FIDE Vice President GM Zurab Azmaiparashvili fired back at GM Nigel Short for his recent comments:
I am fond of my profession, and of chess players. For all my conscious life I have been trying to make everything favorable for them. I think that the Calvia incident is proof enough that I do care for the protection of their interests and for the prestige of chess!
I am one of FIDE’s leaders and a friend and a team member of FIDE President Mr. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov (who has done a great deal for chess), but I am free in my decisions. It is important to have a clear conscience. It has been this way until now and it will be the same way in the future. This is my credo, and I hope that the favorable progress which is observed by establishment of “Global Chess” will make FIDE’s decisions better and effective, and that its work will change to the benefit of chess.
As for the urgent problem which your webpage has been actively covering recently, I think that it should be jointly decided by all of us – it is that serious. As a lyrical digression I would like to add that there are many places in the world where people do not have electric power, not to mention the Internet and modern technology. So let us hold the most prestigious world competitions in such places – both we and chess players will calm down! Everybody will know that they are playing against an individual human opponent and not a machine or any group. Of course in this case a big show will be out of the question, and no prize fund will be offered, to avoid offending local population. But still – the end justifies the means!
GM Zurab Azmaiparashvili
FIDE Vice President
The full letter was published on ChessBase and can be read here.
Here is the article about cheating in the Washington Times by David Sands.
Good for Azmai! Short is a jerk.
Azmai won a blitz game against Short on playchess.com today (saturday)!
It is true that Short has character flaws – but so does Azmai.
If I had to choose between them as head of FIDE (perish the thought), I would choose Short every time.
Short is a serious trouble maker…
shooting off all kinds of garbage out of his mouth. First, he sits and eats with Topalov before every game at San Luis, then accuses him of cheating… he needs to control himself.
Zurab Azmaiparashvili wrote:
“As for referring to me as a ‘dunderhead’ and claiming I won the European Championship by cheating, I will bring Mr. Short as one of FIDE officials to account before the FIDE Ethics Commission for dishonoring me as a chess player. I have already filed a statement to initiate the process. Nigel will not be able to pretend ignorance of English and say that he implied a ‘mistake’ instead of ‘cheating’.”
Azmaiparashvili’s fingerfehler was a mistake: I’ve done the same thing. To blatantly disregard the rules, as Azmaiparashvili subsequently did, is indeed cheating.
So, taking back a move is a ‘mistake’ and not cheating according to Zurab?
Come on, if you deliberately break the FIDE rules of chess it is cheating, and Zurab has confirmed this himself afterwards. Saying it is a ‘mistake’ does not make it any lesser cheating. Otherwise we would make ‘mistakes’ all the time.
Well it is only a mistake if you get caught.
People who lie cheat and steal always think they are so smart.
They strongly believe that those who tell the truth, pay for things and are honest are dumb.
By the way, I have always like Nigel. I really dont have respect for Azmai. I do not believe that Azmai tells the truth, pays for things and is honest in all his dealings.
Short is the kind of guy who would write anything given the correct amount of money…. He has neither a soul nor any dignity.
Well, at least the standup comedians of the world don’t need to worry about losing their jobs to Zurab.
Typical FIDE hypocrisy. Topalov makes an arse of himself and they don’t say a word. Short makes one of himself and they don’t like it. Perhaps if Zurab and co. had done their job and not treated this like a big joke, then neither Topalov nor Short would have offended.
Zurab is a big time cheater and he can not control himself. Look at the photographs below :
http://www.chessbase.com/eventarticle.asp?newsid=2004
Where did this happen ? In Spain. A member of European Union. European Union has very strict rules for human rights.
So why didn’t Zurab go tho the European Human Rights Court and sue Spanish government and try to get a hefty amount of compensation for his injuries ?
Because the police station had evidence supporting what a troublemaker he was. He did NOT have a case in court.
Zurab is the one who gave the tapes of Kramnik walking in and out of bathroom (for which the numbers was greatly exaggerated by Danailov) as the appeals committe later decided. Why did he do that ? Because he had a deal with Radjabov and wanted Topalov to be the unified world champ and play with Radja.
Azmai is a disgusting person. He does not even admit that he took back the move deliberately and cheated.
Technically Malakhov was also in violation of FIDE rules for sportingly allowing the takeback. It ended up costing him the European championship. Azmai may not be a nice guy but to call him a cheat for that is unfair.
Max,
“Technically Malakhov was also in violation of FIDE rules for sportingly allowing the takeback.”
That is true indeed.
“It ended up costing him the European championship. Azmai may not be a nice guy but to call him a cheat for that is unfair.”
I’m not calling him a cheat just because he is not a nice guy. He took the move back, and being a grandmaster of chess, he should know that taking a move back in chess is not allowed. No matter what the intensions were it is called cheating.
Zurab Azmaiparahsvili has got a trouble with spanish law.
Spanish law was not good enough for him an he kicked a policeman whos was doing his job
(no one in spain has ever heard of trouble in any chess event with the police until this subject came to Calvià)
I don’t know what Short said, but I wouldn’t really trust what this Zurab Azmaiparahsvili could say.