CHESS #567

While awaiting a decision on the aborted drug test in the final round of the Olympiad, Vassily Ivanchuk stormed to victory in the Benidorm round robin. The Ukrainian world no 3 took first with 8 points from 10 games, ahead of Alexey Shirov (7.5) and Sergey Tiviakov (5.5). Meanwhile, Hou Yifan (born Feb 1994) became the youngest woman GM in the world, a title that was long-overdue given her impressive 2578 rating.

However, all this was overshadowed by a huge controversy over the next world title cycle due to suggested systemic changes during the Dresden Olympiad. Earlier, the next set of candidates was supposed to be picked out of the ongoing Grand Prix system. A pool of top players were each invited to play four of a total of six GPs. Their performances were summed up to put the Candidates together.

Now this GP qualifier has been replaced or rather, semi-replaced by a Candidates tournament. The details of the new qualifier proposal are complicated and not worth going into right now because there will undoubtedly be further changes.

At any rate, top players understandably have objections to this continuous chopping and changing of the title qualification norms. Magnus Carlsen has just withdrawn from the GP where he was joint leader.

Alexey Shirov and Levon Aronyan have both written open letters that suggest that they will both opt out of the cycle. Morozevich never joined the system anyhow! That means a lot of the credible candidates are out of the system — even more so if Ivanchuk is also banned as a result of the Dresden drug fiasco.

As a result, the next title cycle itself is likely to be devalued. Next year Anand will defend his title against the winner of the Kamsky-Topalov match assuming that match itself takes place at all. After that, everything is in the air.

Part of the problem is undoubtedly money. Doha and Montreaux have withdrawn as hosts for two legs of the six-leg GP. While Yerevan has offered to substitute one city, the other event has a big question mark against it. In the current global climate, finding new sponsors isn’t likely to be very easy. Even Fide President Kirsan’s coffers are emptying out because his personal fortune is tied to the price of crude and natural gas.

Hence, Elista cannot pick up the slack as it normally does. The Diagram, BLACK TO MOVE, (Ivanchuk Vs Tiviakov, Benidorm 2008) is the prelude to a startling collapse after a positionally shady exchange with 17. -Bxc3?! 18. Rxc3 b5 19. Rec1 Rac8 20. cxb5! Rxc3 21. bxa6 Nf6 22. f3 R3c5 23. Rxc5 Rxc5 24. b4 Qa3 25. bxc5 dxc5 26. Bh6 Nd7 27. Bb5 (1-0). Never concede the Dragon Bishop!