English Chess Forum

LawrenceCooper wrote:

Mick Norris wrote:London looks on paper the weakest event, nice to see Radjabov playing though, and will be interesting to see how Topalov gets on in London

A shame that we won't have Morozevich & Ivanchuk playing in London, they are always good entertainment.

The Grand Prix participants have changed (Gashimov in for Kamsky)

Radjabov now not coming to London, but Karjakin is

http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/fidea ... rticipants

Mick Norris wrote:
The Grand Prix participants have changed (Gashimov in for Kamsky)

Kamsky's comments on facebook regarding the change:

"I must say, I'm disappointed with the way FIDE handled the Grand Prix announcement. First, yesterday I was included in the official list by rating and today, I'm excluded from the same list, simply because FIDE had a misunderstanding with one of the players. This is very unprofessional. Mildly put."

LawrenceCooper wrote:

Mick Norris wrote:
The Grand Prix participants have changed (Gashimov in for Kamsky)

Kamsky's comments on facebook regarding the change:

"I must say, I'm disappointed with the way FIDE handled the Grand Prix announcement. First, yesterday I was included in the official list by rating and today, I'm excluded from the same list, simply because FIDE had a misunderstanding with one of the players. This is very unprofessional. Mildly put."

The organisers can still invite Kamsky as a wild card.

Adam Raoof wrote:

LawrenceCooper wrote:

Mick Norris wrote:
The Grand Prix participants have changed (Gashimov in for Kamsky)

Kamsky's comments on facebook regarding the change:

"I must say, I'm disappointed with the way FIDE handled the Grand Prix announcement. First, yesterday I was included in the official list by rating and today, I'm excluded from the same list, simply because FIDE had a misunderstanding with one of the players. This is very unprofessional. Mildly put."

The organisers can still invite Kamsky as a wild card.

I'll let you post that on his wall

Adam Raoof wrote:

LawrenceCooper wrote:

Mick Norris wrote:
The Grand Prix participants have changed (Gashimov in for Kamsky)

Kamsky's comments on facebook regarding the change:

"I must say, I'm disappointed with the way FIDE handled the Grand Prix announcement. First, yesterday I was included in the official list by rating and today, I'm excluded from the same list, simply because FIDE had a misunderstanding with one of the players. This is very unprofessional. Mildly put."

The organisers can still invite Kamsky as a wild card.

no, they already have the full amount of wild cards

http://agonlimited.com/

"CJ de Mooi, the President of the English Chess Federation (ECF), said: “I am delighted to welcome the Agon Chess Grand Prix to London in our Olympic year. The ECF looks forward to a long partnership with Agon, an innovative company that has proven itself on both the world stage and the chess board.”"

The event in September at Simpson's will have a prize fund and thus stand alone.
It will be part of the overall GP.
The overall GP provids qualifiers in the World Chmpionship cycle.
The events held at Simpson's in August in recent years have had enough conference space for players, spectators and commentary. There may be less available in the autumn.
Were I only be able to attend one of the three events I would choose the London Chess Classic in December because of the English players participating. If I wanted to attend the most competitive it would be the Candidates in March.

I wonder if CJ realises that, after the Candidates, Agon intends to take the events to other major cities.

We should mount a write-in campaign to get the Candidates or LCC a series on terrestrial TV. 1000 independent messages might do the trick. For newspapers 100 has been enough.

Stewart Reuben wrote: The events held at Simpson's in August in recent years have had enough conference space for players, spectators and commentary. There may be less available in the autumn.

I was wondering what Agon mean by "invite-only"

Agon wrote:However, the requirement to transfer the event to London from Chelyabinsk at this relatively late stage means that it will be a smaller, invite-only event.

Are they referring to players or spectators?

Also Agon were proposing intensive, intrusive even, internet coverage. Events at Simpsons have struggled with even the basics of providing game feeds and pgn downloads.

Roger de Coverly wrote:

Stewart Reuben wrote: The events held at Simpson's in August in recent years have had enough conference space for players, spectators and commentary. There may be less available in the autumn.

I was wondering what Agon mean by "invite-only"

Agon wrote:However, the requirement to transfer the event to London from Chelyabinsk at this relatively late stage means that it will be a smaller, invite-only event.

Are they referring to players or spectators?

Also Agon were proposing intensive, intrusive even, internet coverage. Events at Simpsons have struggled with even the basics of providing game feeds and pgn downloads.

It means that there won't be tickets on general sale to the chess public.

Which does rather reduce the point of having the event in London.

So we might only have RDK's word for it that the event is in London not Chelyabinsk?

I saw Capricorn One on TV recently. I'm suspicious

As I recall there are more scientific errors in that film than there are errors of fact in Warriors of the Mind.

Invitation only. Wonderful.

Are they going to try to charge for access to the game scores or some other foolishness, is that what they mean by "commercialise"?

It makes sense to make it invitation-only - think of it as preventative pest control. The last thing a noble old British institution like Simspsons needs or wants is a termite infestation.

Never seen a chess story here before. Just shows what a large PR budget can do.

http://bit.ly/QQT9Bz