CHESS#1290
Fide's bank account has been frozen, according to a statement by the world chess federation treasurer, Adrian Siegel. This was on the cards after the US Treasury Department announced sanctions against President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov in 2015.
The sanctions were due to Kirsan's ties with the Russian Financial Alliance Bank, which processed transactions for Bashral-Assad. Ilyumzhinov tried to stave this off by recusing himself from an operational role. Fide is headquartered in Switzerland with an account at the UBS Bank. The Swiss authorities gave Fide time to try and resolve the problem but they have run out of patience.
This isn't exactly great publicity. It remains to be seen if championship cycle events can function. The Candidates is due to start on March 10 in Germany. Fide's governing body elections will be held at the next Olympiad in Batumi, Georgia in September-October. Ilyumzhinov, who has been Fide President since 1995, intends to run again.
In more cheerful news, the National Blind Championships in Mumbai had 114 sponsors; individuals who contributed over ~540,000 to keep it running. Kishan Gangolli of Karnataka won his fifth title. Ashvin Makwana grabbed second place, Soundarya Pradhan was third and Aryan Joshi fourth with fifth going to Subhendu Patra. This quintet will represent India in the World Team Championships in Bulgaria.
Magnus Carlsen is the (unofficial) world 960 champion after winning a "title match" against Hikaru Nakamura in Hovikadden, a suburb of Oslo. The pair played eight rapid games at 45 minutes for the first 40 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest, with no increments. They followed up with eight blitz games at 10 minutes plus 5 seconds increment from move one.
Starting positions were repeated once to give the players a crack with both colours. Fischer-random, as it's sometimes called, has 960 possible opening configurations of pieces on the back rank (restrictions include bishops of both colours and the king being inbetween rooks). There's statistical evidence that some set-ups favour white more heavily than the conventional setup (that's part of the 960 by the way). Carlsen won 14:10 (the rapids were counted as 2 pointers to weight that section). Carlsen won the blitz 5:3 and he took the rapids 9:7.
The DIAGRAM, Black to Play (White: Karjakin, Sergey Vs Black: Esipenko, Andrey, World Rapid 2017) showcases a 15-year-old slaughtering a title challenger with an attack that ends in a gorgeous mate. Black played 15.— c4! 16.dxc4 Ba3 17.Bc1 Nc5 18.Qf3 d3 19.cxd3 Na4 20.Rd2 Nd4 21.Qf2 Nc3+ 22. Ka1.
Now find the next move. 22. — Qb3!! 23.bxc3 Qxc3+ 24.Bb2 Bxb2+ 25.Rxb2 Qc1+ 26.Rb1 Nc2+ 27.Qxc2 Qxc2 28.g3 b5 29.cxb5 Rd4 (0–1). Calculate the variations. It's perfect.
Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player