Kasparov vs Ilyumzhinov: the FIDE Presidency battle begins

[Alex Holowczak]

I sometimes ask people, 'If you had the choice, who would you have as FIDE President?' I seldom get a coherent response. I thought Yasser Seirawan in 1996, but he gave me an unequivocal, NO.

Barry Hearn.

He was never a strong darts or snooker player. However, he has turned darts and snooker into high profile sporting events. The winner of the PDC World Darts Championship will get £250,000. The winner of the World Snooker Championship will get £300,000. The total prize money fund for both events is in excess of £1,000,000, and both have developed year-long professional tours for their players. Hearn has done tremendous work for both sports, and I'm sure he could do the job, but he almost certainly wouldn't be interested in the job of FIDE President.

If he were, he'd want to change a lot of the governance of FIDE so that he had the freedom to do what he saw best, and I don't think a group of chessplayers would give him that freedom.

[Matthew Turner]

You are not the first to have that idea

http://stevegiddinschessblog.blogspot.c ... mania.html

[Roger de Coverly]

However, he has turned darts and snooker into high profile sporting events. The winner of the PDC World Darts Championship will get £250,000. The winner of the World Snooker Championship will get £300,000.

You say "turned", but surely darts and snooker were on British TV alongside the Master Game and World Chess Championship coverage back in the 1970s. I'd suggest "maintained darts and snooker as".


The prize money for the Chess World Championship, if not the GM circuit has been more than respectable since 1972. But in the 1970s, the Presidents of FIDE were a former world champion, followed by a respected Grandmaster, not figures whose talents lay in exploiting FIDE's one Federation, one vote governance structure.

[Stewart Reuben]

I did meet Barry Hearn by accident when I bumped into him and Steve Davis at an airport. He showed no interest in chess. But I didn't think to suggest to him or Steve that one become FIDE President. Extremely remiss of me.

[NickFaulks]

If he were, he'd want to change a lot of the governance of FIDE so that he had the freedom to do what he saw best, and I don't think a group of chessplayers would give him that freedom.

I don't understand that, how could he want more power than Kirsan has? Unless you think he might want to make the game more exciting by changing how the pieces move, for instance?

[Roger de Coverly]

I don't understand that, how could he want more power than Kirsan has?

Kirsan didn't seem to understand the concept of edited highlights, so he thought that for a two hour television program, you had to complete a game in two hours. So he demanded ever faster time limits in events directly under FIDE's control. National Federations and arbiters pushed in the opposite direction, so after an initial success in reducing seven hour sessions down to four, the "establishment" managed to push them out again by getting 90/40 + 30 with 30 second increments a stable standard for most of the chess under FIDE's direct control and accepted widely for independent tournaments.

[Stewart Reuben]

I think Roger is claiming too much understand of Kirsan's thinking. He wasn't alone in wanting faster play. Ignatius even wanted 2 rounds per day for the Olympiad.
Turkey 2000 there was a general feeling by the Executive Board for all the moves in 90 minutes + 30 seconds per move, thus about 2 hours thinking time. They thought faster games make for better TV, presumably not realising no chess programme should last longer than 30 minutes and has to be edited.
I wasn't at that meeting in Turkey but Jonathan Berry of Canada was. He suggested a questionnaire be put out. 'Oh, there isn't time to prepare one'. So Jonathan did prepare one, but the secretariat would not cooperate with the copying. Unfortunately he didn't speak to me. I would have said, 'Let's go to a local print shop and have 2000 done.'
After many complaints they changed to 90/40 + 30 with 30 second increments for most official FIDE events. Micky Adams has commented, 'Why did they steal our 10 minutes?' It should really be 100/40 + 30 with 30 second. But I was so relieved sanity was returning that I didn't make the suggestion.
My opinion is that the increment causes the players to utilise their time better. The 40/120 + all in 60, with no increment, leads to about the same quality as 40/90/30/30. But that's only an assertion.
C Northcote Parkinson 'Work expands to fill the time available in which to do it.'

