Beyond FICS
FIDE held a press conference last Friday, the 2nd of
November, to publicize the FIDE Championships in Moscow
to be held November 25th-December 14th 2001 (Kremlin)
and the final in the Hall of Columns January 16th-26th 2002.
The FIDE President alongside the current World Champion
Vishy Anand, and top rated rapid player Mickey Adams
also announced the inauguration of the FIDE Grand Prix,
a series of 5 events in the first year, which will be
expanded in subsequent years. It will run from February
to October and will be held in the United Arab Emirates
(Feb), India (Mar), Croatia (Apr), and Moscow (May),
culminating at the Grand Prix Final in September/October
in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Top 32 players in the
world by rating plus the top 16 in the World Chess
Championships will be amongst the competitors.
Ilyumzhinov is still hopeful that Kasparov will
participate. Late next year there will also be a
man-machine event with man being represented by the FIDE
Champion.
Aidan Day, Managing Director of Octagon UK, speaking
about the inauguration of the FIDE Grand Prix. "This is
a huge step in the right direction in terms of
commercialising the sport of chess. At last,
potential partners are able to see a truly global chess
platform that can deliver the many of millions of
chess fans around the world."
Also FIDE President, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov announced that
London has been selected as the host city for the
2003/4 World Chess Championships. The knockout will have
a prize fund of 3.5 million.
The Official site
for the World Chess Championships 2001 is open!
FIDE Commerce will effectuate an overall coverage of the
World Chess Championship 2001 starting on 25 November,
including the display of games in real time through the
Internet and professional reports.
The visitors will receive an exhaustive information
concerning WCC 2001 events, viz latest news and photos,
games results, the schedule. Moreover they have a
possibility to discuss topics and share their opinion
with other chess amateurs in the forum section.
The 1st day of pairings is already posted.
If possible FICS will also be relaying the top players
from this event. Use the command games gm
and use obs #
to watch one or more of these games
This event
is being held in Leon, Spain and will run
through the 6th to the 15th of November, 2001.
There are 40 registered countries,37 mens teams (Russia
withdrew for reason that are unclear) and 32
women's. Players include 134 GMs, 49 IMs, 13 FMs, 33
WGMs and 20 WIMs.
You can also see round results and download games in pgn
format at
the TWIC site
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