ChessBase 17 - Megapaket - Edition 2024
ChessBase ist die persönliche Schach-Datenbank, die weltweit zum Standard geworden ist. Und zwar für alle, die Spaß am Schach haben und auch in Zukunft erfolgreich mitspielen wollen. Das gilt für den Weltmeister ebenso wie für den Vereinsspieler oder den Schachfreund von nebenan
PRESS RELEASE :
FRENCH
CHESS FEDERATION
October, 23th,
2006
The French Chess Federation has followed with great interest, but also with a
strong feeling of disapproval, the events which have taken place in Elista
(Russia), during the World Championship Unification match between Vladimir
Kramnik and Veselin Topalov.
Even if it is clear that the first complaint made by Veselin Topalov was
obviously outrageous and groundless, it should never have spoilt the course of
the match as it ultimately did, leaving it on the border of a dead end.
By the way, we want to stress that the disaster could be avoided only because Vladimir Kramnik took upon himself to come back to the board with a forfeited white game against him, a gesture full of sportsmanship for which the chess world should be extremely grateful.
A competent and professional Appeal's Committee, accepted by both players beforehand, would have succeeded in defusing the bomb, instead of exploding it. Furthermore, it is not acceptable to have such a Commitee composed of FIDE officials, whose job is primarily to work on the development of chess.
There's no need to go into further details of the incidents which have scattered the World Championship match Kramnik-Topalov, as they are already well known by chess enthousiasts, but also, alas, by a larger audience. Chess didn't need such a bad publicity, and there are cases where no publicity at all is better than the "toilet garbage" we have witnessed.
We understand these unfortunate events in Elista as being syptomatic of FIDE malfunctioning. FIDE’s management has repeatedly proven, during these last years, its inability to organize top events properly. We have a long list of cancelled, aborted or distorted matches and tournaments, the latest example being the 8 Candidates matches of the current World Championship cycle, for which no organizers were found at the appropriate moment.
For instance, french top player Etienne Bacrot declined to play in tournaments to prepare for his Candidates match against Gata Kamsky, which was supposed to take place in september-october, and which has finally been postponed to “who knows when”.
Now
that we have, at last, an undisputed World Chess Champion -Vladimir Kramnik -
one thing is crystal clear, and still more obvious than ever : something has to
be done before the image of chess is definitely damaged.
Our President Kirsan Iljumzhinov must draw a conclusion from all these failures.
The time has come to let professionnals take care of top level chess...
