New Delhi FIDE Women's Grand Prix Mar 24 - Apr 6 2023

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I get what you are saying Nick, in that in some countries and cities this is very common. But it is not clear if you are saying this is 'normal' for FIDE or 'normal' for India?

The point being made here is that it is particularly unsafe for women travelling alone at that time of the night. I would expect the organisers to have arranged to meet all the competitors and arranged for their transport to the hotel. If the players felt insecure at being alone in a taxi, then that is not acceptable.

From the FCO travel advice for India:

https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advic ... d-security

Taxis and rickshaws

When using taxis or rickshaws:

- avoid travelling alone and hailing taxis on the street, especially at night
- use official taxi ranks. Pre-paid taxi services are available from inside all terminal buildings and many hotels offer transfers. Ride-hailing services like Uber and Ola are also widely available in India
- if you’re being collected at the airport by a hotel driver, make sure they properly identify themselves before you set off
- if you book a taxi online, there’s usually a way to share journey details with your contacts who can then follow your location

[Ian Thompson]

A lift from Susan Polgar’s Facebook post;

The room allocation in the hotel was chaotic. Despite the known arrival times, there were initially no rooms available for several players and they had to wait several hours at five in the morning in the hotel lobby. Others had to vacate their room the next day after moving in.

All sounds fairly normal.

Is that the organiser's responsibility or the players'? The event's regulations say the organisers have to provide rooms from 24 March, so, if a player chooses to arrive in the early hours of that day should they be surprised no room is available unless something was arranged in advance with the organisers?

The other obvious question is what players are doing taking overnight flights the day before play was due to start?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

A lift from Susan Polgar’s Facebook post;

The room allocation in the hotel was chaotic. Despite the known arrival times, there were initially no rooms available for several players and they had to wait several hours at five in the morning in the hotel lobby. Others had to vacate their room the next day after moving in.

All sounds fairly normal.

Is that the organiser's responsibility or the players'? The event's regulations say the organisers have to provide rooms from 24 March, so, if a player chooses to arrive in the early hours of that day should they be surprised no room is available unless something was arranged in advance with the organisers?

The other obvious question is what players are doing taking overnight flights the day before play was due to start?

[Ian, why did you remove this bit from the original in what you quoted? "After her arrival in New Delhi, one player was not picked up and transferred by the organizer as agreed, all other players were transferred alone and unaccompanied into taxis in the middle of the night. The players felt extremely insecure."]

You can't both question why players are taking overnight flights and then say the event organisers were only providing rooms from a day before the event starts. Either you provide rooms sufficiently far in advance of the start of the event that players will be able to arrive and recover in time to play, or you make clear in the invitations that players have to cover anything before a certain time themselves (IMO, for events at this level [part of the WC qualification cycle], FIDE should be going above and beyond - for normal tournaments, there would be less expectation).

Have we not gone beyond lowering expectations for chess players at the highest levels? Or is there is hint here of less money and effort being spent on women's chess? There seems also to be a bit of a reaction to some of the 'emotional roller coaster' language, which seems to be an artifact of poor translation into English from other languages or not having English as a first language (e.g. "a lot of players faced serious emotional outbreaks"; "she downbashed [another player]"; "the last drop for me to leave"). The intended meaning does come across, and what is crystal-clear is that many of these (female) players are very angry about how this has been handled, and they should be listened to and this shouldn't be downplayed. (There does seem to have been some internal arguing among the players as well, unfortunately.)

Let's hope the provisions for Astana (and for any future events) are handled better.

[NickFaulks]

But it is not clear if you are saying this is 'normal' for FIDE or 'normal' for India?

I'm saying that it is normal for FIDE events. For all I know, also for other sporting events.

In my experience, if you are in your hotel room within eight hours of landing at the airport, that is a good result. Not just in India and not just in the developing world. Certainly not just if you are female!

[Ian Thompson]

All sounds fairly normal.

