The campaign for the next FIDE president is well underway with the current president, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, running again. His opposition is the current vice chairman, Georgios Makropoulos, and English GM Nigel Short. Ilyumshinov is the odds-on favorite, given that the Russian Chess Federation has endorsed him. Short’s campaign seems to be just for fun and to help expose problems with FIDE.
One of the current issues is that FIDE’s bank, USB, closed its account in May due to Ilyumshinov being on a US State Department’s sanctions list for his involvement with Syria. Short simply asked where the money went, since no other bank, by FIDE’s own admission, would open an account for FIDE.
FIDE treasurer Adrian Siegel revealed that about 1.7 million euros was transferred to two fiduciary accounts, one in Switzerland, Arkion SA, and one in Hong Kong, Kei Trading Services.
It would seem that the Short campaign will be conducted primarily by social media (Twitter), though he is one of the most traveled GMs in the world, having played in almost every FIDE country over the years.
The voting takes place this October at the Olympiad in Batumi, Georgia.
In other news, Brandeis grad and Bay Area native Sam Shankland is on one of the great runs of recent memory. He followed up his very convincing US championship victory with an equally convincing win at the Capablanca Memorial in Havana. With this undefeated win (7.5/10) he is now 30th in the world with a 2717 rating, making him the fourth US player over 2700. The otheres are Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, and Wesley So.
Coming events: June 2, Boylston June Quads, www.BoylstonChess.org; June 3, 62nd Papa Gino’s (Scholastic) Open, Papa Gino’s Waltham, 1018 Lexington St., Waltham, Contact, Mike Gosselin, MGosselin454@gmail.com
Recent results: MACA Girls’ Challenge (9), 1st: Yue “Kerry’’ Huang, 3.5/5 2nd: Tianna Wang, 3/4; Boylston May Scholastic, 14&U, 1st: Jonathan Wei, 4/4, 8&U, 1st: Jacob Oujie Wu, 4/4
Answer to today’s problem: 1.Qxe8+! Qxe8 2.Rxc8 Qxc8 3.Ne7+ Kf8 4.Nxc8 leaves White up a rook.
Chris Chase can be reached at BostonGlobeChessNotes@gmail.com.
