News Articles · News · 2023

Short News

• Development Fund invites applicants – 31 Mar 2023

  The FIDE Development Fund has amended the application process and therefore opened it later than usual for 2023 with submissions open until 31 October.

• Turlov sponsors final Women GP – 31 Mar 2023

  Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, will host the fourth and final Women Grand Prix thanks to another sponsorship of Timur Turlov’s Freedom Finance that has a subsidiary on Cyprus. With all four Russians among its participants the Ukrainians Anna and Mariya Muzychuk will likely drop out and be replaced by FIDE.

• No contract for Match TV – 30 Mar 2023

  The Gazprom-owned Russian Match TV has not acquired any images or broadcasting rights from FIDE for its extensive world championship coverage, as FIDE Chief Marketing and Communications Officer David Llada told ChessTech.

• Women Grand Prix in shambles – 28 Mar 2023

  A chess festival in New Delhi with more than 1000 participants is overshadowed by chaos at the embedded Women Grand Prix held at a five-star-hotel. Not waiting for organisational lapses to be fixed and in spite of apologies offered by FIDE and the organiser, Zhansaya Abdumalik from Kazakhstan walked out, and after a lot of nerve-wrecking discussions Elisabeth Pähtz followed her, both from the host countries of the two first Women Grand Prix events in Astana and Munich. As at least one other player rejected repairing the ten remaining participants, the qualifier for the Women Candidates Tournament 2024, is now proceeding in a hugely distorted way, while the current Candidates Final between Lei Tingjie and Tan Zhongyi is about to start on Wednesday.

• Toronto hosts Candidates 2024 – 27 Mar 2023

  ChessTech readers knew that this might come. The Scheinberg family’s hometown Toronto will host the Candidates and Women Candidates Tournaments with a combined prizefund of $750,000 in April 2024, the most important chess event ever held in Canada.

• Big AI impact on Go play – 22 Mar 2023

  An analysis of games by professional go players, published in PNAS, shows that the appearance of DeepMind’s AlphaGo in 2016 led to novel strategies, accelerated innovation and generally improved decision-making in the game of go.

• WorldQuant sponsors online chess – 21 Mar 2023

  The Connecticut-based hedge fund WorldQuant becomes partner of the Champions Chess Tour and the Chess.com world championship broadcast to promote financial education and its own World Quant Championship.

• Nakamura promotes chess variants – 21 Mar 2023

  Streamer king and live rating nr 5 Hikaru Nakamura together with Misfits Gaming announced the Decathlon series of 10 online events featuring different chess variants, including King of the Hill, Crazyhouse and a quiz, with altogether $46,500 in prizes, starting on 27 March with Chess960.

• Crédit Suisse collapse doesn’t hit chess – 21 Mar 2023

  The meltdown and takeover of Crédit Suisse, Switzerland’s biggest chess sponsor in the 1980s and 1990s, will not hit chess as its Accentus Foundation that invests in youth and school chess projects is told that they can keep going.

• Firouzja returns to board in Stavanger – 15 Mar 2023

  The Norway Chess 2023 lineup has been announced with then former world champion Magnus Carlsen, first timers Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Gukesh as well as, after a long classical chess break, Alireza Firouzja. The event takes place in Stavanger from 29 May to 9 June.

• Rosenstein runs for Schachbund President – 11 Mar 2023

  Wadim Rosenstein, sponsor of the recent world class WR Masters in Düsseldorf, has presented his candidacy as President of the German Chess Federation to clean up the mess left by Ullrich Krause who will not run again in the May election after he had to acknowledge financial losses of close to €600,000. Rosenstein’s team includes Paul Meyer Dunker, President of the Berlin Chess Federation and Social Media Director of the Schachbund, who is striving for a full-time position to develop the organisation.

• Bryght Labs lands 300k investor in TV show – 11 Mar 2023

  A new didactic ChessUp electronic board will be available from May 2023 thanks to Bryght Lab picking up $300,000 from serial investor Lori Greiner during the ABC start-up show Shark Tank.

• Chess in the Schools seeks CEO – 10 Mar 2023

  As Debbie Eastburn has announced her retirement, the New York City-based chess in education NGO is seeking a new CEO and President with strong fundraising and strategy skills. Founded as American Chess Foundation in 1986, it was renamed Chess in the Schools in 1997 under its former CEO Marley Kaplan.

