English Chess Forum

The Prince is not taken very seriously in Australia - see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvQK-sPXO_o

Just to lend my own comment in rebuttal of Roger's nonsense... It remains my view that someone who makes such a fuss about trivia has no place in charge of a major event. He could point to FIDE's long standing practices of making it up as they go along and not taken a hard line on dress and for tha...

The player caught, Joris Boons, had won three (rating restricted) Dutch tournaments in the previous few months, in Hilversum, Haarlem and Amsterdam, with perfect or near-perfect scores. More details at http://paulkeres.nl/?p=14578

Michael Janata died in the late 1980s. He returned to Czechoslovakia with an unidentified illness and died three months later.
He was a polyglot, specialising in Arabic, who traveled widely.

It was a demonstration sport at the Sydney Olympics. It was quite a big show. Drug Testing in chess is already compulsory, albeit only at major events. FIDE wanted chess to be recognised by the IOC, as it and bridge are. This has proven beneficial to several federations. Chess was not a demonstrati...

As I write this, a thought occurs to me: maybe chess engines are teaching us that chess is evolving away from generalisations. Maybe there is no 'generic' right or wrong answer about when to swap light squared Bishops in the Carlsbad structures, but instead simply long lists of situations where the...

Certainly Javier used, probably overused, sarcasm, but he also continuously presented serious evidence to support his position and was clearly frustrated when that evidence was not being addressed. Keith offered a number of ideas (many via Jack) but when he started debating for himself he kept appea...

Watching this debate from afar, and having playing this line with both colours (including with Black against both Javier and Keith), I feel have to comment that Javier seems much closer to the truth than Keith - though obviously with both being very strong and experienced players and coaches they ha...

The Mastergame in 1983 was played at a time limit of all moves in 2 hours - definitely classical, though at the time the fastest possible rated time limit.

This claim is simply not true, but it is understandable because David's tweet was sneakily worded to blame the organisers. David did not bother to get photo accreditation for today but was allowed in anyway after briefly being questioned. No non-journalists were allowed on to the stage and there wer...

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 27, 2018 9:18 am

So how do you tout for bids when your expectation is that you will end up saying sorry, the Saudis came through so we don't need you after all?

It's called contingency planning.

The reason no one else was bidding for the 2018 World Rapid and Blitz is because Agon/FIDE were not looking for bids as they had the Saudi offer (covering 2019 as well). Yet Agon/FIDE knew there was a significant chance that holding the event in Saudi again would be impossible. The only part of this...

Which body is responsible for organising the World Rapid and Blitz is a separate question. Agon supposedly have the commercial rights but have barely been involved since the fiasco of Berlin 2015. But surely somebody should be responsible for not foreseeing that the Saudi bid may fall through and ma...

If September 15th passes without suitable assurances from the Saudis and the following week London or Sydney makes a proposal which they have been hatching ( including visas for all players, which I suspect would in practice rule out both ), are you seriously suggesting that FIDE would say sorry, w...

Nick, you are wrong that FIDE will look elsewhere if the Saudis cannot provide visas for all. The FIDE minutes clearly state that in that case the event will be cancelled. This is what shocked me - having no fallback plan for a problem known about for a year.