Is that the organiser's responsibility or the players'? The event's regulations say the organisers have to provide rooms from 24 March, so, if a player chooses to arrive in the early hours of that day should they be surprised no room is available unless something was arranged in advance with the organisers?

The other obvious question is what players are doing taking overnight flights the day before play was due to start?

[Ian, why did you remove this bit from the original in what you quoted? "After her arrival in New Delhi, one player was not picked up and transferred by the organizer as agreed, all other players were transferred alone and unaccompanied into taxis in the middle of the night. The players felt extremely insecure."]

Because it's not relevant to the availability of hotel rooms.

You can't both question why players are taking overnight flights and then say the event organisers were only providing rooms from a day before the event starts. Either you provide rooms sufficiently far in advance of the start of the event that players will be able to arrive and recover in time to play, or you make clear in the invitations that players have to cover anything before a certain time themselves (IMO, for events at this level [part of the WC qualification cycle], FIDE should be going above and beyond - for normal tournaments, there would be less expectation).

Agreed. FIDE and the organisers expect players to arrive on 24 March, attend an opening ceremony on 24 March and then begin playing on 25 March. If an overnight flight is necessary they should be arriving earlier. If it's not possible to arrive on a daytime flight on 24 March and attend the opening ceremony they should be arriving earlier. The organisers should cover those costs.

[LawrenceCooper]

Just checking the remaining pairings and I see that Batsiashvili doesn't have a white until round 7 as her colour sequence is BWBBWB but her first two whites were against the players who have disappeared.

[Paolo Casaschi]

I'm saying that it is normal for FIDE events. For all I know, also for other sporting events.

In my experience, if you are in your hotel room within eight hours of landing at the airport, that is a good result. Not just in India and not just in the developing world. Certainly not just if you are female!

The participants are all experienced players that attended a number of FIDE events in the past; I'm not familiar with some of the names but Elisabeth Paehtz has been at a lot of similar events.

If the events in India reflect the "normal" situation at every FIDE event, why would so many of the players complain to the point of withdrawing from the event?

[NickFaulks]

If the events in India reflect the "normal" situation at every FIDE event, why would so many of the players complain to the point of withdrawing from the event?

It looks to me as though one player made a fuss in a fit of annoyance, then the rest decided this was an ideal opportunity to make the point that, even though such treatment is accepted as normal, it really isn't good enough.

In Chennai last year I thought the organisers did a terrific job, particularly given the short notice ( although I did wonder whether that actually helped to concentrate minds ). My only complaints were the dreadful visa issues, which came down from New Delhi, and the shambolic transportation on arrival. Oh, and not being supposed to go for a walk without a police escort, but there were ways around that.

[Alex McFarlane]

I've been to a few FIDE events.
For mass events like the Olympiad there is certainly a system of priorities and for normal people the arrangements are as described by Nick. However, at events with a more restricted (elite?) entry my experience is much different. I would have expected that to be the case here.

I'm also puzzled at requiring a police escort to leave the hotel. I walked freely in and out of mine. Perhaps they didn't care if I was mugged
Travel arrangements were a bit problematic. I was the observer and another arbiter one of the presenters at an FA Seminar. The taxi to pick us up was 'problematic', turning up late on a few days. Indeed the first day it turned up on time neither of us were there for it, but that was probably because there wasn't a lecture that day.
By the end things were running smoothly, though.

Transport from the venue to the hotel could involve a lengthy wait, especially if the games you were supervising were among the last to finish.
Transport to attend Commission meetings was almost non-existent.

[Kevin Thurlow]

Getting a visa for India is difficult...

The tournament organization seems to be a complete shambles. I encountered Elisabeth Paehtz at Gausdal and she was refreshingly forthright, and spoke good English. If you get something wrong, she will speak her mind.

I did like the word "downbashing", the meaning is clear.

[Brendan O'Gorman]

A second vote for retaining downbashing