ACF Bulletin No. 98 - 8 January 2001 NATIONAL CONFERENCE The ACF National Conference was held yesterday at Rydges Hotel, Canberra. The following executive was elected to serve Australian chess for the next two years: President, GRAEME GARDINER Deputy President, ROBERT JAMIESON Secretary, PAUL BROEKHUYSE Treasurer, NORM GREENWOOD The following ACF office-bearers were also confirmed: Archivist/Historian, PAUL DUNN Auditor, ROSS HAMILTON Bulletin Editor, GRAEME GARDINER Corporate Relations, PETER WALLMAN Director of Coaching, BRETT TINDALL FIDE Delegate, PHIL VINER FIDE Ratings Officer, GARY BEKKER Grand Prix Supervisor/Recorder - Vacant Junior Selection Coordinator, BRETT TINDALL Medals Coordinator, GARY WASTELL National Ratings Officer, BILL GLETSOS/GRAHAM SAINT Olympiad Appeal Coordinator, GRAEME GARDINER Public Officer, DENNIS JESSOP Publicity Officer - Vacant Senior Selection Coordinator, ROBERT JAMIESON Tournament Coordinator - Vacant Webmaster, PAUL BROEKHUYSE Nominations for the vacant positions would be very much appreciated and can be sent to me at ggardiner@somerset.qld.edu.au ********** PRESIDENT'S REPORT FOR ACF NATIONAL CONFERENCE AND COUNCIL MEETINGS, 7 JANUARY 2001 I would like to start by thanking all those throughout Australian chess at all levels who have worked so hard on a voluntary basis to create chess activity, administer and promote chess. Chess players of all standards and ages owe a great deal to those that give so selflessly to provide an enjoyable and well run chess environment. Whilst it is impossible for me here to thank all those involved in schools, club and state chess, I would like to particularly thank the following who have specifically helped the ACF to operate smoothly. Deputy President ROBERT JAMIESON is one of Australia's most experienced chess administrators and his advice on elite chess, selections, constitutional matters and simply dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's has been invaluable. I particularly valued Robert's support during the lead up to the DEPASQUALE court case and his handling of the Presidency in my absence overseas. We are so lucky to have as our Treasurer a man as capable as NORM GREENWOOD. I don't know what we would have done without him over the last four years. ANDREW ALLEN has now resigned as Secretary but we need to record what a conscientious job he did. His greatest contribution was to significantly advance the ACF webpage and commence receiving some sponsorship from that webpage. Since Andrew resigned, we were lucky to recruit PAUL BROEKHUYSE as Secretary and he has already made his mark in both secretarial matters and as webmaster. The role of the ratings officers is becoming more and more central. The introduction of the ACF Rapid list has the potential to provide the ACF with many more 'membership' prospects. The rating of games may eventually form part of the collection of membership data. BILL GLETSOS and GRAHAM SAINT have cheerfully and conscientiously gone about the hard work of producing timely and accurate lists and this is a vital role in Australian chess. Bill and Graham, thank you so much. During the year, our national junior coordinator, MANUEL WEEKS, stood down after several years service. Elite junior chess in Australia is now at one of its highest levels and Manuel can take a great deal of credit for that. Thank you Manuel. We wish his successor, BRETT TINDALL, well in his new role. We are also indebted to the Grand Prix organiser and supervisor, JASON LYONS and INGRID THOMPSON. Jason put in place the structure for a revamped Grand Prix which has been quite successful and Ingrid has put in the hard yards to record all the results. This is a significant task and we thank both Jason and Ingrid. During my recent attendance at the FIDE Congress in Istanbul, I saw first hand exactly what is involved in being a delegate. PHIL VINER has filled this role for Australia for many years and I don't think we can ever thank Phil enough for his contribution. Whilst GARY BEKKER stood down as ACF Deputy President over a year ago, he still is a significant worker for the ACF in many areas. In particular, I really don't think the FIDE chess exhibition could have been a success without Gary's major contribution. Many thanks, Gary. The Depasquale court case had the potential to bankrupt the ACF. In addition to Robert Jamieson, I'd very much like to thank ROBERT COLQUHOUN for conducting an independent review of the matter, PETER PARR for his time and business sacrifices to be an important witness and ADRIAN CHEK and MARCUS PESMAN who presented the ACF case immaculately. Last but not least I'd like to thank the state presidents for their