Coffee, Spain, FIDE & other Nonsense
It’s Friday!

The first Friday of September! The summer is over and now the world is trying to adjust to living under the spectre of the virus. Schools are opening and children are returning to class.
Hopefully – despite the inevitable advances and retreats that this implies – some semblance of normality will start to install itself. We can not keep hiding under our beds…can we?
(Above 2 photos are of Samantha)

Spanish Championship shows the way!

Organizers, Players continue tournament despite Coronavirus Scare

The traditional Spanish Championships (Teams, Absolute and Women’s) is underway in Linares.
There was a scare — several players tested positive — that the tournament would be cancelled, but the local health authorities came to the conclusion that it would be premature to cancel the event:





Photos by Patricia Claros unless otherwise mentioned
More FIDE nonsense
Sutovsky to be sacked this weekend?

As Dvorkovich’s interview with Peter Doggers earlier this week demonstrates, FIDE has become an unrecognizable, dysfunctional mess. Spinning out of control, going from one disaster to the next…
Since the onset of the Coronavirus in March, FIDE has not organized a single OTB tournament, has no concrete dates (or location) for re-starting the Candidates Tournament and has only succeeded in embarrassing itself with its online efforts. The recently concluded Online Olympiad was nothing short of a fiasco and PR disaster.
Worse still, both Dvorkovich and Sutovsky refuse to accept any responsibility, and have even gone as far as making public statements congratulating themselves on their tremendous ”success”!
Much of the world chess community has already distanced themselves from this administration’s incompetence. Dvorkovich has lost his moral right to lead. Constantly ignoring rules and ethics, lawlessness has become the operating word in FIDE.
Worse still, the otherwise affable FIDE director, Emil Sutovsky, has today become the most despised member of Dvorkovich’s team. Increasingly, calls for his resignation have multiplied.

To be continued briefly….