Desperado

Dire straits call for drastic measures! However everything should be done according to the rules and within the capacity of regulations.

Obvious to anyone there is a big economical crisis in Greece. Conceivably this has effected IM Makropoulos - FM Tsorbatzoglou tandem as well. Clear enough the dynamic duo were involved in many tournaments organizations around Thessaloniki area. Once again Porto Carras declared candidacy to host the Youth Championship in 2015. The other two candidates were Albena, Bulgaria and Antalya Turkey which was a surprise at least for me.

It is very well known that an inspection was necessary but not sufficient for a tournament venue to be chosen before the last Congress of FIDE which was held in Tallinn, Estonia. On what the inspection is done and who were the inspectors immediately comes to mind. Beforehand and inspection was done to point out if the candidate place is decent for a championship to be held from the following points of view: place in general, hotel(s), tournament hall, toilets.

Appreciation of the 3 candidate cities were cited in inspectors report but obviously no comparison took place since the inspectors themselves did not now that by an overnight decision their report will decide the issue without a further voting. There were 3 inspectors at the beginning: FM Geoffrey Borg and David Jarrett, in other words two longtime associates of İlyumdzhinov thus Makropoulos and the third one being a certain Amil Sunderer from Sweden.

Things became even more interesting: FM Geoffrey Borg resigned and has not been replaced by anyone. A couple of words about inspection, inspectors and the venues. In a fair selection every single inspector should be independent and neutral and possibly chess players beyond the level of any names mentioned here. Speaking of Antalya for instance, isolation of the hotel, ban of bringinging food from outside into the hotel and complains of majority of the parents over the years during Turkish Youth Championship comes to mind. Alas this is not the issue, the important point is that the inspectors themselves did not know that their report could decide the venue. Instead they were looking for the feasibility of a Youth Championship in all 3 candidate cities.

For any selection to be unbiased, the rules should be known for everyone before, during and after it. One major point attracting my attention is the Turkish Chess Federation's candidacy for the 2015 event. Absolutely nothing was mentioned in their website, the considerably weak presentation by Berkay Tulay who enjoys all these nepotistic trips and sojourns because of being the 'son of a president' is rather a domestic problem for Turkey but when they have lost without any voting in process they have never raised their voice, neither protested in a written form. Even their partner in FIDE Yazici who is known to sue any decision or instutition before, kept silent and accepted the defeat at once.

As a resume, I simply wanted to present one of the most unfair results of an unfair selection in FIDE. The change in rules were only known to some parties who were associated with IM Makropoulos who once again became an active side in the process. The inspectors and Albena representatives knew nothing about, meanwhile Antalya representatives were simple stunts in the show. A good question comes into mind, possessing the majority of votes in FIDE why did Makropoulos prevent an election by direct voting? Obviously he and Tsorbatzoglou are desperate to bring the championship to Porto Carras which only has a 4000 players capacity tournament hall to her credit and nothing else. My estimation is that with the help of this last pseudo legal rule Makropolous will collect and distribute all the 'juicy' tournaments within his 'team' and  after all for himself!