HERE COME THE POLITENESS POLICE
By ANDY SOLTIS
New York Post
July 1, 2007 — CHESS SERIOUS players are not known for displaying civility toward their opponents. If they stop short of snarling at the person sitting opposite them, they’re considered models of good behavior.
Now the world chess federation (FIDE) is taking the extreme step of policing politeness.
“Any player who does not shake hands” with his opponent before a game in a FIDE event “or deliberately insults” the opponent will be forfeited according to a bizarre new policy announced last week.
FIDE has an “ethics commission” which is going to develop further behavioral guidelines, the federation said.
In addition, FIDE approved a sweeping new world championship system. Every two years, there will be a large qualifying tournament, the World Cup, to choose a title challenger, who will then take on the championship in a match.
Here is the full article.
In the full article:
” FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov said in a “compromise decision,” former champ Veselin Topalov will not be seeded into the last championship tournament of the old system, scheduled for Mexico City in September.
Instead he will play a match with champion Vladimir Kramnik, if he wins in Mexico, or the winner of the next World Cup, if Kramnik doesn’t.”
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I kept writing that the design is fundamentally wrong, and so it is. So, if I understand correctly, if Kramnik fails to win Mexico, it will not be him, but Topalov who can play against the winner for the world champion title. Okay, let me make a forecast right here and now: we will again have a split world champion title (un-unified again), if Kramnik fails to win Mexico. Why? Quite simple. He will use the exact same reasoning he did before the unification:nobody beat him in a match. What will be different, if he fails to win in Mexico? Absolutely nothing, still nobody beat him in a match. Why should he now walk away and admit that somebody else is the world champion? He didn’t before.
Luckily, he appears to be the strongest these days, there is a reasonable hope he will win in Mexico. That would be the best for the chess world, otherwise I can see all the unification efforts to evaporate again.
Gabor
Should we get a Polonium-210 bio-scanner machine to check hands before we shake with the uncivil chess opponents?
“Any player who does not shake hands” with his opponent before a game in a FIDE event “or deliberately insults” the opponent will be forfeited according to a bizarre new policy announced last week.”
Have they got a policy on joy buzzers yet?
There’s currently no rule against wearing thick gardening gloves.
No insulting your opponent!
My local club will collapse!
Well, at least in spirit this move is in the right direction, and in many ways even echoes Susan’s motto: “Win with grace, lose with dignity”.
Secondly, the biannual World Cup qualifying sounds good, as well (perhaps even Susan will come out of retirement and compete !!!!). This should increase participation (I’m leaning toward coming out of retirement just for this event).