ACP General Assembly
We announce with pleasure that the number of ACP members is growing steadily. Now it’s time for our members (Standard and Premium) to help directing the future activities of the ACP by voting to select the Board Members that will continue our work in the period 2016-19. The elective General Assembly is scheduled to take place from November 28 to December 13, 2015 , when the new Board will be elected. Also, we will use this occasion to consult our members with respect to some open issues. Please mark these dates to your calendar and do not miss the chance to vote at the next General Assembly. Also, if you wish to stand as a candidate for the Board, please send us a photograph and a few biographical lines together with your proposed plan of action on or before 21 November 2015. We will publish the GA-related information on the ACP website soon.
ACP Tournaments
The ACP continues in the good tradition of organizing high-quality events for our Premium members. From May 31 to June 4 this year, the ACP co-organized the ACP - European Women's Rapid championship in cooperation with ECU and Georgian Chess Federation. The tournament was held in Kutaisi, Georgia. ACP Premium member Alexandra Kosteniuk emerged as the winner after eleven hard fought rounds and many exciting games. All technical details can be seen at www.e2e4.ge. Numerous reports on this beautiful event can be found on all major chess websites. Following the success of the event, we expect to announce another major ACP tournament to take place later this year.
Representing Players against unjust activities of their Federation
The fight against injustices done to any of our members remains high on our priority list. The ACP represented many players who faced unfair treatment from the organizers of several events and even their own chess federations. Recently ACP President Emil Sutovsky released a very strong statement regarding the controversy between the Delhi Chess Association and Humpy Koneru:
ACP President Emil Sutovsky on Georgiev and Koneru cases | ACP
The complaint of the DCA revolves around Humpy, one of the top women players in the world, withdrawing from an event, and protesting against the controversial behaviour of an arbiter and tournament organizers at the recently concluded Commonwealth Championship in Delhi. The Delhi Chess Association then filed a complaint to Ethics demanding for punishments that may involve stripping her of titles, and preventing her to play in official events. The ACP is monitoring the situation with a view to either find an agreement between the parties or protect Koneru’s rights.
ACP also supports Bulgarian GM Kiril Georgiev who was banned for three years by his own federation for expressing his stark disagreement with the leadership of Bulgarian Chess Federation, without any court hearings and due investigation. We will keep fighting against these decisions, as we firmly believe that banning a player for their opinions is unacceptable and should be condemned universally.
Representing Players in Cases Against Unreliable Tournament Organizers
Unfortunately, there are still organizers who struggle to pay timely and even fail to pay at all the announced prize funds and fees to the players. We shall not mention the name of any organizer here, since the issues were for the most part resolved amicably. In the past, we assisted different groups of players in obtaining their rightful prizes and conditions at several tournaments, using various measures like discussions, official letters and outlining possible sanctions against the event. This practice has brought justice in many cases and rightfully restored tens of thousands of euros/dollars in total to various groups of players. Although it is not simple and is very time-consuming, we shall continue helping our members to resolve these issues.
Anti Cheating Efforts
The FIDE Anti-Cheating Committee, setup following an ACP initiative and which sees the contribution of ACP members IA Laurent Freyd, IO Yuri Garrett, GM Konstantin Landa and WIM Yuliya Levitan, has started to work at full speed. The Investigation regarding the Benidorm incident led to deferring Mr. Tetimov to Ethics, and the report on the Investigation on the Dubai incident involving GM Gayoz Nigalidze is due in the next few weeks. Also, the incident occurred at the Women Individual Chess Championship involving WGM Mihaela Sandu and it will be the object of close scrutiny by the ACC. This all good news for the community of chess professionals, as cheating can in no way be tolerated, but the policy of unjustified public accusations also can not be supported and a balance needs to be struck.Hence it is very important that all chess professionals are prepared to deal with possible cheating issues by following the right procedures. It also important that the arbiters follow them properly and adjust to the new reality, being ready to step in, thus preventing situations which may lead to unjustified public accusations and “witch hunting". Please take your time to read the Anti-Cheating Guidelines at: https://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=53&view=category, and remember to smile if an arbiter should come to you and request to perform a search. We ask that you act with all due manners for the security of the tournament and chess as a whole! We, as chess professionals, have a huge role in promoting anti-cheating awareness and need to be a good example for all chess players worldwide.
Tournament Partnerships
The ACP continues to nurture relationships with top chess events with a view to promoting wild card entries for its Premium Members. Recently we announced a permanent wild card entry for a ‘Veteran’ (45+) to the Tata Steel Challengers event. For the 78th edition of the prestigious event, the Veteran Wild Card will be awarded to Russian Alexey Dreev (46), who won the tournament in Wijk aan Zee in 1995. Besides this, Tata Steel continues its tradition of cooperation with the ACP and will still be awarding the wild card for the highest ranked player of the ACP Tour as of 1 December 2015 (eligible players should be rated below 2750 on 1 January 2015). The awardee will be invited to participate in the Tata Steel Masters 2016. Also, a spot in the Challengers will once again be awarded to the highest placed player of the ACP Women’s Tour as of 1 December 2015.
The race is on also for the wildcards for the Poikovsky Tournament (September 27 - October 7), Qatar Masters (6 wildcards based on ACP tour rankings) and Gibraltar 2016 (3 spots) and GM Romain Edouard will receive the spot in the World Cup thanks to his high placement in the ACP Tour 2014. The details of the ACP Tour and wild card system have been mentioned before, and can be easily found on our website.