cooperation, advice and support and for receiving Wendy and I so generously on our second 'round Australia' trip. In particular, GARY WASTELL and DENNIS JESSOP were extremely helpful on constitutional and administrative matters. Final thanks go to all those who contributed so generously to the ACF's Olympiad Appeal. I'm sure our Olympians were lifted in the knowledge the chess community were prepared to get behind them. Now onto a report on what has happened over the last twelve months. It is generally recognised that the weekly ACF Bulletins are an ongoing President's Report so the following is really a summary of those documents. It is hoped that the email bulletins, the ACF webpage, the round Australia trips and the quarterly ACF Council phone hook ups have given everyone in Australian chess the feeling that they are fully included. The restructure debate has been a very important process which I believe has a long way to go before we all start to feel that we are getting somewhere. With the existing constitution it is extremely hard to get consensus among the states on changes required to move chess forward. I personally believe that it is well worth the seemingly endless work in trying to get all states pointing in the same direction. Some people say that this is impossible because chess players are trained to look for tricks and traps and even when they can't find any, will still always be looking for them. I believe that if we stick to the issues, eventually things will have been so deeply debated that some form of agreement is inevitable. I hope that all those involved in this process will continue to work diligently to find solutions. The efforts of our men's and women's teams at the Istanbul Olympiad were a highlight of the year. Their performance gives all of us involved in Australian chess encouragement for the future. Particular congratulations to LAURA MOYLAN and DARRYL JOHANSEN for their outstanding individual performances in this team's event. The performance of our younger players at the world youth festival also gives us great heart for the future. DAVID SMERDON's undefeated tournament showed that he is a world class player. ZONG YUAN ZHAO's play throughout the year indicated that, taking into account his age, he is one of Australia's best ever prospects. Even allowing for the very small ACF budget, we should try and do everything we can to produce a world class player from amongst the ranks of players like Smerdon, Zhao and Moylan. One world class player in Australia would do much to have chess accepted in the general Australian population as an important sport. We could have done without the Depasquale court case. This exercise took up an enormous amount of ACF time and caused a great deal of stress to those involved. I sincerely hope we don't have to go through this type of process again for a very long time. One positive to come out of all of this was that we have been motivated to see if it is possible to try and tighten up our selection and appeal procedures. The FIDE chess exhibition which was held at the Olympic Village, did much to test the ACF in its ability to respond at short notice. I'm pleased to say that some hard work by a few individuals, especially GARY BEKKER and MANUEL WEEKS, saved FIDE from what could have been a big embarrassment for them. Whether FIDE succeeds in having chess accepted as an Olympic sport remains to be seen. Having attended my first FIDE Congress, I have to say I do not share the pessimism of some regarding the future of FIDE. In my opinion the big strengths of FIDE are its very high number of member nations and its extraordinary committee network. The calibre of many men and women working behind the scenes give me confidence that whatever people may think of the leadership, FIDE has got far too much strength in depth to be permanently damaged. The FIDE Commerce contract has been gone through with a fine tooth comb by a committee headed by respected UK lawyer DAVID ANDERTON. If FIDE Commerce do not perform, the contract is simply rescinded. At the FIDE Congress I moved to tighten up FIDE rules regarding titles for zonals run as swiss events and an amended motion was passed. We also asked the Asian Continental President to improve communication in our region by putting out a regular email bulletin regarding upcoming Asian events. The Garry Koshnitsky Memorial Festival incorporated several tournaments which were held in Queensland, ACT, Victoria and South Australia. Several strong players from overseas gave our best players excellent competition and provided a very appropriate tribute to the great man. It was good to see Evelyn in such fine form at the finale in