I just received news from the Office of FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov that he has nominated Ray Robson and Fabiano Caruana for the World Cup.
He has also nominated Tkachiev, Vladislav (FRA), Ghaem Maghami, Ehsan (IRI), Cheparinov, Ivan (BUL) and Pelletier, Yannick (SUI).
I am so happy for Ray and Fabiano for having this chance! Congratulations! Thank you President Ilyumzhinov! It is a great decision to nominate Caruana and Robson!
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
FIDE President rocks! So do you! I am sure your blog had something to do with it? Don’t be modest now…
Way to go Ray!
Wow! Great news for Robson. Caruana was a logical choice, so I am not surprised. Robson will prove his worthiness.
if ray does not get his final norm at the spice cup, would it be possible to get a norm in this tournament considering the elimination format if he got far enough in the tourney?
Yes. There are regulations to handle norms at the World Cup in the FIDE handbook.
Fabiano Caruna only is justified!
There should be some norms recommended even for President nominations. Other wise this will happen!
What is the logic in nominating Ghaem Magami Ehsan(2589)? Just for Persian representation? Why not Parimargen Negi or Bu Xiangzhi or Harikrishna?
Tkachiev???????? Just check what happened during 3rd round at Kolkotta international and last round of Olympiad. Honourable President also promotes beverage companies?
Yannik Pelletier?? No point in criticism. Wastage of time.
I think it is nice to have some strong young players participating at the World Cup, however, the “President’s” other choices are just awful.
Ghaem Magami? Pelletier?? Neither of them will have the slightest of chances at the World Cup, they simply take spaces away from more talented and stronger players.
Pretty sure this is a concession to these players as they had participated in the qualifiers before eventually cancelled out. Anyway, ridiculous and just another crude FIDE story…
Yes, Kirsan does our will.
Once we abduct the young chess stars we will clone them and invade planet Sloan with millions of Robson/Caruana chess prodigies to liberate the young women held hostage on planet Sloan!
Our plan cannot fail.
ET
No sweat. Both Caruan and Robson are going to get clobbered in the first round by 2700+ GMs. Mark my words.
Any decision by the FIDE President is a controversial one, even Ray Robson (from a European perspective). What about Anish Giri, who is higher-rated and already has the GM title?
This and other decisions may have been influenced by many criteria, including geographic considerations. I guess the players Ravanan mentioned didn’t have much of a chance because there are already many representatives from both China and India … . And I would also question the wildcard for Cheparinov: He was already President’s nominee for the Grand Prix tournaments and “didn’t impress” (but Bulgaria seems to have some influence within FIDE?).
At the limit, it might have made more sense to fill the field with players that narrowly missed qualification (there were gruelling tiebreaks at both the European and American continental championships).
BTW, @Anonymous 3:19PM: I guess Caruana has a reasonable chance to reach at least round 2. He may well be in the upper half of the field by ELO and thus get an ‘easy’ opponent in the first round.
You dufus are so clueless. Robson and Caruana are both Susan’s boys.
So now you know who’s really got the big cojones and clout.
“So now you know who’s really got the big cojones and clout.”
Susan, obviously. 😉
Everybody had a chance to qualify for one of the 118 availbale spots, no? So stop complaining why someone is or isn’t there.
President’s nominees are just what it says they are – President’s nominees. He can chose whoever he wants. The only restriction is that they have to be from different countries (which they are). If you were FIDE President you would chose who you’d want.
It’s same with organizer nominees – they can nominate anybody. And of course they will all be Russian.