Saturday, August 30, 2008
USCF Speaks About the WWCC!
Well - sort of. There is a report up now after the conclusion of Round 1 indicating that Rohonyan must go to a play-off against Zhukova while Zatonskih "got two days extra rest!" Whooppee!
Mentioned at the end was the fact that America's best hope for earning a WWCC title, IM Irina Krush, declined to participate in the Championship because of security concerns (like, yeah, why would anyone in their right mind want to go to an area where bombs could fly at any second, separatist terrorists could attack at any second, or you could be abducted by bandits on a city street - or even out of your hotel room). Seems to me the chess femmes who showed up have placed very little value on their lives: $3,750, exactly, for surviving the first round; and only $5,500 for surviving the second round. That's a rather sad commentary on the state of women's chess, isn't it.
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2 comments:
hmmph ... I think it speaks for the sad state of affairs in general. The Israeli passport fiasco which caught GM Vadim Milov a few years ago makes the location debacle a recurring theme with international tournaments. Maybe eventually countries like Canada who never seem to anger anybody will be graced with a FIDE strong international tournament.
You are right. I only wish the USA and Canada would host more really important events like the WWCC. But with FIDE,it's all about money, and there is little big dollar corporate sponsorship here, when all is said and done. Lots of financial support for scholastic chess, but not much for professional-level chess, although sponsorship for the U.S. Chess League is encouraging. That's not offering the equivalent of 400,000 Euros, though, which is the current pot of gold for the Bilbao Grand Slam event taking place at the moment.
Perhaps the St. Louis Chess Club will fund some big-money international events in addition to Susan Polgar's SPICE. There needs to be a coordinated effort to get national press publicity and general public interest stirred up (like the press did back in the days of Fischer and Spaasky) to turn out big crowds for such events. We already know the events are covered in chess-related websites and blogs. But the general press ignores them here in the US.
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