Kasparov vs Ilyumzhinov: the FIDE Presidency battle begins

[Chris Rice]

"Presumably the offer of Russian scholarships was unconditional and in no way connected to Nigeria being expected to commit to vote for the Kirsan ticket at the Presidential election."

every offer is conditional, to "presume" otherwise is naive, if it were not it would have been made years ago.

Absolutely Patrick. There was a FIDE Press Release appearing today regarding "Working Meetings in Angola and Nigeria". Considering the response on the Kasparov site pointed out upthread by David you will notice that virtually all of the report concentrates on Angola with only the last three pictures mentioning Nigeria at all. Trying not to be too obvious this time we find the sentence regarding the Angolan visit "At the meetings the leaders discussed the possibility of mutual cooperation, in particular, the training of specialists in the Russian sports universities, rendering the methodological and systematic assistance on CiS programme, holding the seminars for arbiters, trainers and organizers." whereas there is no mention at all of the alleged inducements offered to the Nigerians.

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

[Nigel Short]

The IP address of the "FIDE Not For Sale" campaign dirt blogspot has been traced to... Athens. What a surprise!

Can you provide evidence of this? The website is fidenot4sale.blogspot.com and blogspot.com is hosted in the US, isn't it?

Yep that IP suggestion is nonsense.

They posted a link to the blog on Susan Polgar's poll. The IP address showed.... After searching, the origin was found to be Athens.

[John McKenna]

So "the origin was found to be Athens".
No chance it could be from the FIDE office in Athens?
(That presupposes they still do have one there.)

[Chris Rice]

The IP address locator will only usually give you the rough geographical area ie unlikely to get the actual building names. I was wondering what IP address Nigel saw, when I tried to track the source, like Angus, all I got was the blogspot domain address where the server was in Mountain View, California (IP address was 74.125.192.191). Of course the FIDEnot4sale address could be emanating from the FIDE office in Athens, it's possible I think. If Nigel had the AP address we could cross-check and would at least be able to verify its Athens I imagine. Funny thing is when I was trying out the IP locator I checked fide.com and its domain originates in Germany.
I hope in any event they do find out who is behind that web site as it clearly now is just pumping out anti-Kasparov propaganda, without even an attempt at being objective, from an anonymous source and that is pretty low.

[Nigel Short]

I am not a computer savvy person and I didn't do the search myself. I got the information from someone I trust who has been working on this for a little while. I have no reason at all to doubt it is true. If I had to speculate, I would say it is unlikely to emanate from the FIDE offices directly. However, there are plenty of people in Greece who have a financial interest in Makropoulos being Deputy President and the FIDE offices being in Athens.

[Chris Rice]

I am not a computer savvy person and I didn't do the search myself. I got the information from someone I trust who has been working on this for a little while. I have no reason at all to doubt it is true. If I had to speculate, I would say it is unlikely to emanate from the FIDE offices directly. However, there are plenty of people in Greece who have a financial interest in Makropoulos being Deputy President and the FIDE offices being in Athens.

For what it's worth, proof or not, my guess is that you are right.

[John McKenna]

I've been barking up the wrong tree then.
There was I thinking that Nigel was trying to say that persons unknown were trying to put HIM in the frame.
!?

[John McKenna]

Here on the Western Front we have entered a period of INTERNECINE! conflict between two of the 'Allies' (Br. & Am.)
But, all is quiet because we are in a lull in a submarine phase...
All the big fish have dived under - after a recent, inconclusive exchange of fire on the surface.
They are licking wounds and formulating fresh battle-plans, no doubt, when they should be talking peace.
Even the anti-submarine patrol aircraft (the 'bloggers' - no names no pack drill) and navel-gazing 'destroyers' (again no names - loose lips sink ships) have scuttled off back to base.
All that remains to be seen is the grey sky and the cruel sea...

Edit: Even before I posted a big American surfaced and just after a 'blogger' and a 'destroyer' exchanged fire - with each other!

Oh what a crazy war.

[Carl Hibbard]

The mysterious Bill Warth may be connected to one of the IT administrators or more likely he does not exist at all. TWIC’s Mark Crowther certainly seems to think so anyway.

It appears we now have Bill Warth trying to register an account

[Chris Rice]

The mysterious Bill Warth may be connected to one of the IT administrators or more likely he does not exist at all. TWIC’s Mark Crowther certainly seems to think so anyway.

It appears we now have Bill Warth trying to register an account

Carl - this isn't a quote from John but from me, John usually quotes Shakespeare, old 1970s pop lyrics, piffwibble, WW2 anecdotes and tales from the American War of Independence. It's brilliant if Bill Wrath's real, let him tell his story!

[Carl Hibbard]

It's brilliant if Bill Warth's real, let him tell his story!

It is unlikely I will be approving the account

[Chris Rice]

But isn't he the key link to the Kasparov-Leong stuff? Or do you suspect this is a wind-up?

[Chris Rice]

Three more Russian scholarship stipends handed out today, this time to the Cameroons and the promise of more....sorry the promise of possible future inclusion in the Chess in Schools programme assuming...they vote the right way. Eagerly awaiting news of what Mali, Gabon and the Central African Republic will be getting.

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

[John McKenna]

JustinHorton(Tue.)>... What a weird mirror-quality (Kasparov-Leong/Kirsan-Paulson) the contest has taken on...<

That's rather apt because we're through the looking glass here, people, ever since the unorthodox game of courier "Bill Warth" (seen hot-rodding in Southern Califoria's dry lakes pre-WWII) started the ball rolling.

Don't forget the above - I also cover quotes from old hotrod mags.
That's where you'll find A real Bill Warth!

[NickFaulks]

http://kasparov2014.com/2014/02/17/join ... elections/

Interesting link. At the top, in one of the revolving comments, GK questions what happens when a potential sponsor googles the FIDE President. Good point, that is a powerful reason why it would be nice to be rid of him, old story, everybody knows that. So how about after GK takes over?

In 2000 the Bermuda Bowl, bridge's equivalent of the World Teams, was held in Bermuda, with seven figure sponsorship from a local financial management company. Suppose they now contemplated sponsoring a big chess event, and searched Kasparov+Bermuda, what do you think they would find?

They would find an interview where, in hunting for something to back up his unsupported allegations of financial impropriety within the FIDE accounts, he produces this slur on Nigel Freeman. "The treasurer is from Bermuda — and you can tell me what normally financial consultants from Bermuda do."

Will they dismiss this as a good humoured jape? At the risk of confirming my already known status as a paid Putin agent provocateur, I must express my doubts.