FIDE World Chess Championship 2004

The World Championship of the World Chess Federation FIDE took place in 2004 in the Libyan capital Tripoli . The tournament was highly controversial internationally because Israeli participants were excluded. It was the last of the five tournaments played in knockout mode since 1999 under the FIDE World Chess Championships 1993-2005 . The winner was the Uzbek Rustam Kasimjanov , who defeated the British Michael Adams in the tiebreak .

prehistory

As early as 1976, at the same time as the Chess Olympiad in Haifa, a team tournament was held in Tripoli, in which several of the countries that boycotted the official Olympiad took part.

After FIDE had awarded the 1986 Chess Olympiad to Dubai in 1984 , the organizing chess federation of the United Arab Emirates refused to invite the Israeli team to the Olympics. While the Olympics took place without the Israeli and other teams and individual players who stayed away from the event in protest, the FIDE General Assembly decided at its congress in Dubai at the same time as the ongoing Olympics that in the future the organizers of a FIDE event to grant visas are required for participants of all member associations. Exceptions to this are only possible with the approval of three quarters of the FIDE General Assembly. Participation by all federations was also planned for the 2004 World Chess Championship, with the event being held in parallel in Libya and on the nearby island of Malta . However, on April 27, 2004, FIDE announced that all games would take place in Tripoli and that all players regardless of their nationality would be admitted.

On May 6, 2004, however, the President of the Libyan Chess Association Mohammed al-Gaddafi , the eldest son of the President, said at a press conference that Israeli participants would not be invited and described them as "Zionist enemies". Mohammad Gaddafi is President of the Libyan Olympic Committee and headed the Organizing Committee of the FIDE World Championship tournament in Libya.

This announcement sparked a wave of protests inside and outside the chess world. FIDE described Mohammad Gaddafi's statement as a misunderstanding and said it had received guarantees from the Libyan side that the Israeli players would be able to participate. However, FIDE announced that coaches and accompanying persons of the players as well as journalists are not allowed to enter the country if they have an Israeli passport. In addition, entry visas for the Israeli players are not issued by the Libyan embassies, but only on arrival at the Tripoli airport.

In the absence of a Libyan visa or alternative personal invitations, the airlines would have refused to take Israeli players on board and transport them at the airport of departure. The general assurance from the President of FIDE, Kirsan Ilyumschinow , that the Israelis could participate, would not have been enough for the airlines.

On May 13, 2004, the Anti Defamation League protested in an open letter to FIDE against this unequal treatment and the award of the World Cup to Libya and appealed to FIDE to either ensure equal and safe conditions for the Israeli participants or to look for other venues. On the same day, the American Grand Master Yasser Seirawan suggested in a letter to FIDE that the plan for parallel staging in Tripoli and Malta should be taken up again and that fair playing conditions should be ensured. The demand for a parallel alignment in Tripoli and Malta was also publicly raised by the chess federations of the USA, Russia and Israel as well as individual participants such as Boris Gulko . In an open letter to the reigning FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomarjow , Seirawan reported on May 23, 2004 about his appeal to FIDE, to which he had received no answer.

The Association of Chess Professionals ( ACP ) published another open letter to FIDE on May 26, 2004 in which they protested the unequal conditions for Israeli players and asked FIDE to publish the list of participants and one Submit a written guarantee from the Libyan government that the Israeli players would be granted entry visas upon arrival in Tripoli.

FIDE responded on May 28, 2004 by publishing a list of the intended 128 participants, which did not include Israeli players.

In an open reply to the ACP on June 8, 2004, Ilyumschinov referred to the "importance of hosting the World Chess Championship" for the opening of Libya to the "international community".

Of the nominated players, 13 did not play for the tournament, including many of the US players. The Israeli passport players, a number of whom have dual citizenship and compete for other chess federations, for the most part refused to sign their contracts with FIDE. Another reason for cancellations was a controversial FIDE contract that left participants in the dark about reimbursement of their expenses.

Shortly before the start of the tournament, the Israeli Chess Federation announced a lawsuit against Libya for damages due to the exclusion of players with an Israeli passport. On the other hand, the deputy president of FIDE Georgios Makropoulos said that the Israeli players had decided against participating in the tournament.

The Swiss player Vadim Milov , who is also an Israeli citizen, initially planned to participate. Milov did not receive his official invitation until June 18, the day of the opening ceremony. He could not have arrived until the morning of the following day and had to play the first round at three in the afternoon. Since Milov did not consider these conditions to be reasonable, he did not travel there.

