Anna Muzychuk Refuses to Play in Corrupted 2017 World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships in Saudi Arabia

A few international chess stars stand up for what is right.  I wish more of them had the guts to stand up against this kind of thing and give FIDE and countries like Saudi Arabia the permanent middle finger.

From The Washington Post

Chess champion refuses to defend titles in Saudi Arabia to protest treatment of women

Des Bieler, December 28, 2017

A Ukrainian chess champion is prepared to lose her two world titles rather than defend them in a tournament held in Saudi Arabia. Anna Muzychuk said she would skip the lucrative event to protest the treatment of women in that country.

Muzychuk, 27, is the reigning women’s world champion in both rapid and blitz chess. In a recent Facebook post, she said she “decided not to go to Saudi Arabia” because she did not want “to play by someone’s rules,” including being made to “wear [an] abaya,” the loosefitting garment the country usually requires women to cover themselves with while in public.

Muzychuk also said she was opposed to being “accompanied getting outside,” and to being made to feel like “a secondary creature."

By skipping the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships, which began Tuesday in Riyadh and end Saturday, Muzychuk said she was aware that not only was she set to “lose two World Champion titles — one by one,” but also to pass up an opportunity to “earn more than I do in a dozen of events combined.” The $2 million prize fund for the championships, which have been named for Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, was declared by the World Chess Federation (FIDE) to be “almost 350% more than the previous event."

The federation also said that the dress code for the event would entail “dark blue or black formal trouser suits, with high necked white blouses” for women. “There will be no need to wear a hijab or abaya during the games, this will be a first for any sporting event in Saudi Arabia,” FIDE announced in November.

Nevertheless, neither Muzychuk nor her younger sister Mariya, a former world champion in her own right, are competing at the championships. “I am really happy that we share this point of view,” Muzychuk said on Facebook.

The Riyadh tournament has also created headlines for the absence of chess players from Israel, who were denied visas. Saudi officials have said that they cannot issue the visas because their kingdom has no diplomatic ties with Israel, while the chess federation in the latter country is seeking financial compensation.

“There needs to be a clear separation between sports and politics,” said Lior Aizenberg, a spokesman for the Israeli Chess Federation. “We want our players to play in all competitions. What is going on in the Arab world does not interest us."

Hikaru Nakamura, the U.S.’s top-ranked rapid and blitz chess player, is also skipping the event. “To organize a chess tournament in a country where basic human rights aren’t valued is horrible,” Nakamura said in a November tweet. “Chess is a game where all different sorts of people can come together, not a game in which people are divided because of their religion or country of origin."

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is leading an effort, called Vision 2030, to modernize aspects of his society, and in September the government announced that women will be allowed to drive, starting in mid-2018. However, women in Saudi Arabia still need the permission of male guardians to marry, get divorced, attain employment, travel or have elective surgery (per CNN), and mixing with men in public places is still largely forbidden.

“As to whether it was right or wrong, there will certainly be people who will support me and people who will condemn me,” Muzychuk told Reuters of her decision to boycott the tournament. “But I took this decision and I am responsible for it."

Um, Hikaru Nakamura the Next Bobby Fischer?

Well, it is from a St. Louis newspaper :) Let's hope Nakamura is NOT the next Fischer -- he has some maturing to do (personality wise, I cannot speak to his chess maturity) but I would not want to see him end up pulling out his fillings because of paranoid fantasies.

But what has been put together in a concerted effort in St. Louis, Missouri, which if not the exact geographic center of the United States is pretty darn close to it in my book, is exciting and worthy of the kind of attention paid to it in this article. Yes, Virginia, there is a pretty cool life to be had in the Midwest!

Hikaru Nakamura is the next Bobby Fischer -- and the reason St. Louis is suddenly the epicenter of American chess
By Kelsey Whipple Thursday, Jul 21 2011

2011 Wijk aan Zee (Tata Steel)

The men's play usually doesn't interest me, but I have to toot the horn for this win by GM Nakamura (a resident GM at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, in Missouri, USA, who has this month broken into the Top 10 players of the world for the first time) in R1 againt GM Alexander Grischuk:

The 500-euro “Piet Zwart Prize” for the best game of the day – named after a popular tournament director from the years before Corus, when the event was known as the Hoogovens Tournament – was awarded to Hikaru Nakamura of the U.S. for his victory with white in 42 moves from a Nimzo-Indian Defence against Russia’s Alexander Grishuk.

“It was a beautiful game, conducted with a steady hand by Nakamura,” said grandmaster Ivan Sokolov, who commented on the day’s games for an audience of several hundreds of chess fans in a marquee on the village commons. “Grishuk was cramped for space and saw no other way out than to sac a piece for two pawns after only 18 moves. It was an effort to obtain active play but he never got a chance. It isn’t often that Grishuk gets clobbered in such a way.”

[Site "Wijk aan Zee NED"]
[Date "2011.01.15"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Nakamura,Hi"]
[Black "Grischuk,A"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2751"]
[BlackElo "2773"]
[EventDate "2011.01.14"]
[ECO "D38"]
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Nf3 d5 5. cxd5 exd5 6. Bg5 Nbd7 7. e3 c5
8. dxc5 Qa5 9. Rc1 Bxc3+ 10. bxc3 O-O 11. Nd4 Qxc5 12. Bd3 Ne4 13. Bf4 Nb6
14. Qc2 h6 15. f3 Nf6 16. g4 Re8 17. Kf2 Nc4 18. h4 Bxg4 19. Bxc4 dxc4 20.
fxg4 Nxg4+ 21. Kf3 Ne5+ 22. Bxe5 Rxe5 23. Kf2 Rae8 24. Rh3 b5 25. Rg1 Re4
26. Qd1 b4 27. Qf3 Rxe3 28. Rxg7+ Kxg7 29. Qg4+ Kf8 30. Rxe3 Rxe3 31. Kxe3
bxc3 32. Ke2 Qe5+ 33. Kd1 Qh2 34. Ne2 Qd6+ 35. Qd4 Qxd4+ 36. Nxd4 Kg7 37.
Nc6 a6 38. Nb8 a5 39. a4 Kf6 40. Nc6 Ke6 41. Nxa5 Kd5 42. Kc2 1-0