2017 King Salman World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 26-30 December 2017

[NickFaulks]

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-c ... ifications

[LawrenceCooper]

Tarjei J. Svensen
‏@TarjeiJS
25m25 minutes ago

Updated list of players confirmed for @worldrapidblitz:
Carlsen
Vachier-Lagrave
Aronian
Anand
Karjakin
Ivanchuk
Svidler
McShane
Short
Bacrot
Ding Liren
Li Chao
Yu Yangyi
Wang Hao
Vallejo
Anton
Salgado
Harikrishna
Vidit

[David Robertson]

Probably best to hold one's nose, and walk quickly past

[David Sedgwick]

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-c ... ifications

Sutovsky 1 - 0 Faulks

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Sutovsky 1 - 0 Faulks"

A predictable result...

Chess organization tells lies, shock horror.

Mind you, if I were from Israel, I would not be keen to set foot in Saudi Arabia.

[David Robertson]

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-c ... ifications

Sutovsky 1 - 0 Faulks

Pith. Wit. End of. Applause

[NickFaulks]

Chess organization tells lies, shock horror.

In this particular case I don't think that is what has happened. Assuming the Israelis don't get their visas ( we don't know that yet, although it is certainly the way it's looking ) I think that FIDE, and probably their contacts in Saudi, will have got stitched up by other forces in that country.

[NickFaulks]

More breaking news.

I expect the Qatari players will be allowed by their own government to go. If it's certain there will be no Israelis, perhaps Iran will take the same view.

[Richard Bates]

More breaking news.

I expect the Qatari players will be allowed by their own government to go. If it's certain there will be no Israelis, perhaps Iran will take the same view.

That’s alright then. Problem solved!

[LawrenceCooper]

Tarjei J. Svensen
‏@TarjeiJS
9h9 hours ago
Less than 2 days until @worldrapidblitz, still no official player list. These are known:
Carlsen
MVL
Aronian
Anand
Karjakin
Grischuk
Mamedyarov
Ivanchuk
Svidler
McShane
Short
Bacrot
Ding
Li
Yu
Wang Hao
Wang Yue
Vallejo
Anton
Salgado
Harikrishna
Vidit
Amin
Adly
K.Georgiev

[NickFaulks]

Sutovsky 1 - 0 Faulks

Not so clear now. Sutovsky was crowing that players from three federations would be excluded and is now wrong on two counts ( albeit not the most important one ).

[Alex Holowczak]

I think that FIDE, and probably their contacts in Saudi, will have got stitched up by other forces in that country.

Is the King sponsoring it? Or is "King Salman" a corporate entity to which he gives his name and money to sponsor events in the country, but otherwise works independent of him? I assumed that it meant the King might be involved, at least peripherally, and so FIDE had the backing at the man at the top. And so, there was a chance of all the people who might want visas getting them.

More breaking news.

I expect the Qatari players will be allowed by their own government to go. If it's certain there will be no Israelis, perhaps Iran will take the same view.

If I were writing something designed to wind Emil up as much as possible, I can't imagine it would deviate too much from that statement.

I'm interested in the discretion that would have let two Qataris play even though they failed to qualify. I realise it's trying to sound like "We're making concessions, working with Federations and going to a huge amount of effort to get everyone there" ... but they didn't qualify. Why not spend that effort on solving the problem for the Israelis who did qualify? I wonder how many other players who haven't qualified have been allowed to play?

[Leonard Barden]

Let's be accurate. As this Chess Vibes report from Peter Doggers states, there is no Iranian seeking to play.

GM Mohamed Al-Modiahki of Qatar confirmed to Chess.com that three players from Qatar want to participate, and have been trying to obtain visas: Al-Modiahki himself, his wife GM Zhu Chen and also GM Mohamed Al-Sayed. They did not receive clear information from FIDE nor the Saudi Chess Federation.
Players from Iran would be dealing with the same problem. Only one player qualified: IM Sarasadat Khademalsharieh, who decided not to travel to Saudi Arabia.

The Israelis are clearly not going.

This leaves the Qatar players.


GM Mohamed Al-Modiahki's Twitter account, which can be accessed via John Saunders's links,was complaining on Friday about the injustice of excluding the Qataris who had organised the 2016 World Rapid/Blitz. On 23 and 24 December, his Twitter postings have stopped, which might indicate that he and his wife, former world woman's champion GM Zhu Chen who is qualified by rating , are en route to Riyadh.

We'll see tomorrow or perhaps today after the opening ceremony.

[Roger de Coverly]

I'm interested in the discretion that would have let two Qataris play even though they failed to qualify.

What in fact are the rules for who is eligible? There's presumably a lengthy list of players who got invitations with all expenses paid, but who else is allowed to play at their own expense?

This is last year's list
chess2016.com/DohaChess2016/index.php/tournament/2016-09-27-05-40-48
which contains some low rated players.

Perhaps the rule is/was that every Federation is allowed a player or two regardless of rating.

[LawrenceCooper]

What in fact are the rules for who is eligible? There's presumably a lengthy list of players who got invitations with all expenses paid, but who else is allowed to play at their own expense? Perhaps the rule is/was that every Federation is allowed a player or two regardless of rating.

http://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/wrbc_ ... 7_open.pdf

3. Participation
3.1 All players rated at least 2600 in any of the FIDE rating lists (Standard, Blitz or Rapid) from
September 2017 to October 2017 are eligible to register to play in the FIDE World Blitz & Rapid
Championships 2017.
3.2 The Organiser reserves the right to limit participation to a maximum of 250 players. In the case of
more players registering, the selection of the players will be done by FIDE based on the average standard
rating of the players for the last three months (Sep-Nov.2017)
3.3 The host country will be allowed to nominate up to a maximum of ten players not meeting the
criteria of article 3.1
3.4 FIDE reserves the right to nominate up to a maximum of twenty players not meeting the criteria
of article 3.1

http://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/wrbc_ ... _women.pdf

3. Participation
3.1 All players rated at least 2300 in any of the FIDE rating lists (Standard, Blitz or Rapid) from
September 2017 to October 2017 are eligible to register to play in the FIDE Women World Blitz & Rapid
Championships 2017.
3.2 The Organiser reserves the right to limit participation to a maximum of 150 players. In the case of
more players registering, the selection of the players will be done by FIDE based on the average standard
rating of the players for the last three months (Sep-Nov.2017)
3.3 The host country will be allowed to nominate up to a maximum of five players not meeting the
criteria of article 3.1
3.4 FIDE reserves the right to nominate up to a maximum of ten players not meeting the criteria of
article 3.1