«The issue of the bathrooms» has been resolved according to FIDE
Today the representatives of the two teams agreed on the allocation of the restrooms between the players. The rooms will be assigned to each player on a permanent basis until the end of the match. After this, the representatives of Topalov’s team made a thorough inspection of the room allocated to Mr. Kramnik. A detailed report of the inspection was prepared. It was signed by the Bulgarian side and the representatives of the Organising Committee.
The parties remained satisfied with the inspection.
I have what is perhaps a silly question: when I was looking at the pics of the rest rooms of each player earlier in this debacle, I noticed that each side had a large analysis board in their room. Can they use this during the match, eg try out moves, etc.?
It seems they are in a dead-lock at the forfeit point. If the free point is nulled Topalov will say “Bye Kramnik, and you play with FIDE!” according to Danailov:
http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n96844
I wonder if Susan has any suggestion to overcome this.
“If the result of the fifth game is cancelled we are leaving the match. It is unacceptable Kramnik to play games with everyone and most of all with FIDE and the organizers,” Mr. Danailov comments.
Toiles for score? Tempting compromise! Kramnik just can’t wait to agree.
inspection? i had all but given up on the match, but now this seems to shine a flicker of light on the possibility of their continuining. are there other positive developments?
I almost wrote about it myself. The picture was showing Topalov seating on a sofa in front of a demo board.
If this is true, the allegation that Kramnik could be using a pocket set is rendered pointless. The time stamp shown in many sites of these bathroom visits are in one-minute durations. There is no way any human can pull out a small plastic set and set up the position for analysis in such a short time.
Will you trust analysis you do in one-minute increments? I don’t think so.
It is hard for most people especially Americans to imagine a rest room and a bath room to be different rooms because we just do not see it in this country.
In Asia, a bath room over there is referred to as a comfort room. The word when mentioned to most Americans does not translate to bath room unless you have lived overseas. Also, the toilet in some parts of the world is not part of the bath room. It is physically a separate room.
I request for organizers or members of the press to post a layout of the said rooms so we can have a better understanding of the distance and layout of the place.
There is no question that an opponent who gets up for a stroll after every move is plain annoying. And in my mind is blatant display of poor sportmanship. Any thing you do on the board that annoys your opponent is simply lack of sportmasnhip including adjusting the pieces one hundred times over the course of one game.
I had complained of opponents myself over the same behavior (getting up after every move).
But you know what, if I am not doing badly on the board, do you think I would care? It only annoys us if we are in trouble. And the ugly suspicion that our opponent is cheating visits our minds to no end. On the other hand, if we are winning, we say our opponents deserve what they are getting because they spend more thinking time away from the board than on the board. And we find ourselves mute to lodge a complaint against the behavior.
Still the behavior is simply wrong. I wish chess players would show respect for their opponents when playing the game and even more so when it is the World Championship. It is a “classy” thing to do.
If you win because of other means outside the 64 squares, the rewards are short of complete. I understand a lot of money is involved but that is not an excuse to play with reckless abandon of any sense of fairness.
I had never followed a match before this one with so much interest. The fun of the first four games was almost a distant memory after this debacle.
But it is not too late for redemption. The fun we will about to witness in the last eight games of fighting chess after this incident will be more than enough to appease our anger.
I cannot wait to once again be glued to my monitor.
Andy Hortillosa