The rate of play used in the World Championship is awful. 40/120, all in 1 hour, with a cumulative increment of 30 seconds per move after 60 moves. Geurt Gijssen and I agree. You don't use two different types of time control in one game. The players might have less than 5 minutes left on their clock after move 35 and thus not have to keep score. But after move 60 they have to throughout.
But why consult the Rules Commission about the rules?

[Roger de Coverly]

You don't use two different types of time control in one game.

It's a very rational choice if you want the drama of time scrambles coupled with the avoidance of 10.2 issues.

[Stewart Reuben]

The percentage of spectators actually at chess games is very low. Most watch at home or play through the games, sometimes many years later. What they want is high quality games, not ones ruined by blunders in time trouble.
The one telling argument against increments is that people don't understand them. They think somebody with 5 moves to make in 5 minutes is in horrendous time trouble. Actually they have 7.5 minutes for those 5 moves.
It's a very rational choice if you want the drama of blunders coupled with the avoidance of 10.2 issues.
Quickplay finishes can be avoided with an extra 5-10 second increment. A 30 second increment makes no sense if that is what your objective is.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Quickplay finishes can be avoided with an extra 5-10 second increment. A 30 second increment makes no sense if that is what your objective is.

You would still get blunders at an increment of 5-10 seconds. Arguably you would at an increment of 30 seconds as well. Increments don't get rid of blunders, they just change when and how some of them happen.

[Stewart Reuben]

But clearly the people who chose 40/120, 20/60 wanted blunders. Thus 5 seconds increment should suit their objectives.

I disagree with you. The 30 second increment forces people to ration their time more rationally. That is why Mickey Adams didn't like them. He never used to get into time trouble.

[Roger de Coverly]

Quickplay finishes can be avoided with an extra 5-10 second increment. A 30 second increment makes no sense if that is what your objective is.

I would have thought the point of a 30 second increment is that it allows just about enough time to keep score. This enables a player to have the means to claim a draw by repetition or 50 moves which would otherwise be denied.

[Stewart Reuben]

Indeed. But if your objective is the excitement of blunders and seeing people flailing around, this is the wrong way to go.
You can claim a draw by repetition or 50 move rule without a complete scoresheet.

[Alex Holowczak]

If he were, he'd want to change a lot of the governance of FIDE so that he had the freedom to do what he saw best, and I don't think a group of chessplayers would give him that freedom.

I don't understand that, how could he want more power than Kirsan has? Unless you think he might want to make the game more exciting by changing how the pieces move, for instance?

When he took over World Snooker, he tabled a motion that basically gave himself a 51% stake in the game. The players voted for it. I don't know what freedom this gives him in practice, but it meant that he had more freedom. Hearn now effectively owns World Snooker, and the only way to remove him from post is to buy him out, rather than vote him out. He set up the PDC from scratch.

Whatever power Kirsan has, I'm sure he'd quite like to not have to fight an expensive election campaign every four years.

Hearn has shown that he can introduce new events with new formats, while knowing what to leave alone. The World Snooker Championships are still in Sheffield (until 2015, anyway!), and the Final is still 35 frames over 4 sessions over 2 days. However, he's made lots of other changes designed to increase the number of tournaments, and attract a global audience to the game.

There are some problems with the events still: For example, the first round of the Indian Open was played in Doncaster - a place not noted for being in India. The tournament in India started from the second round onwards, and some of the 64 remaining players had to play Indian wildcards for sponsorship reasons. Just a necessary step for going where they want to go.

As a fan of snooker and darts, he mostly tinkers with event formats, rather than the Laws of the games. He also tries to make the game more of a show, with walk on music to get the crowd involved. You don't really need to get the crowd involved in chess, I suppose. On the other hand, the crowd at PDC darts events is loud, whereas they insist on near silence when the players are throwing at the BDO events. Then look at the health of the two organisations...

[Alex Holowczak]

Indeed. But if your objective is the excitement of blunders and seeing people flailing around, this is the wrong way to go.
You can claim a draw by repetition or 50 move rule without a complete scoresheet.

It could be argued that in a World Championship match, played on a live board with the game being videoed; and with the Laws of Chess changing to make arbiters claim repetition/50 moves (but at 5 times and 75 moves), there's no need for the players in the World Championship match to record their moves at all. The arbiter could easily do it if you still wanted a paper copy.