FIDE World Chess Champion Ruslan Ponomariov sent an Open letter to the
members of ACP. He said:

"The latest FIDE decisions regarding the World Championship granted
exclusive privileges to GM Garry Kasparov. ... The match was unilaterally
cancelled by the FIDE president, Mr. Ilyumzhinov. Unfortunately, starting
with the General Assembly in Bled, the FIDE board exclusively defended the
interests of Mr. Kasparov, although, as an international organization, it
should have been taking a neutral position, and should have guaranteed that
the conditions are fair and equal for all participants."

I'm not surprised at all. Maybe you remember many FIDE decisions in the last
decades which are disputable. Maybe the worst of all was on 3. April 1975
when FIDE took Fischer's World Chess Champion title. But, you can find very
disputable decisions long before that (FIDE "games" with Euwe after
Alekhine's death, or some decisions regarding Alekhine's matches with
potentially challengers before World War II).

In the interview Dimitrije Bjelica, (published in Chess Today) famous chess
journalist, speaks very heartily about problems in the chess world:.

Bjelica said:

FIDE is now in checkmate position and it is easy to be better than this FIDE
team. I am glad that Kamsky and many grandmasters proposed me to be
Secretary General, because Omuku already left FIDE.
I gave Black Oscars in my magazine World Chess Review not only for
Campomanes for his dictatorship, but also for Makropulos who did not allow
Lilienthal and me in Lausanne to play a free simul with children. I gave a
Black Oscar to arbiter Gijssen who in the Bled Olympiad was very impolite
with journalists...

After his interview Mr. Bjelica got some comments. One of them, from GM
Rogozenko is very interesting. GM Rogozenko wrote:

"I read about the Black Oscars and I totally agree with you about all those
corrupted and uncivil people in chess."

Mr Rogozenko proposed new candidates for Black Oscar. The fist is one GM who
"bought his IM, then GM title and rating without playing a single game.
There are many people in the world who buy points, but this one is surely on
top."

I wouldn't agree that's the top. I would mention that Bobby Fischer said
that many top chess events (World Championship matches) in the last fifteen
years were fixed, move by move. So, maybe, the cheating dismounted on the
lower level!

GM Rogozenko wrote:

"By the way, last year Chess Informant published a game which I never
played. I was quite angry and expected at least apologize from them and from
GM Rausis, who invented such a nonsense. But in reply I got the answer from
Chess Informant that they are not to be blamed at all, since they cannot
check all the games (this one was very easy to check, though: two GMs in an
International tournament, all the games from that tournament were published.
I never in my life played against Rausis). After such an attitude and
non-professionalism I decided to quit my contacts with Chess Informant. And
I had very good contacts. I even won once the first Award of the Best
Novelty in one of the Informants. I told you this story just to confirm once
again that I am a principled person and expect others to be honest as well."


By the way, it's very important that more principles can be heard today,
brave people who fight against injustice and degradation of chess.

Here is one nice game (really) played by GM Rogozenko recently in
Bundesliga:

Rogozenko,D (2517) - Maiwald,J (2543) [E62]
Bundesliga 2003-4 Koelln GER (7), 12.12.2003

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nf3 Bg7 4.g3 0-0 5.Bg2 d6 6.Nc3 Nc6 7.0-0 Bf5 8.Ne1 Na5
9.e4 Bd7 10.b3 c5 11.dxc5 dxc5 12.Bb2 Nc6 13.Nc2 e5 14.f4 Bg4 15.Qe1 exf4
16.gxf4 Re8 17.e5 Bh5 18.Qg3 Ng4 19.Ne4 Nh6 20.Qf2 Ng4 21.Qg3 Nh6 22.Qf2 Ng4
23.Qxc5 Rc8 24.h3 Ncxe5 25.Qd6 Nxc4 26.Qxd8 Rexd8 27.Bxg7 Nce3 28.Nxe3 Nxe3
29.Bf6 Rd3 30.Rf2 Nd5 31.Be5 f5 32.Nf6+ Nxf6 33.Bxf6 1-0

Goran Tomic

This is getting nauseating. You people seem to forget that Kasparov
was on the wrong side of FIDE getting shafted royally. Remember the
first K-K match where Campomanes suspended the match because both
Karpov and Kasparov were tired. Kasparov said: There is nothing wrong
with me. What happened to Kasparov was a whole lot worse in his first
match with Karpov than what is happening to Pono. And Pono is being a
complete jerk about it to boot.

EZoto