Adelaide. The Australian Championships in Tumbi Umbi, the Australian Junior Championships in Churchill and the Australian Schools Teams Finals weekend were successful, flagship events for Australian chess. The number of events in the Grand Prix calendar grew substantially to 41. It is important to find suitable sponsorship for this event in order that it may thrive. Looking ahead, these are some of the things that I personally would like to see happen: - States, junior chess leagues, women's chess league and correspondence chess league (ie all official chess bodies) brought closer together under the one umbrella - the ACF. - The ACF with steady, reliable income streams. - The ACF with a role in developing chess for the benefit of all areas of Australia. - The Northern Territory affiliated with the ACF. - Non voting classes of membership be created to which the ACF could provide benefits. The first class would be online benefits and the second class would simply be the provision of the ratings service. - More live online coverage of Australian tournaments. - The development of a national universities competition. - The expansion of services to states/clubs such as the free Swiss Perfect licences and national insurance policy. - The professional development of coaching in Australia. - Collection of statistics in order to track our progress and to assist with government funding applications. - Further development of chess in the schools. - Corporate and government sponsors for chess. - A national chess hero. Sometimes it seems as if things are not happening quickly enough in Australian chess. I guess that patience is a virtue and if we all work steadily and diligently we will succeed in the long run. I hope that we can all work together for the ultimate success of chess in Australia. Graeme Gardiner President 5/1/01 ** Arguably the most important items on the agenda were the restructure proposals. In respect of the Admin Fee, the following motion was passed with 16 in favour, two against and one abstention: "During the calendar year 2001, the following admin fees be charged on all tournaments submitted for official ACF rating: Tournaments 60 mins a side or over and four rounds or more - 50 cents per player for the ACF plus a state charge to be decided by each state independently. Tournaments 60 mins a side or over and three rounds or less - 25 cents per player for the ACF plus a state charge to be decided by each state independently. Tournaments 15-59 mins a side - 25 cents per player for the ACF plus a state charge to be decided by each state independently. There will be a loading of 10% if the games are submitted without using Swiss Perfect and a further 10% if they are submitted more than 21 days after the event. States will be free to offer a list of benefits to tournaments that pre register more than three months before the date of the event. All admin fees will be collected by the states, with the ACF portion to be remitted within 21 days of the end of each quarter". A motion delaying the introduction of this admin fee until 1 April 2001 was recommended to the ACF Council by the conference and approved by the ACF Council at the subsequent meeting. This admin fee will be a trial at least until 31 December 2001. What will the admin fee mean to players, tournament organisers, states and the ACF? The ACF admin fee of 50 cents (or 25 cents) per player, per tournament should not, in itself, have a big effect on players. Tournament organisers will have a choice of increasing entry fees by 50 cents (or 25 cents), reducing prizes by an equivalent amount or absorbing this small additional cost. Tournament organisers will have to allow for this increased cost when planning their events. States have the option of adding their charge also. Victoria have been doing this for the last couple of years and this has successfully replaced their membership scheme. The bottom line is that the VCA have provided a service to tournament organisers and have scrapped their time consuming membership scheme which took a great deal of administration. Other states now have the opportunity to follow this lead if they wish. The admin fee will for the first time give the ACF its own stream of income. Initially, it will not be significant. However, it is hoped that in the not too distant future we will be able to scrap state quotas. In general terms, some of the states and the ACF are moving tentatively towards 'user pays' schemes. It is hoped that the benefit to all in the short to medium term will be a much more efficient environment for administration of chess in Australia. In respect of the State Schools Teams Competition Levies, the following motion