Kasparov vs Ilyumzhinov: the FIDE Presidency battle begins

[Roger de Coverly]

I'm not sure I agree with you that darts and snooker are small globally compared with chess. What makes you think that they are?

FIDE quote a table showing the number of countries in each sport or pursuit.

http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... tions.html

This has chess at 14th with 180 members, "Billiard" (IBSF) at 53rd with 86 and Darts (WDF) at 69.

I doubt the complete reliability of the list as it has cricket with only 10 members. That's the ICC, but there are more cricket playing countries than that. Rugby claim 118, which presumably includes a number of countries with just a handful of clubs.

[Alex Holowczak]

What could be needed is for the Paulson methodology to be applied to be darts and snooker. If there are 6 million in the UK who play chess once a year and this has been extrapolated to 500 million worldwide, what are the corresponding figures for darts and snooker?

I can't tell you how many people play snooker and darts worldwide. I would suspect that more people watch it on TV than play it. According to World Snooker, 361 million people watched at least 5 minutes of the 2011 World Snooker Championship. 361,000 people didn't watch the World Chess Championship on YouTube. The Candidates on Livestream didn't appear to reach 3,610.

Or another measure, you can count in the UK or worldwide the number of players considered "good", say using GM and IM title holders as the measure. How does this compare with darts and snooker? Or you could reflect the longer active lifetimes of chess players by using active > 2500 as the proxy.

That's very arbitrary. Snooker and darts don't really have the concept of a GM or an IM at all. I can count people who make a living with just prize money. I've defined that as people who earn £20,000/year in prize money, not including appearance fees, sponsorship, or any other commercial activity. That makes 39 for darts (PDC) and 57 for snooker. How many of the top chessplayers earn £20,000 in prize money per year? I don't know how this would compare with chess, but Luke McShane is ranked 60 (December 2013), and he's not a professional player. I suspect the £20,000 criterion isn't very far away from the 39-57 range.

[Roger de Coverly]

(2) National Governing Bodies administer amateur chess, e.g. developing players who can play professionally.

I would hope that the ECF takes a rather broader view that it should have a major role as a facilitator of amateur "sport". Similarly with FIDE. Particularly in Europe, amateur chess crosses national boundaries and FIDE awarded titles stretch down to those unlikely to be able to play professionally. It's noticeable how few of FIDE's top officials actually play chess at an amateur level as a leisure activity or could be seen to represent those who do.

[IM Jack Rudd]

Luke McShane is ranked 60 (December 2013), and he's not a professional player.

Luke McShane is an anomaly, though. He could be a professional player if he wanted to. (Not that the distinction between professional and amateur is particularly well-defined, anyway.)

[Paolo Casaschi]

Kasparov simply has no interest in amateur chess

I would argue that there's a viable relationship whereby:
(1) FIDE administers professional chess
(2) National Governing Bodies administer amateur chess, e.g. developing players who can play professionally

World Snooker doesn't really do anything in terms of promoting amateur snooker. It doesn't need to - it leaves it to the NGBs. If that's where we're going if Kasparov is elected, then Kasparov's lack of interest in amateur chess isn't a disaster.

It may or may not be a direction we don't want FIDE to go in, but it's viable.

What you suggest might have some value. However there's nothing pointing to that direction in the official program of the Kasparov ticket.
http://kasparov2014.com/program/
If anything, point #4 (universal rating and online services) and point #5 (chess in education for children) are pointing to the opposite direction. Quoting from the program: "FIDE must provide benefits to the huge base of chessplayers, not just serve the elite."

What makes you think Kasparov would go in that direction?

[Alex Holowczak]

What makes you think Kasparov would go in that direction?

This:

Kasparov simply has no interest in amateur chess

As you say, it would seem to be at odds with his campaign material.

[NickFaulks]

Ilyumzhinov came very close to getting zero time defaults incorporated in the Laws of Chess

I personally doubt that. FIDE seems to have some self-righting mechanism which prevents the most utterly ludicrous things from happening ( such as a WC match in Baghdad in 1997 ). But we shall never know for sure.

[Roger de Coverly]

FIDE seems to have some self-righting mechanism which prevents the most utterly ludicrous things from happening ( such as a WC match in Baghdad in 1997 ).

Those prepared to say "no" to Ilyumzhinov and his cronies. Alternatively the threat of a revolt by Federations representing a majority of the world's rated chess players.

[David Sedgwick]

I am deeply opposed to faster time controls, and have been vigorous in my opposition. David S says that the ECF have done likewise, but I have never heard a peep out of them.

I don't believe I've commented on the subject, at least not recently. I disputed your contention that the ECF didn't oppose zero tolerance default times at Dresden Congress 2008.

The biggest reason that I want to see the back of Kirsan is that his hobnobbing with odious dictators brings chess into disrepute, and turns away Western sponsors.

You don't want to see the back of him enough to have been prepared to support any of Bessel Kok, Anatoly Karpov and Garrry Kasparov. When asked whom you would support, you name David Jarrett - an Ilyumzhinov ally for seventeen years.

[Roger de Coverly]

Luke McShane is an anomaly, though.

I wouldn't be so sure. The advantages of being a professional player might not be so great. In English chess history, Penrose was 10 or more BCF points better than contemporaries who might have been considered professional or near professional. If you needed to teach chess 35 or 40 hours a week, do you have any more time available for personal research than someone who spends the same amount of time in a non-chess related employment?

[Jonathan Bryant]

Bill Hartston once told me that he never considered himself to be a chess professional for the simple reason that he never earned enough money from chess to be one.

[NickFaulks]

FIDE seems to have some self-righting mechanism which prevents the most utterly ludicrous things from happening ( such as a WC match in Baghdad in 1997 ).

Those prepared to say "no" to Ilyumzhinov and his cronies. Alternatively the threat of a revolt by Federations representing a majority of the world's rated chess players.

That's my point. Those prepared to say no to Kirsan and his cronies appear to carry quite a lot of weight. Isn't that a good thing?

Forget the federations. They will vote through any kind of garbage. I don't just mean the Third World, one day the truth about what happened in Tallinn will be known.

[Roger de Coverly]

That's my point. Those prepared to say no to Kirsan and his cronies appear to carry quite a lot of weight. Isn't that a good thing?

Nowhere near enough to remove him from office. It encourages permanent conflict in FIDE when the President and his cronies perpetually introduce ideas considered totally unacceptable by amateur players in the larger Federations. That's not something that Kasparov has learned either, as the idea that all games should be included in one consolidated rating is wrong at numerous levels.

[NickFaulks]

I am deeply opposed to faster time controls, and have been vigorous in my opposition. David S says that the ECF have done likewise, but I have never heard a peep out of them.

I don't believe I've commented on the subject, at least not recently. I disputed your contention that the ECF didn't oppose zero tolerance default times at Dresden Congress 2008.

Precisely. If the ECF offered any oppostion in Dresden to zero tolerance default times, it was not readily visible. It might have been helpful.

[Roger de Coverly]

Precisely. If the ECF offered any oppostion in Dresden to zero tolerance default times, it was not readily visible. It might have been helpful.

Had it gone through, there would have been a serious amount of shouting at the ECF and its Dresden Delegate. As it was the Delegate was dumped in favour of a more robust approach to FIDE nonsense.

The then Delegate was regarded as a FIDE insider.

It's now proposed within the ECF that militancy and opposition is counter-productive and that appeasement is a better strategy.