Thursday, December 04, 2008

Punish Ivanchuk

That news of Ivanchuk's fit in the Olympiad has picked up some pace that now even Cathy Chua is in on it. Here she writes about her take on drug testing in both chess and bridge. Note that final detail about GM Rogers; it is pretty damn sad!

As for that "Ivanchuk Incident" - well, as Boris Spassky said, albeit only half seriously, the guy's crazy. In my opinion, the Ukrainian should at least be partly to blame. Like it or not, rules are them rules after all and to carry on like that, no matter who you are (and especially because of who you are), you deserve something.

Now you don't have to agree with me and if you like you can even join GM Arthur Kogan's new group on Facebook - "If FIDE will ban Ivanchuk - we will all ban FIDE".

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If a rule that is imposed on people is stupid and nonsensical (and in this case, a waste of FIDE members' money), then the people should stand up against that rule and get it changed. That is what we chessplayers should be doing here, surely. The point of banning certain drugs in sport was to stop young people abusing their bodies in the pursuit of success, with terrible consequences for later life. We simply don't have that situation in chess. Cheating is carried out by electronic means, and that is what FIDE should be concentrating on. Please!

Phil Bourke said...

That stance is fine, but the time for any protest is before the event and if that fails do not play the event. This falls into the category of agreeing to play by the rules and then squealing that the rules aren't fair. I agree with TCG, Ivanchuk has to bear the brunt for his failure to comply with the rules.