The President's Cup: Azerbaijan vs. FIDE World - Baku
May 7th - May 9th

This message has been edited. Last edited by: KHollister,

Player Standings



Official Site

You can download the games here.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: KHollister,

There were some technical difficulties in the first round so the 1st round games are incomplete. Since the official site hasn't been updated yet, the results for the first round are unknown (except that Radjabov drew with Anand).

Anyway, it seems like "the World" is leading after the first day.

3 rounds are schedulled for tomorrow, starting at 16.00 local time (click here to convert to your time zone)

Broadcast of this event isn't working at all, so it is impossible to follow it. Also the official site isn't updated at all. I had to search on other sites, just to know the results, or even who played against whom. The official site is uselesss.

The way things are now, the players in Baku are playing just for themselves and possibly for few local spectators. The rest of the world has nothing from this event

Pitty. It could have been an interesting event, if done properly. Now it is just anti-propaganda fo chess.


Hopefully they will make a much much better job with World Championship between Anand and Topalov, if they get it.


Tomorrow last 3 rounds are schedulled. Hopefully with a working transmission (but I wouldn't count on it )

All the games are finally available. Lets hope the live broadcast works on the final day too.



By the way: President's Cup is organized annually to honour the late President of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev.

Here is the picture of Aliyev and certain young lads:


The boys on the picture are (left to right):
Rauf Mamedov (10 years old), Vugar Gashimov (12), Teimour Radjabov (11) and Gadir Guseinov (11)

11 years later these boys are 4 out of 5 best players in the country. Only the "oldest" (Mamedyarov) is missing on the picture from 1998

It was not the result Azeris expected and hoped for. They lost all rounds except the first one. Radjabov is the only one from team Azerbaijan with a non-negative score. On the other hand in World's team everyone has a positive score.

End result is: World 21.5 - Azerbaijan 10.5



Live transmision was the same as yesterday and the day before. It worked only halfway through the first round. I will upload the games once they become available.