English Chess Forum

Roger Lancaster wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 18, 2018 12:31 pm

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 18, 2018 10:39 am

Well it does employ two journalists who are chessplayers, one of whom is its chess correspondent and the other of whom regularly writes chess stories for the paper.

Curiously though neither of them have eritten this particular story, which the Telegraph just happens to have picked on and in which the Telegraph just happens to have omitted to mention that their own correspondent has a substantial involvement.

I can't speak for the way daily newspapers are organised these days but, long ago when I was more familiar with the set-ups, "journalists" (meaning National Union of Journalists members, with a near-monopoly on "news" items) lived a totally separate existence to specialist contributors such as gardening/bridge/chess correspondents. I suspect that little has changed, in which case it's unreasonable to blame Malcolm.

That's as maybe, Roger, but I do find myself wondering, in a not-born-yesterday kind of way, how this particular chap came across this particular piece of information,

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 18, 2018 12:38 pm

That's as maybe, Roger, but I do find myself wondering, in a not-born-yesterday kind of way, how this particular chap came across this particular piece of information

It's hard to believe that Malcolm would have directed him to Agon for his quotes.

Oh for sure. I don't think for a moment it's a work of art directed by Malcolm, but I do think that Malcolm may have, ah, inspired it in some way.

It's entirely possible that the "News Editor" doesn't know they have a chess column...

or the Sports Editor... It's in the Sports section. Daniel Schofield is primarily a writer on rugby, with a particular interest in concussion. He occasionally writes about other sports, mainly football. Rugby and Association football have no corruption issues at all, as we know.

The only picture in the printed version is of Kirsan. The web version probably gained pictures from a junior staff member, or the computer made the decision. I did enjoy the comment that the global audience for the previous world championships was estimated at "1.5 billion".

I hasten to add that I only got the printed version as it was free at a well-known supermarket.

The Makro team seem keen on reform.

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

It had always been plausibly rumoured that at election times, debts to FIDE could be forgiven in exchange for support of the establishment candidates.

KIrsan is still protesting at his exclusion.
http://kirsan.today/en/analytics/item/2 ... ssion.html

It's all a Makro plot according to a World Championship challenger
http://kirsan.today/en/opinion/item/242 ... eputy.html

An excellent interview with Karpov here:

https://en.chessbase.com/post/interview ... arpov-2018

Well worth reading in full anyway, but it also has a couple of questions relating to the current FIDE elections. Only covering Dvorkovich and Kirsan (nothing on Karpov's views on Makro or Short).

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 19, 2018 11:26 am

The Makro team seem keen on reform.

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

It had always been plausibly rumoured that at election times, debts to FIDE could be forgiven in exchange for support of the establishment candidates.

In 2010 I asked the then FIDE Treasurer Nigel Freeman about 'debt relief' for Federations in arrears and whether this was in fact bribery. He informed me that FIDE does not forgive membership fee debts from Federations "but if external parties wished to pay on a Federations behalf, then this was outside FIDE's control". It appears this policy is no longer operative (at least for this election)

FIDE? Corruption? Who knew? Clearly, no one.

Makropoulos? What, not me! Dvorkovich? Nor me. Check out Makropoulos.

And Short? The clearly barking Makropoulos mob accuse Dvorkovich & Short of a joint campaign. Right

Peter Doggers does his usual good job of filtering sewage in this piece

Doggers, quoting Makro:

It is obvious that Short is working for Mr. Dvorkovich and even Ignatius Leong has announced on his Facebook an upcoming alliance of Short with the Russian candidate.

And indeed, the We Can Deliver You Votes Wholesale chap says this on Facebook:

Congratulations to Mr Arkady Dvorkovich - whom will be the sole candidate in Batumi.

Elections will end prematurely. Short and his team will make alliance while the Makro team should collapse well before everyone arrives in Batumi.

The Chess World will see the daylights ... late but better than never.

Thank you Mr D.

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, or for that matter whether Leong is in favour of this or not. (What I did see on Leong's page was an awful lot of Peter Long. I'm pretty sure Peter was a big Kasparov guy last time round, is that not right?)

Also from Doggers:

In a tweet, Makropoulos pointed out that Nigel Short met with Jaime in 2010, when Short was supporting Anatoly Karpov in his election battle with Ilyumzhinov....

... Short told Chess.com that he wasn't aware of Jaime's background at the time:

"Can you remind me whether I was running for office in 2010? Whether I was on anyone's ticket? It is completely absurd to make a comparison with the fact that I knew Jaime in 2010. This is totally different to putting him on your ticket in 2018."

Well, by Nigel's own admission, he didn't check out the background of people he was approaching to join the ticket he was working for. So it's not "completely absurd", at all, Nigel. It just didn't matter when he was on your side.

It's just a struggle for control. All these people change sides and form new alliances all the time. There's not the good guys over here and the bad ones over there.

David Robertson wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 19, 2018 8:05 pm

The clearly barking Makropoulos mob accuse Dvorkovich & Short of a joint campaign. Right

It does sound an odd combination, but stranger things have been seen. Remember the Campo/Kasparov double act in 1994.

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 19, 2018 9:52 pm

It does sound an odd combination

Dvorkovich is putting himself forward as a "reform" candidate as is Nigel.

The downsides of Dvorkovich would be as to how independent of Russian foreign policy objectives he would be as a FIDE President and whether as a consequence of being a senior Russian political figure, he would be on an American sanctions list.

Whether visits to the football World Cup by various national chess Presidents and Delegates were entirely independent of his successful role as a senior administrator for the FIFA World Cup remains to be seen.

Roger de Coverly wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 19, 2018 11:29 pm

Dvorkovich is putting himself forward as a "reform" candidate as is Nigel.

Strangely, there's no candidate standing on the platform of "no reform".

Its all kicked off again with more angry comments from Dr Siegel the FIDE Treasurer regarding Presidential Candidates spreading fake news. Surprise this time is that he's going for Dvorkovich instead of Nigel. Firstly, we have a statement from FIDE relating to the issue of whether federations in debt will be allowed to vote. The statement includes a letter from Dvorkovich and one from Dr Siegel which accuses Dvorkovich/Dvokovitch (Siegel spells his name differently) of spreading fake news in a pathetic attempt to terrify federations that are in debt for his own electioneering benefit.