Monday, May 21, 2007

GM Rogers on the Soft Titles

Goran Urosevic offered to ask GM Ian Rogers some questions on our behalf and he's come back here with a wonderful effort. Australia's number one walks us through a brief history of the soft titles problem and also offers some ideas on how to fix it. More than that, we also briefly touch upon the question surrounding the Australian Championships.


The same video can be seen on the chessdom.com site. Our deepest thanks to Goran for this and, of course, to GM Rogers.

UPDATE: I'm at work now and I can't see the video. Let me know if you guys are experiencing any problems.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmm...Gary Bekker didnt want us to become part of asia again?

Is there any evidence to support this claim besides Ian's opinion?

Matt Helfst said...

The video looks great and I was able to play it problem free. Thanks for the interesting interview with Ian Rogers!

The blindman said...

Ian is a bit unfair on the players at the Elista Olympiad, inferring that they would like the opportunity of easy IM titles. Of the six open players, three had the IM already, one was almost there (Sandler already had his norms at that stage I think). The other two, Depasquale and Kagan I cannot recall playing in any of the open Zonals.

The blindman said...

correction: Depasquale played in 99 and 05.

Perhaps Ian is including the NZ players in his comment?

Anonymous said...

Ian didnt mention why FIDE wanted to get rid of Australia from the Asian zone to start with..

Anonymous said...

Interesting to listen to Ian's comments, and to find myself mentioned.

When it was agreed in Elista to trial the new zone, the agreement was for 4 years, not 8.

I support Ian's comments about the titles, and the fact that normal performance requirements should be required. Ian is right that many players in zones, not just Oceania took advantage of the rules to get titles, and that the rules were tightened. Howver, I agree they were not tightened enough.

However, the reason for the new zone was not for titles, it was to provide a guaranteed spot in the World Champ cycle. This has provided a financially rewarding spot to those who have qualified.

With the new World Champ arrangements, I am not so sure that reason would still apply today.

Why did Asia want us out - to provide more spots in the World cycle for their own players - Ian was a threat to them as a potential qualifier.

Michael Freeman
FIDE Executive Board member 1998-2002
(comments are mine, not the opinion of NZCF or FIDE).

Anonymous said...

Great comments by Ian. I am currently in Spain, and I am glad to see a fellowman speaking at such high level. Btw, chessdom is a new site?

P.S. The video has no problems for me. Can you see other youtube videos?

Anonymous said...

Yes, we launched it last month.

Anonymous said...

Who cares if these kids have soft titles! Makes it more of a joke when you beat them up :)