Finally, with the support of a number of grandmasters and chess federations, Milov sued FIDE for damages at the International Court of Justice in Lausanne in February 2005 . However, the court dismissed the lawsuit.

financing

The host Libya paid a sum of 2.2 million US $. Of this, US $ 1.5 million went into the prize fund, from which FIDE received US $ 300,000. FIDE received the remaining US $ 700,000 to organize the tournament. The winner received $ 80,000 .

Tournament conditions

The tournament took place from June 18 to July 13, 2004 at the Almahary Hotel. FIDE again used the reduced cooling off period , which was abolished after violent protests after the tournament. The first five rounds were also played very quickly with only two games at the beginning. The semifinals lasted four games, the final six. Time controls were after ninety minutes for 40 moves, after that there was a surcharge of 15 minutes and from the start 30 seconds per move. In the event of a tie, tiebreaks again decided who would go on. First, two quick games were played with 25 minutes to think about and ten seconds surcharge per move, after another draw two games would have been played over five minutes and 10 seconds per move; if it had still been tied after that, a final game would have been played in which White would have had six minutes and Black five. White should definitely have won, in a draw Black would have been through.

Attendees

The tournament finally started with 124 participants, only two of whom were in the top 10 of the world Elo rankings. The players with indented names were scheduled to participate on May 28, 2004, but did not participate. Morosewitsch, Milov, Hjartarson and Shulman were officially expected by the organizers for the first round, but did not arrive, so that their opponents won without a fight. Wojtkiewicz, García Palermo and González García were also nominated after May 28, 2004.

1.  Vesselin Topalov 2737

    Alexander Morozevich 2732

2.  Michael adams 2731
3.  Alexander grischuk 2719
4.  Vasyl Ivanchuk 2716
5.  Nigel Short 2712
6.  Vladimir malachov 2695
7.  Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu 2692
8.  Ivan sokolov 2690
9.  Alexei Drejew 2689
10.  Vladimir hakobyan 2689
11.  Ye Jiangchuan 2681

     Vadim milov 2680

12.  Zurab asmaiparashvili 2679
13.  Etienne Bacrot 2675
14.  Mikhail Gurevich 2672
15.  Sergei rublevsky 2671
16.  Teymur Rəcəbov , 2670
17.  Aljaksej Aljaksandrau 2668
18.  Alexander beliavsky 2667
19.  Francisco Vallejo Pons 2666
20.  Viorel bologan 2665
21.  Konstantin Sakayev 2665
22.  K. Sasikiran 2659
23.  Hriyar Məmmədyarov 2657
24.  Alexander Count 2656
25.  Vadim Svyagintsev 2654
26.  Rustam Kasimjanov 2652

     Alexander onischuk 2652

27.  Loek van Wely 2651
28.  Alexander motylev 2649
29.  Giovanni vescovi 2648
30.  Predrag nikolic 2648
31.  Sergei Movsesjan 2647
32.  Levon aronyan 2645

     John Hjartarson 2640

33.  Valery filippov 2639
34.  Rafael vaganyan 2639
35.  Kiril georgiev 2637
36.  Vladislav Tkachiev 2635
37.  Smbat lputjan 2634
38.  Zhang Zhong 2633
39.  Bartłomiej Macieja 2633
40.  Oleksandr mojiseienko 2631
41.  Zoltán almási 2631
42.  Mikhail Kobalija 2630
43.  Sergei Volkov 2629
44.  Peter heine nielsen 2628
45.  Viorel Iordăchescu 2627
46.  Zdenko Kožul 2627
47.  Sadwakazov 2626

     Alexander shabalov 2624

48.  Alexander lastin 2622
49.  Bu xiangzhi 2621
50.  Yevgeny Vladimirov 2621
51.  Yevgeny Alexeyev 2616
52.  Baudur jobava 2616
53.  Rustem Dautov 2616
54.  Gabriel sarkissyan 2614
55.  Leinier Domínguez 2612
56.  Michał Krasenkow 2609
57.  Xu Jun 2608
58.  Vasilios kotronias 2607
59.  Karen Asrian 2605
60.  Lazaro bruzon 2602
61.  Alexandar deltchev 2602
62.  Alexander galkin 2602
63.  Pavel smirnov 2601
64.  Evgeny Agrest 2601

