The World Team Championship Starts Tomorrow
Ten teams are playing in this event in Bursa, Turkey, which continues through the 13th. Here are the first round pairings in the World Team Championship:
Azerbaijan - Armenia
Turkey - USA
India - Greece
Russia - Brazil
Egypt - Israel
It's a very interesting selection of teams, featuring a large selection of teams with long-running political animosities. If everyone behaves, then I think it will have been a good thing. The selection of teams has caused controversy for other reasons, however. Here's Mikhail Golubev in the latest Chess Today:
It was indeed a nice move by the organizers of the world team championship - to invite Greece which does not have any players in the Top 100 and not to invite Ukraine which has ten such players (Karjakin already plays for Russia and is not counted).
C'mon, Mikhail, what have you got against Greece! But he's certainly right that it at least seems odd not invite a team with Ivanchuk (#8 in the world), Ponomariov (#13) and Eljanov (#14).*
Anyway, back to the teams that are there. You can find the full list here; here are some highlights:
Azerbaijan: Gashimov, Mamedyarov, Radjabov
Russia: Grischuk, Morozevich, Jakovenko, Malakhov, Tomashevsky (all over 2700) and Vitiugov (2692)
Israel: Gelfand
Armenia: Aronian
U.S.: Nakamura, and playing second reserve the 2570-rated 15-year-old Ray Robson (he's still listed as an IM, but I thought he earned his 3rd GM several months ago)
* An incidental note of interest. While looking up the top Ukranians' rank on the FIDE top 100, I was quite surprised to note that the top 9 represented 9 different countries. Has this ever happened before?
Reader Comments (7)
Re: Robson's GM title
I think Robson completed his last norm during or right after the last FIDE Congress. I assume he'll be awarded the GM title during the world team championships as the FIDE congress is meeting again at that time.
It's also nice to see some young blood on the U.S. team in Hess and Robson. It certainly can't hurt the chances of Hess continuing his chess career if he gets some nice opportunities like this competition, and he certainly deserved his spot after his strong U.S. Championships result.
I wonder why they make players wait so long for their titles. I know they want to review the tournaments etc to make sure everything is kosher but does it take that long?
Could Ukraine's absence be down to their non-payment of dues to Fide? http://www.chess.co.uk/twic/chessnews/fide-rating-lists/ratings-january-2010
I think only Armenia and Azerbaijan (their first-round match could already be decisive for the entire tournament?) have ongoing political animosities - plus Turkey and Armenia for somewhat related historical reasons.
Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty - this doesn't mean the Israeli-Arab-Palestine conflict is solved, but it would be a VERY different story if Iran rather than Egypt was participating.
Turkey and Greece seem to get along well chesswise: the Turkish team has a Greek coach, and Greece got a wildcard ... from the Turkish organizers. Of course not only Ukraine, but several other countries from Europe alone would have been a more logical choice (no questions asked about the wildcard for Azerbaijan).
Dennis, I was basically happy when Greece won against Ukraine in soccer, because Ukraine is anyway unable to play soccer (or football, does not matter) properly, so if we are out of the soccer world cup, then chess can get a bit more coverage in Ukraine. As of now up to 80% Ukrainian sport coverage is football. S...
But, to change rules for this chess championship, and to invite Greek guys, well it's simply ridiculous. :)
Maybe it's like UN a bit, you know: Gabon in Security Council, like that; but then Ukraine has to play in the world championships permanently and Greece can be sometimes invited! :)
No, it has nothing to do absolutely with ratings; it was known by November 2009 that Ukraine is out of the world team championship.
P.S.
Ukraine is the 2nd country in the world by the average ELO of the top players: http://ratings.fide.com/topfed.phtml
Ukraine was 4th at the 2008 Olympiad (3 teams were allowed to play)
There was no other normal choice, as simple as that.
The Greek team posted its rebuttal by beating the Russian team today :).