The squabbling in chess politics never ends, does it?

Now there are disagreements between UEP (the company that organized the 2008 World Chess Championship between Anand and Kramnik) and FIDE about the 2010 - 2011 cycle... it seems to have started with the fact that FIDE's logo on promotional material was too small!

Statement by Josef Resch, president of UEP:

http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5448


And a response from Kirsan Ilyumzhinov of FIDE:

http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5449

I never payed attention before, but looking at the pictures from Anand vs. Kramnik match in Bonn, one really does have to search to find the FIDE logo. You can only see Gazprom and Evonik logos. But then again FIDE didn't do much for the match or give any money for it. They just took their 20%.

FIDE publishes regulations for 2010 Candidates matches.

Few interesting points:

• originally it was said that the organiser can chose wherther to stage a round-robin tournament or to stage matches. The tournament idea seems to be out now. There will be Candidates matches.
• 1st and 2nd round will consist of 4 games, the final will cosist of 6 games.
  
• All possible replacements will come from Grand Prix 2008/09 final standings.
  
• There are some novelties concearning tie-breaks. After two rapid games (25 min + 10 sec), there will be up to five 2-game blitz mini matches at 5 min + 3 sec. Only then the armageddon game (black only needs to draw) will come, which is also modified: white gets 5 minutes, black gets 4 minutes and there will be 3 seconds increment from move 61 onwards.
  
• Candidates should be played in last quarter of 2010, and the World Championship match in September 2011.

Anand vs. Topalov in Bulgaria?


President of the Bulgarian chess federation says that Bulgaria will make a bid for the World Championship match.

This seems to be the only serious bid until now (you can tell that there are no bids because FIDE bumped up the bidding procedure news twice on their site )
Actually it's not a bid yet, since they didn't officially submited it yet (and won't do so until September), but I believe they have serious intentions to really organise the match and that this is more than just another rumour (like in other cases).



This match will be the last act of the world championship cycle that was heavely influenced by the 2006 re-unification match and it's consequences. The cycle started with the 2007 World Cup, followed by the Challenger match. 2008 quasi rematch between Anand and Kramnik could also be seen as a part of this cycle.

Note that this 2007-2010 cycle has nothing to do with Grand Prix and in previous post mentioned 2010 Candidates (which is all part of the 2008-2011 cycle). It's this overlapping of cycles (with constant changes) that are confusing anyone who isn't actively following things.

As was mentioned, Bulgaria will make a bid for the World Championship match between Anand and Topalov.

http://previews.chessdom.com/topalov-anand-sofia


I think it's settled then, because I don't see Indians or any other "neutral" sponsors to surpase this bid.

"Most likely, the last Grand Prix will take place early next year. The last few months of this year will be very busy for players who participate in Grand Prix - European Team Championship, World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk and then the World Team Championship. Therefore we decided to move the last Grand Prix for the next year at the request of the players. FIDE will always try to accommodate the players and allow them to also participate in commercial tournaments."

says FIDE Deputy President, Georgios Makropoulos.
http://interviews.chessdom.com...kropoulos-azerbaijan

Azerbaijan is interested in organizing the 2010 Candidates. Final decision should be made at FIDE Congress in October.


Some dates:
November 20th - December 15th : World Cup
(December 17th - January 2nd): original dates for last Grand Prix
January 3rd - January 14th: World Team Championship
January 15th - January 31st: Wijk aan Zee
middle/end of February - beginning/middle of March: Linares

I don't know where they are going to find an empty slot to organize the last Grand Prix. Maybe sometime after Linares, end of March or April. But this is not early next year then



P.S.: It's more likely that there is still noone to organize the last Grand Prix, than they are concearned about the players

Bulgarians submit an official bid for Anand vs. Topalov World Championship match. Turkey and Singapore are supposed to be in the race too.

http://www.sofiaecho.com/2009/...-match-in-april-2010

http://www.chessdom.com/news-2...and-turkey-singapore

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

None of the bids had the required guarantees
http://www.fide.com/component/...-anand--gm-v-topalov


So the bidding procedure was extended to October 15th (didn't we already play this deadline extension game before? )

Last Grand Prix is supposed to be held somewhere in Astrakhan end of April 2010.

http://susanpolgar.blogspot.co...fide-grand-prix.html

On October 1st there were no guarantees, but now everything is settled - World Championship match between Anand and Topalov will be in Sofia, Bulgaria from April 4th to April 24th, 2010.


http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5840
http://tournaments.chessdom.com/topalov-anand-2010

Azerbaijan has shown interest in organizing the 2010 Candidates matches, but since (to put it mildly) Azeris and Armenians don't like each other all that much (I think tehnically they are still in war) and Levon Aronian has already qualified for Candidates, this brings some (mostly political) difficulties. Azeris don't want to do anything with Armenians and vice versa. So now only part of Candidates should be held in Azerbaijan and the other part (with Aronian) in some other country. This of course brings new difficultes because the host country can nominate 1 player. But now there will be two hosts, but only one place.

http://www.chessdom.com/news-2...an-candidate-matches


Never a dull moment

Now London is given the option to host the 2012 World Championship...

London given option for World Championship 2012