Doha Grand Prix cancelled, moved to Elista
21 November 2008
Chessvibes.com

Not long after the contracts for the Kamsky-Topalov match were signed, FIDE had another big event to worry about. Yesterday the third Grand Prix tournament, scheduled for 13-29 December in Doha, Qatar was suddenly cancelled. FIDE hastily moved the event to Elista and the participants have been informed this morning.

Two Grand Prix tournaments have been organized thus far, in Baku, Azerbaijan (April-May 2008) and Sochi, Russia (August 2008). Four more events are scheduled: Doha (December 2008), Montreux (April 2009), Elista (August 2009) and Karlovy Vary (December 2009). The winner of the Grand Prix Series, in which currently Wang Yue is leading the overall standings, will play a match against the winner of the 2009 World Cup for the right to challenge the World Champion in 2010.

In the last couple of months, Geoffrey Borg, CEO of Global Chess, has travelled to Doha, Qatar three times to get the third Grand Prix tournament on track. Everything seemed fine, until the organizers suddenly backed out this week.

Update November 22, 12:47 CET: Yesterday we speculated that “the money isn’t there, and might have never been,” but this was wrong. Geoffrey Borg assured us this morning that ‘money was not the issue’. “FIDE will be reviewing why the tournament was cancelled,” he added.

According to one of our sources the organizers of the six Grand Prix tournaments weren’t asked in advance for deposits and everything was based on good faith; a policy FIDE might well be changing after this disappointing event.

Here is the full article.

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