Chess politics

According to the newspaper Kommersant, the Russian Chess Federation (RCF) has appealed to the world chess federation's director Kirsan Ilumzhinov with a request to change the standing order of this year’s chess championships. The request is about the shift of the challenger's competition from Baku to Kazan and switching to a match-tournament system in place of a knockout system for the competition among women. The RCF considers that the existing order violates the rights of some grandmasters and even more brings into question the carrying out of the xhampionship.

The case is that eight best grandmasters should participate in the competition, including Armenian Levon Aronyan and Azerbaijani Teimur Radjabov - the best chess players of Grand Prix series.

The FIDE has already announced that the capital city of Azerbaijan, Baku, will host the competition. Meanwhile, Levon Aronyan, the winner of the preliminary round of the Grand Prix, and the fifth player in the world rankings, announced he wouldn't play challenger's matches in Azerbaijan. The Armenian chess federation supported his decision. Aronyan's refusal may leave the organizers of the Championship in a predicament. The RCF believes this in fact means the breakdown of the event and proposes Kazan as the host city. The prize fund will amount to 420,000 euros.
It is still unclear how FIDO will deal with the reaction of Baku if the event is moved.

Meanwhile, FIDO will consider the proposal at the presidential council of the federation, which will take place in Norway next week and has so refrained from any comments. The barring of Azerbaijan from hosting this tournament will badly affect the development of chess in the former Soviet state.

Georgii Saralidze. Exclusively for VK