Illness Clause in World Championships

[Roger de Coverly]

Something I noticed in the coverage of Carlsen's visit to India was mention of a clause permitting games in the forthcoming match to be postponed for a couple of days in the event of illness. This is implied to be something new, but it's something reinstated. I don't know about the pre-war matches involving Alekhine, but all the FIDE series from 1950 onwards allowed postponements. It was even part of match tactics after a defeat to be strategically indisposed to allow openings to be revisited etc. It was Kasparov, Short and presumably Channel 4 who removed this in the 1993 PCA match and FIDE must have eventually followed suit.

http://www.chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211 ... 00813.aspx

[MJMcCready]

He doesn't want to play with 'Delhi belly', can't say I blame him. it's not too surprising that an article showing a lack of research has found its way onto chessbase I think.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I'm in the middle of reading Centre-Stage and Behind the Scenes by Yuri Averbakh. That was recommended in the thread on 'Books on Soviet Chess':

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... 24#p119931

I was pleasantly surprised to find a copy of that on the bookstall at Torquay (possibly even the next day) and snapped it up. It is a pleasant enough read, and gives a real sense of the times he lived in (with the usual caveats). One thing he does comment on at various points is the illness clause (common in many events in those days). He mentions the 1959 USSR Championships (held in Tbilisi), where Petrosian came down with flu, missed the opening three games, and then by the time he was playing again and everyone else had come down with the flu, there wasn't enough time to postpone the games, and Petrosian won the event! To be fair, as Averbakh states, Petrosian was playing the best chess, but it doesn't seem quite fair. This was a tournament as well, which is quite different from a match between two players.

[MJMcCready]

An interesting study would involve finding which injuries/illnesses are beneficial towards your chess. I seem to remember Tony Miles benefited from a back injury once, and also won his respective tournament, Tilburg if I remember rightly.

[JustinHorton]

I recall attending one set of Candidates Semi-Finals in London where both games were cancelled so Jon Speelman gave a simul.

[Jonathan Rogers]

I recall attending one set of Candidates Semi-Finals in London where both games were cancelled so Jon Speelman gave a simul.

83 or 89? (Presumably 83!)