failed on a 9-9 vote with one abstention. "The sum of $3 per team for all teams in state schools teams competitions will be submitted to the ACF for the development of chess in Australia. This amount represents ten per cent of a notional entry fee of $30 per team which the ACF considers to be an appropriate fee to be charged by the states. The actual fees to be charged by the states are, however, a matter for them to decide independently. States with independent junior chess leagues will liaise with those bodies to ensure their involvement". The positives to come out of the defeat of this motion is that there was general agreement that the reason for the defeat was not the merit of the motion, but the fact that the junior chess leagues had not been involved closely enough in discussions. Everyone agreed that the President should immediately contact the junior chess leagues, women's chess league and correspondence chess league and encourage them to join the ACF as associate members and attend ACF council meetings. This is in the spirit of trying to bring all involved in Australian chess closer together. The conference decided that as the ACF would not now, at least in the short term, be receiving schools levies, the state quotas would have to remain the same and not be cut by 50% as planned. However, the ACF is committed to continuing with this restructure path and plan to cut state quotas as soon as possible, initially by 50 % and eventually by 100%. ********** CENTENARY OF FEDERATION AUSTRALIAN OPEN Congratulations to ANDREW GREENWOOD, DEBBIE POULTON and their team for the fine job they have done in organising this excellent event. Leading scores after 9 rounds: 1 GM Stefan Djuric (YUG) 2461 8 2 GM Ian Rogers (N) 2590 7 3 GM Abhijit Kunte (IND) 2538 7 4 GM Alexander Volzhin (RUS) 2547 5 IM Mark Heidenfeld (IRL) 2375 6.5 6 IM Gary Lane (ENG) 2440 6.5 7 IM Zong-Yuan Zhao (N) 2297 6.5 8 GM Darryl Johansen (V) 2528 6.5 9 IM David Smerdon (Q) 2304 6.5 10 Igor Bjelobrk (NZL) 1938 6.5 11 Israel Yadao (PHI) 2303 6.5 12 IM Walaa Sarwat (EGY) 2357 6.5 13 Paul Broekhuyse (N) 2090 6.5 125 players AUSTRALIAN OPEN REPECHAGE UNDER 2000 6 rounds, final scores. 1 Duncan Bape (Q) 1876 5 5 2 Michael Davidovici (Q) 1681 5 3 Dimitri Partsi (V) 1817 5 4 John Myers (Q) 1994 5 5 Karel Hursky (N) 1860 4.5 6 Igor Bjelobrk (V) 1938 4.5 7 Jay Lakner (W) 1865 4.5 8 John Huseyin (N) 1808 4.5 60 players AUSTRALIAN MINOR UNDER 1600 7 rounds, final scores. 1 Kamal Muthreja (N) 6.5 2 Rafael Kaplan (V) 1340 6 3 Melba Horwood (Q) 1547 5.5 4 Ken Xie (N) 1486 5.5 5 Andrew Fitzpatrick (A) 1518 5 6 Craig Stewart (Q) 1510 5 7 Gareth Oliver (A) 1555 5 8 Anthony Keuning (N) 1565 5 48 players AUSTRALIAN OPEN RAPID 7 rounds, final scores 1 IM Walaa Sarwat (EGY) 2357 5.52 IM Mohamed Ezat (EGY) 2346 5.5 3 IM Zong-Yuan Zhao 2248 5.5 4 Neil Wright 2035 5.5 5 Vladimir Smirnov 2051 5.5 6 Richard Voon 1915 5 7 Michael Wilkins 2025 5 8 Paul Dozsa 1998 5 48 players Full results at http://www.lexicon.net/ianandjan/Ian/Chess/AustralianOpen/Default.htm ********** FIDE ANNOUNCEMENTS Tehran, 26 December 2000 To All National Federations To All Chess players To Members of the Press Dear Friends: The Presidential Board of FIDE, chaired by the FIDE President, H.E. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, met today at the Chess Palace in Tehran, Iran, and after wide ranging consultations with FIDE officials and players took a number of far reaching decisions with respect to the World Chess Championship titles. A copy of the text of the historic Tehran Declaration on World Chess Championship titles is annexed herewith. In line with the decision of the FIDE General Assembly in Istanbul and based on the consensus of opinion of the overwhelming majority of top players at the World Chess Championship in New Delhi, the Board unanimously approved the new time control, with effect from 1 January 2001. Instead of the existing format (40 moves in 100 minutes, 20 moves in 50 minutes, 10 minutes for the remainder of the game with an increment of 30 seconds), the new time control to be used in all FIDE events and international title tournaments will be 40 moves in 75 minutes, 15 minutes for the remainder of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move from move 1. With regard to the new format of the World Chess Championship, the Presidential Board noted with satisfaction the success of the current knockout format, congratulating the 15th World Champion, Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand of India, and the runner-up, GM Alexey Shirov of Spain, for their outstanding victories in their matches and resolved not to change the current format for the World