FIDE Online Olympiad 22 July to 30 August 2020

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Jonathan Rogers
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Re: FIDE Online Olympiad 22 July to 30 August 2020

Post by Jonathan Rogers » Sun Aug 30, 2020 8:11 pm

Richard Bates wrote:
Sun Aug 30, 2020 7:28 pm
I’m just amused by the idea of an appeals panel being reduced from 3 to 2 as a result of one member having to recuse themselves for potential perception of bias - only for the resulting “panel” to be deadlocked with the only way of resolution being... to refer to the previously recused member! (who then inevitably couldn’t really render a truly perceived impartial judgement and inevitably had to find a decision which didn’t favour Russia)
Agreed, though of course he was recused as a panel member and remained recused in that capacity: he made the later decision, I assume , in his separate capacity as President, being confronted with a split panel and no procedure for finding an independent third member! (Though it was really too late for that anyway, once the nature of the dispute was already known).

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: FIDE Online Olympiad 22 July to 30 August 2020

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Sun Aug 30, 2020 9:18 pm

You would think they would have recruited a few "reserve" members of the "disputes committee" in advance.

John Swain
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Re: FIDE Online Olympiad 22 July to 30 August 2020

Post by John Swain » Sun Aug 30, 2020 9:38 pm

Kevin Thurlow wrote:
Sun Aug 30, 2020 9:18 pm
You would think they would have recruited a few "reserve" members of the "disputes committee" in advance.
Agreed.

It makes you wonder what FIDE would have done if a dispute in the Semi-Final between Russia and USA had gone to appeal, leaving just IA Sava Stoisavljevic (Serbia) in splendid isolation; both FIDE President A. Dvorkovich (Russia) and IO M.Khodarkovsky (USA) would have had to recuse themselves (I am assuming, perhaps wrongly, that the Appeal Committee was similarly composed in earlier stages of the event).

It would be interesting to know whether President Dvorkovich's ruling that India and Russia should become joint champions was in effect a casting vote, in line with one of the Appeal Committee, or whether it was a different, third solution.

Chris Rice
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Re: FIDE Online Olympiad 22 July to 30 August 2020

Post by Chris Rice » Mon Aug 31, 2020 12:27 am

Matthew Turner wrote:
Sun Aug 30, 2020 6:38 pm
John,
I was going to make a similar point myself. If you had wanted a FIDE Official then Short could have easily stood in for Dvorkovich.
However, I have a lot of faith in Dvorkovich and I just wonder how bad a result this was for FIDE/Chess. This has been a very successful event, but would it have been made the BBC without this controversy - perhaps in the end it all worked out pretty well.
Or Sky News for that matter.

Mick Norris
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Re: FIDE Online Olympiad 22 July to 30 August 2020

Post by Mick Norris » Mon Aug 31, 2020 9:32 am

John Swain wrote:
Sun Aug 30, 2020 9:38 pm
(I am assuming, perhaps wrongly, that the Appeal Committee was similarly composed in earlier stages of the event)
They were the Appeals committee for India v Armenia, so presumably yes :roll:
Any postings on here represent my personal views

Nick Grey
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Re: FIDE Online Olympiad 22 July to 30 August 2020

Post by Nick Grey » Mon Aug 31, 2020 3:07 pm

I was surprised - no coverage on the controversy in todays Times or Sun.

John Swain
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Re: FIDE Online Olympiad 22 July to 30 August 2020

Post by John Swain » Mon Aug 31, 2020 11:29 pm

Canadian GM Kevin Spraggett has some scathing comments in his blog about Dvorkovich's ruling:

http://www.spraggettonchess.com/chess-c ... FoZXIlzEN0

Paul Cooksey
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Re: FIDE Online Olympiad 22 July to 30 August 2020

Post by Paul Cooksey » Tue Sep 01, 2020 10:34 pm

Hard talk is a misnomer since an example of an amateur journalist interviewing a professional politician, but some interesting content nonetheless: Peter Doggers and Dvorkovich on chess.com

LawrenceCooper
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Re: FIDE Online Olympiad 22 July to 30 August 2020

Post by LawrenceCooper » Wed Sep 02, 2020 8:50 am

Paul Cooksey wrote:
Tue Sep 01, 2020 10:34 pm
Hard talk is a misnomer since an example of an amateur journalist interviewing a professional politician, but some interesting content nonetheless: Peter Doggers and Dvorkovich on chess.com
Including Dvorkevich saying if he had known beforehand about the global outage then the final would have been postponed.

He blamed "an imperfection in the regulations" for being unable to replace himself in the appeals committee.

The appeals committee were in agreement that the disconnection results in the final should not stand but weren't in agreement about what should happen and didn't have enough information to make a ruling.

Despite support for games to be replayed the president wasn't prepared to allow that due to concerns over the global outage and didn't want to postpone the replayed games until the next day or later. He cited the Candidates as an example of the danger of unfinished tournaments. He didn't want to ask the Russian players if they would replay the games in case they said no and that would influence his final decision.

He didn't want Russia to be at any risk of losing the final as he felt there was no chance of them losing the positions on the board when the Indians disconnected. Earlier though he had said he wasn't a strong enough chess player to judge the positions!

Voiding the second match or declaring it 3-3 and having an armageddon game to decide wasn't an option as no one suggested it.

