English Chess Forum

It was 41 Rf5 I believe that was the sealed move. You'll recall from another thread how we discussed this position. That thread has unfortunately been butchered but one of Ken Regan's posts survived with Bill Goichberg's comments from USCF Chess Life magazine:

"It was now between the USA and Holland, and our prospects looked excellent. We had the edge on all boards and we soon scored three wins. In Holland-Finland, Sosonko was beating Rantanen but the other Finns were putting up stiff resistance. Surely, we thought, the Dutch would not sweep, so a win by Commons would wrap it up.

But Kim slipped from a much better ending to a lost one. The Finns looked slightly worse in all three games; if Kim lost, we would be in the highly uncomfortable position of hoping for three draws---a single Dutch win would spell curtains. Everyone pored over Kim's game, desperately searching for a resource, but the verdict was always the same: Cooper should eventually win. Even Benko, who should have known better by now, declared this position to be beyond our adjournment magic.

Cooper had pondered his sealed move for an hour, leaving himself only 16 minutes for 15 moves. perhaps time pressure would help us, but surely after all that thought he had sealed the best move. Well, when the magic spell is cast, even the sight of an adjournment envelope is enough to make an opponent blunder. Not only did Cooper seal a weak move, his analysis overlooked Kim's reply. Our team /had/ looked at Cooper's move just in case, and it turned out that we had analyzed a move we were not expecting better than our opponents had analyzed it---and they had known what it was!

With only five minutes on his clock and an unexpected situation on the board, Cooper offered a draw. because of time pressure, we had earlier decided to accept any such offer rather than hope for more. The extra half point seemed likely to be just enough to win. And so it turned out, but not before we had to sweat out 20 more hours of rooting for Finnish players."

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... 95#p144920

Chris Rice wrote: Not only did Cooper seal a weak move, his analysis overlooked Kim's reply.

Engines sort of agree, but only in the sense that they suggest 41. e5 as plus 2, but rate 41. Kf5 as only plus 1.6. 41. .. Ke7 is the suggested reply.

These Coopers do have a reputation for agreeing draws

"I'm not massively clued up on the inner-workings of trade unions, but I don't normally see British trade unions writing public statements criticising their own membership."

Prospect do!

Roger de Coverly wrote:The query is to why White agreed to a draw at move 42 instead of playing the probably winning 42. Kxc4.

In case anyone forgets, the point is that the ACP President posted on Facebook, as an established fact, that John Cooper has taken the draw in return for monetary compensation. He even knew the sum involved. When challenged, he reiterated the accusation and maintained it throughout a lengthy thread.

I sent messages to both the US and Welsh federations suggesting that, if they believed Sutovsky's accusations to be false, they should lodge appropriate complaints. Neither had any interest in doing so.

LawrenceCooper wrote:I find it incredible that there seems to be no thought or care as to how horrible the situation must be for the person accused. If any of the players had an ounce of human decency they would have apologised by now. But now we have the head of the players encouraging such behaviour.

Absolutely agree with those comments, Loz. Mihaela Sandu has responded to the "punishment" regarding Zhukova and she is understandably very upset with the leniency shown towards her and that has taken two years before anything was done. Her letter is here translated into English:

http://chess-news.ru/sites/default/file ... andu_0.pdf

In case anyone wondered who is on the ACP board:

Emil Sutovsky "the nine board members are: IO Jeroen van den Berg (Netherlands), GM Alex Colovic (FYROM), WGM/FA Aleksandra Dimitrijevic (BIH), IO Yuri Garrett (Italy), GM Abhijit Kunte (India), WGM Anastasia Savina (Russia), GM Emil Sutovsky (Israel), GM Pavel Tregubov (Russia), IA Jesus Garcia Valer (Spain)"

That's awkward, presume Anastasia Savina recused herself from the discussions when the ACP Board came up with their statement though there is nothing to indicate whether this happened.

Chris Rice wrote:That's awkward, presume Anastasia Savina recused herself from the discussions when the ACP Board came up with their statement though there is nothing to indicate whether this happened.

She was elected around six months after the tournament under discussion took place. I should mention that she was one who subsequently asked for her name to be removed and that is reflected in her "lesser" punishment.

LawrenceCooper wrote:In case anyone wondered who is on the ACP board:

Emil Sutovsky "the nine board members are: IO Jeroen van den Berg (Netherlands), GM Alex Colovic (FYROM), WGM/FA Aleksandra Dimitrijevic (BIH), IO Yuri Garrett (Italy), GM Abhijit Kunte (India), WGM Anastasia Savina (Russia), GM Emil Sutovsky (Israel), GM Pavel Tregubov (Russia), IA Jesus Garcia Valer (Spain)"

I have removed Lawrence's emboldening as it is not relevant to my post.

The ACP Newsletter states that Jesus Garcia Valer (whom I know, as will others, as an arbiter at the Tradewise Gibraltar Festival) joined the ACP Board "after GM Max Dlugy decided to withdraw from it last week".

Does anyone know why Dlugy withdrew, seemingly rather abruptly?

David Sedgwick wrote:Does anyone know why Dlugy withdrew, seemingly rather abruptly?

I don't think there has been a public comment as to why Dlugy suddenly resigned during the week-long period when Sutovsky commented that the statement was being drafted.

NickFaulks wrote:

Roger de Coverly wrote:
What about their fabled screening program which can supposedly detect cheating from the quality of moves played relative to a player's rating?

It has been clear for some time that they are in retreat from that.

Interestingly Chess24.com recently banned Danny Gormally for, erm, playing like a grandmaster!
As he has complained in the past of having an online addiction I suspect he should be grateful.

LawrenceCooper wrote:http://en.chessbase.com/post/fide-ethic ... to-zhukova

I guess the suspended ban at least stops the pantomime villain from accusing her much lower rated Egyptian opponent that beat her in round 7.

LawrenceCooper wrote:

LawrenceCooper wrote:http://en.chessbase.com/post/fide-ethic ... to-zhukova

I guess the suspended ban at least stops the pantomime villain from accusing her much lower rated Egyptian opponent that beat her in round 7.

... but it didn't stop her claiming that the Chinese team at the World Team Championship are taking performance enhancing drugs:

"... while china is a very strong team, they have some kind of medications which helps them to feel refreshed as on the first day ..." (http://chess-news.ru/en/node/16452)

Ian Thompson wrote:

LawrenceCooper wrote:

LawrenceCooper wrote:http://en.chessbase.com/post/fide-ethic ... to-zhukova

I guess the suspended ban at least stops the pantomime villain from accusing her much lower rated Egyptian opponent that beat her in round 7.

... but it didn't stop her claiming that the Chinese team at the World Team Championship are taking performance enhancing drugs:

"... while china is a very strong team, they have some kind of medications which helps them to feel refreshed as on the first day ..." (http://chess-news.ru/en/node/16452)

Where was this?