Olympiad Chess Year: 2010 Crimes, Campaigns, Chaos, Carlsen and Campomanes

The 39th Chess Olympiad is happening this year in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia and already we have so much to laugh and worry about.

Let me give you a monotonous run-down of what has struck the great (and often paranoid) chess world in the past 7 months:

Crimes and Campaigns

We have a lot going on here.

Let's start with chess' highest, strongest and mightiest office, FIDE. Anatoly Karpov and a couple of national chess federations sued FIDE demanding that the incumbent president of the federation, and his ticket, be disqualified from the elections this fall.

Want to see the point of contention each side is taking on? Here's Dylan Loeb McClain's take on the situation:

The lawsuit, which includes the chess federations of the United States, France, Germany, Switzerland and Ukraine as plaintiffs, challenges the legitimacy of Ilyumzhinov’s nominations by Russia, Argentina and Mexico. It also questions the nominations of Beatriz Marinello for vice president on Ilyumzhinov’s slate. As each candidate is required to have a slate to fill each major office in the federation, and to have at least one candidate be a woman, Karpov is trying to invalidate Ilyumzhinov’s candidacy by eliminating Marinello from his ticket.

The question of which candidate Russia is supporting has been a point of bitter contention throughout the election.

Both candidates are Russian and the rules of the federation, which is also known by the acronym FIDE (for Fédération Internationale des Échecs), state that a candidate for office must either have the nomination of his or her home country, or of a federation of which the candidate has been a member for at least a year.

Karpov, who also has the nominations of France, Germany and Switzerland, claims that a vote by a majority of the Russian Chess Federation on May 14 to endorse him was legitimate and that he therefore is the Russian nominee.

After that vote, Arkady Dvorkovich, the chairman of the board of supervisors of the federation, and a high-ranking Kremlin official, took control of the federation and decreed that the vote was invalid. In a meeting on June 28, a quorum of members of the federation voted to give Dvorkovich sole authority to act on the federation’s behalf until a new meeting can be called in October — after the FIDE elections. Dvorkovich then reaffirmed an earlier letter he sent to FIDE in April endorsing Ilyumzhinov for president.

Just what is it in FIDE that makes everyone want to be there? ICC, FICS, ChessDOTcom and all other sites can give you that unlimited blitz and lightning games so I don't think that's what they are fighting for.

Visit The Gambit by Dylan Loeb McClain for more on this.  

The world's most popular blogger GM Susan Polgar has been sued:

The investigation conducted by the U.S. Secret Service revealed that Alexander was a known associate of Polgar’s. Specifically, Alexander was a Seattle area-based webmaster and business associate of Polgar. Alexander worked for the University of Washington’s Internet Technology (IT) department. As part of Alexander’s association with Polgar, Alexander served as the webmaster for several websites owned by Polgar including ChessDiscussion.com. Based on Alexander’s ownership of the IP address used to gain unauthorized access to the Hough account, it was suspected that Alexander was a source for Polgar of the privileged material. 

 Net-hack to the max!

Chaos

World Chess Champion Robert "Bobby" Fischer continue to grace the headlines even after his death. He left no will and testament but gave us hope that his genes will continue to walk on Earth. A tissue sample was taken from his remains in Iceland to determine whether the former world chess champion is really the father of a Filipino child.

Chaos after the result is released I fear!

Magnus Carlsen

He is the world's number at the age of 19 and recently started his fashion modeling career. This is very, very good for chess. tennis has John McEnroe and Andre Agassi for that edgy image of the sports. Add Kornikova and all those beautiful, sexy hard hitters and you've got what you need to bring the sports to mainstream.

Carlsen can do this too for chess and at least a dozen of beautiful Alexandra Kosteniuks!

Florencio Campomanes

Dead at 83 but left a legacy for the Philippine chess community and the rest of the world. What can I say about a man whom I have never met personally and knows about him so little? Read Florencio Campomanes from Wikipedia.

It is the year for Chess Olympiad and already, we have all the C's we can think of.