Had what happened in the final occurred in an earlier round he was clear that a decision would have to be made that allowed one team to progress, replayed games, armageddon etc

He was clear that this was different to the Armenia-India disconnection as the final was a global outage.

He defended the gold medals being shared as this has happened in many other sports eg swimming, athletics, ice hockey etc albeit these examples were completed events that were tied.

In response to the criticism he has received from top players eg Nepo, Dubov, Aronian he said he has spoken to all of them and explained his decision. He added that he is in daily contact with some of the Russian players. He was less complimentary about Elina Danielian's comments.

He was asked about Malcolm Pein's idea of a decision along the lines of Duckworth/Lewis (time left, computer assessment of the position when the disconnections happened). He said it was not impossible but chess should be decided on the board.

He was open to the idea of a Russia-India match in the future, not to influence medals, but because it would generate interest.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: FIDE Online Olympiad 22 July to 30 August 2020

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Sep 02, 2020 9:28 am

LawrenceCooper wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 8:50 am
He was asked about Malcolm Pein's idea of a decision along the lines of Duckworth/Lewis (time left, computer assessment of the position when the disconnections happened). He said it was not impossible but chess should be decided on the board.
Adjudication by another name !

Actually that almost discarded practice might have to be a method of resolving similar problems in the future, although time was never part of the assessment.

Ian Thompson
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Re: FIDE Online Olympiad 22 July to 30 August 2020

Post by Ian Thompson » Wed Sep 02, 2020 9:40 am

LawrenceCooper wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 8:50 am
He was clear that this was different to the Armenia-India disconnection as the final was a global outage.
But in an irrelevant way. Both outages were apparently confirmed as being outside the control of the players or their teams, so there was no difference in that respect.

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JustinHorton
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Re: FIDE Online Olympiad 22 July to 30 August 2020

Post by JustinHorton » Wed Sep 02, 2020 12:40 pm

I could have wished Doggers to have asked a few questions about other subjects rather than essentially asking about the same thing over and again.
"Do you play chess?"
"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

lostontime.blogspot.com

John McKenna

Re: FIDE Online Olympiad 22 July to 30 August 2020

Post by John McKenna » Wed Sep 02, 2020 8:10 pm

That's funny because this was Justin Horton's response in February when (after I warned about the coming of the pandemic) I asked him a question -
JustinHorton wrote:
Fri Feb 28, 2020 10:50 am
John McKenna wrote:
Fri Feb 28, 2020 10:41 am
.

What will that make me, eh Justin?
Image
Very funny...

However, lately he made this reply -
JustinHorton wrote:
Wed Jul 29, 2020 8:17 pm
Tim Spanton wrote:
Wed Jul 29, 2020 4:44 pm

Careful does it - favouring a (so-called) quick return to OTB chess is not a popular position with the we-are-doomed fanatics on this forum
You could do with being a lot less flippant about human life and concern for human life than you are. The people who are dead were real people and are really dead. And you're not funny.
In February it was all just a joke.

Yet by August he'd undergone a Damascene conversion and didn't even know it!?

He should start examining himself and stop cross-examining others.

John Swain
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Re: FIDE Online Olympiad 22 July to 30 August 2020

Post by John Swain » Thu Sep 03, 2020 10:40 am

The Armenian Chess Federation has written to FIDE (the document is on Facebook):

Letter of RA Minister of Education, Science, Culture and
Sports to FIDE President.
I want to be assured that FIDE will provide explanation to the participants of this tournament and chess community at large on this incident and undertake all consistent steps (including even restarting the event from Armenia-India team’s match stage)

TO MR. ARKADY DVORKOVICH
FIDE PRESIDENT
Dear Mr. President,
I am writing to you to express my concern and disappointment about FIDE’s recent decisions towards National chess team of Armenia and chess family as a whole.
In particular, in case of Armenia, while declining Armenia’s appeal, FIDE came with following argument:
“…the quality of the Internet connection is the responsibility of the player, including its reliability and stability. The practice of applying this point during the Olympiad has been already established in previous incidents. In the current situation, any other decision would be inconsistent with the tournament regulations, creating a precedent that could lead to further conflicting situations.”
Despite the fact that Armenian Chess Federation provided a thorough explanation and also raised some questions, FIDE decided not to consider them.
Unfortunately, the situation and problems continued further and in the final FIDE did not follow its own precedent and in the similar case of India, the games, were considered by FIDE as underplayed while in case of Armenia our player lost on time. As a result, FIDE come with unprecedented decision to announce champion both Russia and India.
We think that this is unfair and not consistent approach and decision that doesn’t ensure equal treatment of member countries which is a cornerstone of FIDE as an international institution.
I am confident that in its long way of establishment and in its core mission FIDE tries to raise the trust and confidence towards the tournaments. That trust is being built through securing equal terms of competition among all competing teams so that they all share that they are treated equally. Recent events, however, show that this is not the case with the National Chess team of Armenia feeling being discriminated against. I want to be assured that FIDE will provide explanation to the participants of this tournament and chess community at large on this incident and undertake all consistent steps (including even restarting the event from Armenia-India team’s match stage). We hope that such kind of trust building initiatives will prevent similar incidents in the future and also will unify the chess world.
Should you deem necessary, it would be our pleasure to be part of the dialogue for resolving this misunderstanding.
Making use of this opportunity, I want to express my compliments to you and FIDE.
Sincerely, ARAYIK HARUTYUNYAN

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