     Boris gulko 2600

65.  Giorgi Katscheishvili 2600
66.  Pentala harikrishna 2599
67.  Gilberto Milos 2599
68.  Ernesto Inarkiev 2595
69.  Sergey Tiviakov 2593
70.  Andrei charlow 2593
71.  Rubén Felgaer 2592
72.  Utut Adianto 2591
73.  Ni Hua 2587
74.  Ashot anastasyan 2587
75.  Robert Kempinski 2586
76.  Pawel kozur 2586
77.  Ào Thiên Hải 2583
78.  Iván Morovic 2583
79.  Surya Shekhar Ganguly 2582
80.  Hikaru nakamura 2580
81.  Sergei Karjakin 2580
82.  Muhammad al-Mudiyahki 2579
83.  Sergei Dolmatov 2573
84.  Sarunas sulskis 2570
85.  Rafael Leitão 2564
86.  Merab gagunashvili 2562

     Yury Shulman 2559

87.  Aleksander Wojtkiewicz
88.  Ehsan Ghaem Maghami 2558
89.  Daniel Cámpora 2557
90.  Sergey Kudrin 2557
91.  Magnus carlsen 2552
92.  Konstantin Landa 2550
93.  Péter Ács 2548
94.  Qədir Hüseynov 2548
95.  Hicham hamdouchi 2544
96.  Alexander ivanov 2544
97.  Alejandro ramírez 2542
98.  Darcy lima 2542
99.  Dibyendu barua 2539
100.  Valeri Neverov 2537
101.  Leonid kritz 2534
102.  Dimitrios Mastrovasilis 2533
103.  Mark Paragua 2529
104.  Rodrigo Vásquez 2523
105.  Alexei Barsov 2507
106.  Essam El Gindy 2507
107.  Mateusz Bartel 2501
108.  Ahmed Adly 2490
109.  Darryl Johansen 2489
110.  Pascal Charbonneau 2484
111.  Mahjoob morteza 2478
112.  Carlos García Palermo 2444
113.  José González García 2443
114.  The Neelotpal 2457
115.  Mohamed Tissir 2442
116.  Amon Simutowe 2442
117.  Ronald dableo 2426
118.  Kivanc Haznedaroglu 2395
119.  Hameed ali kadhi 2379
120.  Adlane arab 2374
121.  Kenny Solomon 2352
122. Hussein asabri 2277
123. Abobker Elarbi 2257
124. Tarik abulhul 2076

Result

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Rustam Kasimjanov, 2004 FIDE World Championship winner

The tournament ended in a surprise when the Uzbek Rustam Kasimjanov won the title. He defeated the British Michael Adams in the final with 1.5: 0.5 in two overdue 25-minute games after it was 3: 3 after six games with a long time limit.

	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	Result
Rustam Kasimjanov	½	1	0	1	0	½	1	½	4½
Michael Adams	½	0	1	0	1	½	0	½	3½

It was planned that the winner of the tournament would play a unification fight against world number one Kasparov. However, this did not take place due to discrepancies.

Weblinks (English)

• Mark Weeks: World Chess Championship 2004 FIDE Knockout Matches , Results
• Boris Schipkow: The World Chess Championship 2004 on Chess Siberia , results and round reports
• FIDE World Championship Knockout, 2004 on Chessgames.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Vadim Milov : Open letter by GM Vadim Milov , August 9, 2005 on Chessbase.com
2. ↑ "We have not and will not invite the Zionist enemies to this championship ... We know that the Zionists will seize such opportunities to get into Arab society ... but we will not give up our principles, even if it means canceling the holding of the entire tournament in Libya "(" We did not and will not invite the Zionist enemies to this championship ... We know the Zionists will seize such occasions to enter the Arab society ... but we will not give up our principles even if that leads to canceling holding the tournament in Libya ”), Mohammad Gaddafi according to the Associated Press , May 6, 2004, here quoted from Boris Gulko: An Open Letter to the President of FIDE, Mr. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov , Chessbase.com , May 14, 2004
3. ↑ René Gralla: Interview with Almog Burstein , Neues Deutschland , July 3, 2004 according to Chessbase.com
4. ↑ ^{a b} ACP: Open Letter from the ACP to FIDE President, Mr Kirsan Ilyumzhinov , May 26, 2004 on Chessbase.com
5. ↑ World Chess Politics - a review , Chessbase.com , May 14, 2004
6. ↑ "I'm a little surprised that you don't realize the importance of hosting the World Chess Championship in Libya at a time when the country is opening up to the international community in a way that has been appreciated by many world leaders." (“I am somewhat surprised that you don't see the importance of having the World Chess Championship in Libya, during the time when the country is opening up to the international community in a way that has been widely appreciated by many top leaders of the world. ”), Kirsan Ilyumschinow, FIDE answer to the ACP ( May 1, 2005 memento on the Internet Archive ), open letter June 8, 2004 on Fide.com
7. ↑ Israeli chess body wants to sue Libya over ban , Jerusalem Post , June 17, 2004, according to Chessbase.com