan President a cut. The Ugandan Chess Association President said the money should have been paid to him and not to Robert Katende of Uganda who taught and trained Phiona Mutesi,
whose life was made into the Hollywood Movie, The Queen of Katwe. Today the Ugandan Woman's Team virtually wiped out the Nigerian Woman's team that is rated 300 points higher today.
Dr. Jana Bellin Chairwoman of the FIDE Medical Commission who is in charge of giving drug tests, once again failed to catch anybody taking a prohibited drug. She explained to the delegates that the FIDE by-laws pertaining to drug testing will have to be
re-written to make sure they confirm exactly to the International Olympic Committee Drug Testing rules.
Chess players keep demanding that I reveal the name of the outstandingly beautiful member of the Mongolian Woman's Chess Team.
The answer is that all of them are beautiful.
But the really great beauty is not here. She is over at the FIDE Delegate's meanings where she is assisting a member of the Mongolian Parliament, but I cannot reveal her name as it would not be politically correct to do so.
There were elections today for the FIDE Ethics Commission now to be called the FIDE Fair-Play Commission, the FIDE Constitutional Commission and the FIDE Rules Commission.
Only one candidate got the required majority plus one vote. That was Ian Wilkinson of Jamaica so there will be a second round of voting tomorrow.
Minsk in Belarus won the bid to hold the 2022 World Chess Olympiad in Minsk. The other two bidders, Seoul Korea and Tunisia, were not allowed to make a presentation because their documents were insufficient. They will be given lessons on how to bid for
2024.
The delegates were shocked when Boris Kutin of Slovenia announced he is retiring from chess and does not want to serve on any more commissions. Boris Kutin has been around forever and has organized numerous chess events and even an Olympiad. I doubt
Boris will keep his promise to himself. He is only 71. I believe he will be back.
In the women's section of the Olympiad, the top seven matches were all 2-2 draws. However, the games were hard fought. Just the teams were evenly matched. USA Board 3 player Tatev Abrahamyan seemed to be on the verge of winning against China but she
could not escape perpetual check.
The USA “Open” team won 2.5 – 1.5 with Sam Shankland winning and the rest of games drawn. This to some extent makes up for the USA loss to Armenia yesterday.
Anand was taken out of the line-up by India today probably because Anand has not been doing as well as expected on top board.
The Netherlands lost to India as Adhiban defeated Unlucky Van Wely.
Right now the USA Men is in first place on tie-breaking points but at least five teams have a chance to win depending on the results tomorrow, the last day of play.
The USA women's team is in third place on tie-breaking points. They might still have a chance to win if they have a big victory tomorrow. The tie-breaking system is so complex that nobody can figure out what their chances are.
Sam Sloan

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