Really? Maybe I am one of those Americans who sees racism everywhere after all.

But why does the white man always get to move first??

Another charming fact about the organization of this tournament--all players with epicanthic folds ("asian-looking faces") ranked above 35th in the world on the August and September Fide rating lists were seeded in the same half of the pairing tree, guaranteeing that the final could not feature, for example, Nakamura vs. Ding (Bu, the sole exception over 2700 in the other half, was seeded so as to meet Carlsen in round 3 if he won twice).

I am not one of those Americans who sees  racism everywhere. This matter would not be worth commenting on were it not for the fact that the most valuable thing at stake here is not victory in the World Cup, but a berth in the 2018 candidates' tournament, which both finalists will receive. One of those berths looks like an all-but-reserved non-asian slot.

Jupp53 wrote on 09/13/17 at 14:59:14:


well done Chucky

Edit - and another good scalp knocking out Giri now.

Taking about dresscode: I like everbody treating it this way:

Interesting game by Bu to beat Carlsen a few days ago; I'm constantly surprised at the number of early (before move 10) new ideas and nuances have been cropping up in the Open Games over the past five years or so.

As ever, alas, one wishes the ACP had someone considerably more thoughtful and literate to write for them.

TN wrote on 09/09/17 at 21:59:44:

Really surprising to me that anyone at all would direct anything beyond "yeah, shorts are kinda unprofessional" at Kovalyov. More than obvious with whom lays the blame.. Azmaiparashvili even openly admits that he said gypsy.

TopNotch wrote on 09/09/17 at 23:30:28:

How about this for an excuse: He specifically asked the organizers of a past WC whether shorts would be legal, and was given the go-ahead. Nothing indicated that anything had changed.

In General, the rules are incredibly nebulous and dont explain anything - plus it's by no means the first instance of 'unprofessional' clothing at the elite level and theres never been a comment about it; eg Caruana wore a meme-tshirt at the Sinquefield Cup & Nepo is known to walk around in DotA-shirts & -sweaters - is that less "offending"?

Wesley So was scribbling notes on his notation sheet, which is expressedly forbidden and may very well get into the realms of cheating, yet it took multiple warnings with repeat offences for there to be any action at all (which then happened to be the forfeiture of the game, but even that decision was disputed by many).
If you are against your players wearing shorts (then write that into the rules.. But ok, lets ignore that part), go to him and say "hey, we'd prefer you not to wear this, please come with trousers tomorrow, consider this a warning, thank you" - dont send the player back to his room right before the game.

This is still entirely aside from the described treatment at the hands of Zurab being unacceptable even if Kovalyov had turned up naked.

E: The one /possible/ counterpoint to the Kovalyov-case I found was that he actually wanted to leave the tournament from the get-go (whyever) and tried to provoke/fake some Kind of 'Scandal', which he might be able to use as an excuse (which would also be why he complained about the "wrong" colour).
I suppose its possible to believe that (I certainly dont, although I will admit it's mighty strange for a player of his level not to know his colour), but it wouldn't even change anything about the dresscode rules being unclear & the alleged behaviour of the TD (who also happens to be chief of the appeals commitee?! Who got that idea), so it feels like a bit of a moot point to me

TopNotch wrote on 09/09/17 at 23:30:28:

But in fact he wasn't told he was doing anything wrong during previous rounds. He wasn't advised there was any problem until five minutes before this 3rd round game, when it would be too late to go and buy long trousers. Then Azmaiparashvili came along and yelled at him, just to make 100% sure his concetration was ruined.

And all this for something that isn't even violating any rule - the only dress code people around the internet are managing to dig up explicitly allows bermuda shorts!

You could argue that FIDE and/or a top tournament like this should have a dress code that bans any kind of shorts (and I would agree for the top tournaments), but it seems that in fact they don't. And the way to get a new code adopted is not to suddenly, randomly apply it to one player just before an important game.

The blame for this mess falls squarely on the organizers, not the player.