Championship. The Board however resolved to increase the number of places to 128 players as against the previous figure of 100, while insisting that all players should now play from the first round in keeping with the principle established by the FIDE General Assembly that there should be no special privileges for any of the players. Of particular significance was the Board's decision to include the World Internet Championship, which will be open to qualification to the top 8 players to participate in the World Chess Championship. The Board also approved in principle the establishment of a parallel system of an elite section of the top 32 players, to play in a series of events, including the Grand Prix qualifying tournaments, the World Chess Cup and the Grand Prix final, as part of FIDE's commercialisation programme. A special Committee to be chaired by the Deputy President G. Makropoulos, has been mandated by the Board to coordinate all aspects of the planning and the preparation of the World Chess Championship, World Internet Championship and the series of elite tournaments on behalf of FIDE in collaboration with Mr. A. Tarasov of FIDE Commerce. ** TEHRAN DECLARATION ON THE WORLD CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP TITLES Considering the special history of the game of Chess and bearing in mind the need to safeguard the interest of millions of chess players and the will of its 159 national affiliates, and having noted further the historical fact that FIDE has consistently organised and supervised the chess activities around the world since it was founded in 1924, and the fact that it has consistently organised the World Chess Championships since 1947, carrying out the decisions of its General Assembly in strict accordance with the FIDE Statutes, and bearing in mind that the qualification process for the World Chess Championships had prior to 1947 been subject to abuse by some individual holders of the World Chess Championship title; The Presidential Board of FIDE at its meeting in Tehran, 26 December 2000, hereby declares: 1. As the sole authority recognised by the International Olympic Committee responsible for the game of Chess and its Championships, and buttressed with historical facts, FIDE hereby announces its clearly established role as the only custodian of the World Chess Championship titles. 2. The World Chess Championship title shall be bestowed on any individual, who has participated and won an event solely organised by FIDE for this purpose and this shall include a qualification process, which is fair and democratic and not subject to abuse by any individual or group, but as approved by the will of the member Federations of FIDE, including the participation where necessary, in National Championships, Zonal tournaments or Continental Championships, through the FIDE rating system and such other events as approved by FIDE for this purpose. 3. Any winner of the World Chess Championship title is under obligation to defend the title in the World Chess Championship event organised by FIDE and she/he is precluded from participating in any other event, which seeks to declare itself as a World Championship event. In addition, any reigning World Chess Champion, who for any reason including the grounds of health, fails, refuses or declines to defend the title in any designated World Championship event, organised by FIDE, or participates in any other event purporting to regard itself as a World Chess Championship event, not authorised by FIDE, shall be stripped of the title and be referred to as ex or former World Chess Champion. 4. Members of the Press and the General Public are hereby advised and are to be guided accordingly. ** As a follow up to our last press release dated 26 December 2000, in relation to the meeting of the Presidential Board of FIDE in Tehran, it has become necessary for FIDE to clarify the basis for the decision of the Presidential Board to introduce the new time control to be used in all FIDE events and where applicable, in all title tournaments. As was clearly stated in the press release of 26th December 2000, the Board acted in full compliance with the directive of the General Assembly in Istanbul requiring it to examine the opinion of a cross section of the players and to finalise on the new time control for FIDE events. As Grandmaster Alexander Matanovic of Chess Informant wrote in his book Chess is Chess, "A century ago, players at tournaments had five hours to make 40 moves. In those days, games began with the first move. Today, seven hours will see a person from Europe to America and good theoreticians play by rote until the twentieth move and only then really begin