Tradewise Gibraltar Masters 2017

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Lawrence,

If that is correct then Alan Tate must be yanking my chain. (I'll get him back).

Of course none of this would have happened if the organisers published a prize winners list. (why is it such a secret?)

[Geoff Chandler]

There is a picture of Topalov receiving a blue jug. It does appear to have 'Best Game' on it.

So bit by bit we are piecing together this prize list.

Saw the Gibraltar pictures by John Saunders. This one amidst all the draw rigging claims...



...was just asking for that caption.

[Joshua Gibbs]

I'll repeat Nick's request.

"Is there a list of [all] prizewinners anywhere?"

Adding what won the best game prize?

here you are...

Stuart Conquest tweeted me specifically to say they are up

http://www.gibraltarchesscongress.com/p ... s_2017.htm

[NickFaulks]

http://www.gibraltarchesscongress.com/p ... s_2017.htm

Can someone explain the 2550-2649 rating prizes? Perhaps I'm being dim, it's late and I haven't done much investigation.

edit : I've just got it, it's as per the regulations but looks really weird.

[Stewart Reuben]

The rating prizes have had the identical type of regulations for the past 15 years. They are best improvement prizes, so the highest rated player doesn't have it easier within the band. It is a system widely used in Britain.
The Gibraltar Rating prizes go to much higher-rated players than elsewhere in the world. Having one where a 2649 player can get a rating prize is rather special.

[Ian Thompson]

The rating prizes have had the identical type of regulations for the past 15 years.

14 years, I think you'll find. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been necessary to pay all the rating prizes out twice at the 1st Gibraltar congress.

[Stewart Reuben]

You have suffered the same problem as the Millenium had. The first Gibraltar Congress took place in 2003. But, its advance preparation started in
2002.

[Chris Rice]

I'm going to copy the following onto the Womens World Ch thread as well:

Dorsa Derakhshani, a member of the Iranian Women's National Chess Team and a former world U-18 champion has been expelled from the national team for not covering her hair in the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival.

Head of Iran's Chess Federation, Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh, said they will "seriously deal" with a sister and brother who played in the chess festival in Gibraltar because the girl did not observe the veil and the boy played with an Israeli player.

Pahlevanzadeh pointed out, "The first step in dealing with them would be to deprive them from every game that is played in Iran and in the name of Iran, and they will not have the chance to be on the national team."

Dorsa Derakhshani, 18, is presently studying in Spain and had participated in the Gibraltar games independently. Her brother, Borna, 15, had also registered in the games on his own. He played with Alexander Huzman, grandmaster from Israel.

(The state-run Fars news agency – February 18, 2017)

http://www.women.ncr-iran.org/iran-wome ... g-the-veil

[Roger de Coverly]

He played with Alexander Huzman, grandmaster from Israel.

It's marginally surprising that pairing came up. Those who reverse engineered the Gibraltar pairings detected that the flag which disallows IRI-ISR and some other pairings had been activated.

[Angus French]

I'm going to copy the following onto the Womens World Ch thread as well:

Dorsa Derakhshani, a member of the Iranian Women's National Chess Team and a former world U-18 champion has been expelled from the national team for not covering her hair in the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival.

Head of Iran's Chess Federation, Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh, said they will "seriously deal" with a sister and brother who played in the chess festival in Gibraltar because the girl did not observe the veil and the boy played with an Israeli player.

Pahlevanzadeh pointed out, "The first step in dealing with them would be to deprive them from every game that is played in Iran and in the name of Iran, and they will not have the chance to be on the national team."

Dorsa Derakhshani, 18, is presently studying in Spain and had participated in the Gibraltar games independently. Her brother, Borna, 15, had also registered in the games on his own. He played with Alexander Huzman, grandmaster from Israel.

(The state-run Fars news agency – February 18, 2017)

http://www.women.ncr-iran.org/iran-wome ... g-the-veil

She was also at the Baku Olympiad, not wearing a headscarf but also not representing her country: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9o7x1TzLAg

[Chris Rice]

He played with Alexander Huzman, grandmaster from Israel.

It's marginally surprising that pairing came up. Those who reverse engineered the Gibraltar pairings detected that the flag which disallows IRI-ISR and some other pairings had been atcivated.

Good point. The Gibraltar organisers might want to respond on that. It was a first round pairing (board 48). http://www.chess-results.com/tnr257693. ... YES&wi=821

[Chris Rice]

She was also at the Baku Olympiad, not wearing a headscarf but also not representing her country: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9o7x1TzLAg

I played her in Dubai in 2014 and she was wearing the full national dress then so this must have been a fairly recent thing.

[Angus French]

Nigel Short has tweeted something which, in my reading, suggests Dorsa Derakhshani's IM norms might not be legitimate:

Dorsa Derakshani - the #hijab hero- acquired all three of her (men's) IM norms in Novi Sad 2016. The organiser has since been suspended.

There were two different arbiters for those three events and both signed-off the norm results, as can be seen from the scans available here. I wonder, have those arbiters also been suspended?

In any case, it's clear from her FIDE rating card that Dorsa Derakshani has performed at close to IM strength in a number of different tournaments outside of Novi Sad.

[Roger de Coverly]

The organiser has since been suspended.

Sinisa Drazic, the GM organiser in question, may be known to some British players as he was in London for a year or more in the early 1990s.

Memorably, as a player, he was one of the opponents in my first FIDE part rating back in 1993. With the then recent extension of the FIDE rating list to 2000, a part rating tended to be against titled players. In a tournament in Italy, I scored 1/5 against 2*FM, 2*IM and 1*GM, alongside 3.5/4 against unrateds on the pairing bounce. I had failed to draw with Sinisa in a long battle.

[Geoff Chandler]

Regarding the 15 year old Iranian lad Borna Derakhshani who is in trouble for playing an Israeli.

I suppose it is easily done if you are playing two games a day wandering about the place.
There were no flags on the tables, but there were wee flags displayed on the name tags.

All in all Borna played in 3 classical tournaments at Gibraltar.

Here is the prize winners list.

http://www.gibraltarchesscongress.com/p ... s_2017.htm

Borna Derakhshani won two prizes. One in the Challengers A and another in the Challengers B.

The schedule for Challengers was 09.45 start - The Masters started at 15:00.

Borna met Alexander Huzman in round one of the Masters after beating Carsten Byrn (Denmark) in Round two of Challengers 'A'
(which started a day earlier than the Masters.)

The first round of any event is always hectic, it's possible the organiser missed (or the blessed machine missed )
they had paired an Israeli with an Iranian. In the later rounds it appears such conflict of cultures were avoided.

I hope they cut the lad some slack, he could offer up as an excuse he was unaware who he was playing having
just finished another game and thought the organisers (as they did in later rounds) would not allow such a pairing.

I'm wondering if, to save what looks like a promising chess career, the organisers could get in touch with the
Iranian powers that be and explain it was their fault. Tell it like they did with Yifan it 'came out of a machine.'