Hemorrhage

By Frank Pestaño
Chessmoso

THE choice of Libya for a tournament as important as the Men’s World Championship, which starts later today, was a mistake. Despite all his good intentions, Fide president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has been overtaken by the ugly world of politics. Although he affirmed that “Libya has twice confirmed in writing that all qualified players will get their visas,” the Libyans have been saying otherwise and the championship, at this late stage, is facing a hemorrhage of withdrawals by key players.

Alexander Morozevich of Russia and Yuri Shalman of USA are not coming. Also, a closer look at the 128-player field shows that Israeli qualifiers Boris Gelfand, Emil Sutovsky and Ilia Smirin have chosen not to play. Earlier, American Jews Gulko, Shabalov and Onischuk withdrew from the tournament. Will there be more? Or more ominous, will there be a championship?

The Royal Dutch Chess Federation has urged their players Ivan Sokolov, Loek Van Wely and Sergie Tiviakov to withdraw and has written Fide to cancel the championship.

At the start, nine out of top 16 players are not competing to protest the exclusion of Kasparov from the championship, and this brings us to the Prague Agreement.

PRAGUE AGREEMENT. This is an arrangement between Fide, the Association of Chess Professionals (ACP), Garry Kasparov, and the reigning classical champion Vladimir Kramnik to unite the World Championship. The format was for the Fide champion to play against Kasparov and for Kramnik to play Peter Leko, the qualifier in the candidate’s matches of the ACP. The winners will then play each other to decide who will be the undisputed world champion.

This far, Kasparov has agreed to play the winner in Tripoli, while the Kramnik-Leko match will take place this September in Switzerland.

Finally, I hope that there will be no more withdrawals in Tripoli as there are dark clouds in the horizon. Due to recent developments, the US State Department is taking a hard look at Libya and reviewing its options.

EYE OF THE NEEDLE. Passing through the eye of the needle best describes Mark Paragua and Ronald Dableo’s first round assignments. Ronald Dableo, with a rating of 2426, will meet Liviu-Dieter Nisipineu of Romania, who has a rating of 2692. On the other hand, Mark Paragua, rated 2529, will try his luck against Moldavia’s Victor Bologan, rated 2665.

Liviu-Dieter, 28, is called the modern Tal for his combinative style of play. Virtually unknown prior to the 1999 World Championship in Las Vegas, he won a string of matches against some of the world’s strongest players, defeating Shirov, Ivanchuk, Azmaiparashvili, Leitao and finally losing to
Khalifman, who went on to win the championship, in the semifinals via tiebreak games.

Victor Bologan, 35, can compete with the world’s top players. He showed this in Dortmund 2003, Europe’s strongest tournament, when he emerged the clear winner in a double round-robin event against Kramnik, Leko, Naiditsch, Anand and Radjadov.

The format of the championship is a knockout match, like in tennis. The players will face off in two games handling both white and black pieces. If there is a tie, they will go to the active mode of play and if tied again into blitz games.

GMs Eugene Torre and Bong Villamagor have been training Mark and Ronald for this championship with the help of Bobby Ang, a computer expert, who provides technical support. Eugene has said that there is a possibility of an upset by both players if they can manage to bring the match into the blitz games. Even if they lose the first round, they will still go home with US $6,000 each! Good luck to both of you gentlemen.

TRIVIA. This world champion once withdrew from a chess tournament because a woman was playing in the event (she was Lisa Lane, US woman champion).

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