to play." The Board realises that it is now incumbent on FIDE to move with the reality of our changing world. It is no longer realistic to expect that in the modern world of today where with the advent of computers and advanced soft wares, the professional chess player cannot in all reality claim that he does not have the assistance of these appliances in the preparation for his matches. Therefore the Board resolved in the larger interest of the game and its future to heed the advice of the vast majority of the top 100 players of the world present in New Delhi to revise downwards the current time control for FIDE competitions. This decision has the added advantage that sponsors and organisers will consume less time to organise their events and with less costs. Finally, what the Board has done is merely to lower the barrier for the time controls. At the same time, it realises that there are many federations and chess organisers who may not have the resources to apply the cumulative time control of an additional thirty seconds from move one. Therefore, there is no compulsion involved here for organisers to use this mode in the transitional period so long as there is substantial compliance within the limits set out by the Board. As to the technical questions regarding the World Championship, a Committee chaired by Deputy President Georgios Makropoulos will meet in Lausanne within the next week to clarify all technical issues related to the questions of the zones and continental competitions, as well as other issues of interest to players and National Federations. Meanwhile, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all our FIDE friends a Happy and prosperous New Year! - Emmanual Omuku, Executive Director. ********** INSURANCE During the last couple of months, the ACF Treasurer, NORM GREENWOOD, had a computer crash and may have lost some emails relating to requests for the special insurance deal for clubs and states. If you have made such a request which does not appear to have been dealt with, please email Norm on normg@bigpond.com.au ********** CORPORATE TEAMS EVENT IN SYDNEY Former ACF President, PETER WALLMAN, has kindly offered to take on the task of ACF Corporate Relations. Peter has high level contacts in Sydney and will be looking to build relationships with companies for the mutual benefit of the ACF and such companies. As part of this process, we would like to organise a one day corporate teams challenge in Sydney with the main aim being friendraising as much as fundraising. If anyone in Sydney would be prepared to organise such an event for the ACF please contact me on ggardiner@somerset.qld.edu.au ********** OCEANIC ZONAL It is possible that this will be the final year that zonals will be held. FIDE appear to be moving to scrap zonals in favour of continental championships. It is possible that I will once again organise the Oceanic Zonal around April or May this year. However, if some other experienced organiser would like the responsibility, please let me know. A small round robin for the leading players in our region is probably preferred, but financial realities may dictate another swiss event. The 'cheap' titles are no longer a concern because of recent changes to FIDE regulations. ********** WOLLONGONG COLLEGIANS' CHESS CLUB - JOHN MAZZIERI 2000 Championship - 12 December 2000 Fourteen players contested the closely fought 7 Round Swiss. The result saw MIRKO KREZNOVIC and MUSTAFA ERKAN share the first place prize money with a result of 6/7. Mirko Kreznovic was declared 2000 Club Champion based on tiebreak. ZELJKO KANOSTREVAK, JOHN MAZZIERI, KOSTA BERETOV, PAUL BAANER and BARRY COX shared third place (all on 4/7). Zeljko Kanostrevak had the best rating based performance. 2000 Blitz Championships results - 1st MIRKO KREZNOVIC (80.30%), 2nd VLADE STOJKOVSKI (75.76%) and 3rd STEVE ASCIC (67.19%). The Club Blitz championship was held throughout the year. Five Round-Robin Tournaments were played, and the best 3 results were used to determine the winners. ********** SUNCOAST NOOSA OPEN for 2001 - ROB HOCHSTADT This will be held on the weekend of June 30 / July 1, 2001 at the usual venue - The Noosa Bicentennial Centre, Sunshine Beach. ********** Very best wishes to all for 2001! Graeme Gardiner President ------------------------------------------- Graeme Gardiner President, Australian Chess Federation C/- Somerset College, Somerset Drive, Mudgeeraba Q 4213 Phone 07 5530 3777 (w) 07 5530 5794 (h) Fax 07 5525 2676 (w) Email: ggardiner@somerset.qld.edu.au http://www.auschess.org.au Chess - the clever sport! PS - If you do not wish to receive this bulletin in future, please email wgardiner@somerset.qld.edu.au