• Albert Vasse (1958–2023) – 10 Mar 2023

  The eminent arbiter and chess entrepreneur Albert Vasse has passed away. Together with Ben Bulsink he co-founded Digital Game Technology in 1993 and ran the company until 2015. He was regionally known as speaker of the victims of the explosion of a firework storage in Enschede and campaign manager for Groenlinks, the Dutch Green Party.

• China hosts women finals – 03 Mar 2023

  The all-Chinese Women Candidates Final will be held in Chongqing from 27 March and also the ensuing Women World Championship from 3 July with some games in Shanghai. No sponsors or prize funds are mentioned.

• Olympic Esports Series includes chess – 01 Mar 2023

  The International Olympic Committee announced nine games to feature in the first Olympic Esports Series with live finals on 22–25 June in Singapore. Other than in the Olympic Virtual Series at the last Summer Olympics in Tokyo in 2021, chess is included. It’s the first significant cooperation between FIDE and Chess.com since their takeover of the Play Magnus Group.

• German championships canceled – 28 Feb 2023

  The Schachgipfel, an annual festival of German Individual Championships, cannot take place in Braunschweig in July as planned. The originally positive city has rejected to contribute any subsidies after financial irregularities in the German Chess Federation have become public, and the regional Lower Saxony Chess Federation declared itself unable to close the deficit. As a consequence President Ullrich Krause will not run for re-election.

• Russia joins Asian Federation – 28 Feb 2023

  The General Assembly of the Asian Chess Federation voted with 29:1 (6 abstentions) to accept the Chess Federation of Russia as new member from 1 May. It’s the first time that a sport federation of any kind changes from the European to the Asian umbrella organisation.

• American Cup brings Nakamura back to classical – 22 Feb 2023

  Hikaru Nakamura will play his first classical time limit games since the Candidates Tournament at the American Cup, a 300,000$ k.o.-event on 17–26 March.

• Russians can change federation free of charge – 22 Feb 2023

  As it is expected that the Asian Chess Association’s General Assembly next week will accept the Chess Federation of Russia as a member, FIDE waives the change fees for Russian players who join a European chess federation until 31 August 2023.

• German Federation tightens grip on finances – 22 Feb 2023

  The German Chess Federation has appointed Astrid Hohl as Director of Finance as it becomes evident that the federation has burnt its past surplus on poor management. Hohl had been in charge of finances at the German Youth Chess Association earlier.

• Shahade outed Ramirez investigation to find more victims – 20 Feb 2023

  When Jennifer Shahade learned of other women and girls that have allegedly been sexually assaulted by GM and commentator Alejandro Ramirez she reported her own cases from 2012 and 2014 to the Saint Louis Chess Club and US Chess last autumn. Since she made the ongoing investigations by Ramirez’ employers public in a tweet seen by more than two million, at least seven more victims have come forward.

• Chess.com banned Jobava without warning – 19 Feb 2023

  After Baadur Jobava ranted about alleged cheating during the Airthings Masters qualifier on stream, Chess.com banned him for a year from all prize money events and marked him as a racist and sexist. The platform never replied to our question if the trashtalking Georgian for whom English is only his third language had been warned. Now Jobava published an apology for his misplaced words and states that he was neither warned nor confronted, protesting against stating an example on him when the real problem is cheating. He had left Lichess earlier when he felt that the platform allowed alleged cheaters to overtake him.

• Armaggedon season targets TV – 16 Feb 2023

  The World Chess Club Berlin will be the stage of a televised series of five blitz tournaments. The €460,000 Armaggedon Championship starts on 6 March with eight top players from the Americas, followed by Asia/Australia in April, Europe/Africa in May and top women in June, each group battling out participants for a grand final on 14–20 September. World Chess is planning to have the games broadcasted by TV stations such as CNBC, Channel 4, beIN and Fox Australia.

• FIDE joins Qatar sportswashing agency – 16 Feb 2023

  The Sport Integrity Global Alliance has been launched by Qatar in 2016 to improve the country’s standing ahead of the Football World Cup. Lacking transparency and credibility in Western countries, it provides sports bodies with an anti-corruption and anti-match-fixing agenda without making real changes. FIDE has now proudly joined SIGA.

• Jorge Vega (1935–2023) – 14 Feb 2023

  The long-term President of the Confederation of Chess for Americas Jorge Vega Fernández has passed away. The Cuban-born bonvivant controled the Latin American vote in FIDE for more than thirty years and had a crucial role to keep Kirsan Ilyumzhinov at the helm in the 2006–2014 elections.

• Luc Winants (1963–2023) – 08 Feb 2023

  The Belgian GM Luc Winants passed away at 60.

• FIDE ties two Candidates into single event – 30 Jan 2023

  In order to find a sponsor for the next Women’s Candidates Tournament with a minimum prizefund of €200,000, FIDE is requiring bidders for the Candidates Tournament 2024 to include it. The bidding deadline is set for 28 February.

• Romania hires Sokolov – 30 Jan 2023

  After adding Richárd Rapport and Kirill Shevchenko to their national team, the Romanian Chess Federation has appointed Ivan Sokolov as Head Coach.

• ECU expects Russia to withdraw – 30 Jan 2023

  Ever since the Chess Federation of Russia has applied to become a member of the Asian Chess Associationin April 2022, the European Chess Union (ECU) has pressed FIDE to clarify the legality of such an unprecedented move and has now set a deadline of 24 February, one year since the Russian invasion in Ukraine started, for Russia to withdraw its ECU membership before the Asian Chess Association’s general assembly starting on 26 February where it can accept Russia. The ECU would still admit those Russian players who have taken permament residence in Europe to participate in the European Individual Championships in March.

• Champions Tour opens up – 25 Jan 2023

  The Champions Chess Tour 2023 consists of six regular events, each starting with a qualifier on Chess.com open to all GMs, followed by a tournament shortened to five days, and a big final in December for a prize fund of altogether $2 million. First is the Airthings Masters on 6–10 February. Meltwater is not any more title sponsor. Robert Hess joins the presentation team.

• Vienna to bid for World Rapid & Blitz 2024 – 24 Jan 2023

  The Austrian Chess Federation received FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich to discuss holding the World Rapid & Blitz Championship after christmas 2024 in Vienna.

• Gluhovsky resigned from Russian federation – 23 Jan 2023

  Mark Gluhovsky has resigned as Executive Director but will keep an international role at the Chess Federation of Russia. The Russian and Israeli citizen and former editor of 64 magazine held the post for nine years. His successor is Alexander Tkachev, a 53 year-old arbiter, organizer, FIDE-Master and -Lecturer who was already the federation’s operative officer.

• Kramnik skips Moscow – 19 Jan 2023

  Vladimir Kramnik conceded his place in the Moscow tournament next week to Bibisara Assaubayeva after Frankfurter Allgemeine questioned his participation while continuing to headline the Dortmund Chess Days and Sparkassen Chess Trophy.

• Russian sponsors World Championship – 19 Jan 2023

  Timur Turlov, a 35 year-old Russian banker with a Kazakh passport, through his online broker Freedom Finance bankroles the FIDE World Championship match between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren, matching the Carlsen – Nepomniachtchi €2 million prizefund, to take place from 7 April to 1 May in the Kazakh capital Astana.

• St Louis moves to November – 13 Jan 2023

  The Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz and Sinquefield Cup start on 12 resp. 19 November. The other three events of the Grand Chess Tour 2023, whose participants are not yet announced, are sponsored by the betting company Unibet and will take place in Bucharest and Warsow in May and in Zagreb in July.

• Germany cancels subsidies for competitions with Russians – 09 Jan 2023

  The German Ministry of the Interior and Sports has canceled subsidies for sport competitions where Russians and Belarusians which in chess includes the European Individual Championships, European and World Youth Championships, World Cups and Women Grand Prix. The German Chess Federation told ChessTech that they expect for 2023 a loss in the order of €55,000-€60,000 for travel, accomodation and training expenses.

• Baku hosts World Cup 2023 – 08 Jan 2023

  After 2015, Baku will host another FIDE World Cup from 29 July to 26 August. Budapest, the host city of the 2024 Chess Olympiad, was not interested.

• ECU adds Trainer Commission under Sokolov – 07 Jan 2023

  After FIDE shunned Ivan Sokolov and made a political appointment at the helm of its Trainers Commission, the ECU has installed its own with Sokolov as chairman, Adrian Mihalcisin as deputy and Efstratios Grivas as secretary.

• Kosteniuk to represent Switzerland – 02 Jan 2023

  The Swiss Chess Federation has announced that former Women World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk, who got a Swiss passport while formerly being married to a Swiss citizen, will play for its national team from 2024.