Junior Linares8217; at Lausanne

KOCHI, MAY 27: The best junior talents in the world will be present for the inaugural Lausanne Olympic Capital Young Masters Tournament fr...

KOCHI, MAY 27: The best junior talents in the world will be present for the inaugural Lausanne Olympic Capital Young Masters Tournament from May 30 to June 4. The tourney, dubbed as Junior Linares8217; will feature eight of the highest rated junior players in the game.

Giving details about the event, Fide vice-president PT Ummer Koya, who attended the Fide presidential board meeting in London earlier this month, said the prestigious tournament has the 8220;attention and support8221; of the International Olympic Committee and the City of Lausanne.

Linares features the best chess players year after year in a round robin format and has long been the most popular tournament among the players, though there were even stronger events in terms of average Elo rating held recently.

The meet will have a presage on May 29 at the Olympic Museum when the world8217;s highest rated junior player Ruslan Ponomariov and the youngest woman Grandmaster Alexandra Kosteniuk take on 50 opponents in a simultaneous exhibition in the presence of IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch.

The tournament will also see the world8217;s youngest Grandmaster Bu Xiangzhi of China in action. Fide, in the meeting, has formally granted the GM title to Bu who will replace Ponomariov as the youngest GM in the July rating list.

The tournament has a Masters Open section and an Open section. The games will be shown online at the Fide website fide.com.

Ummer Koya said for the first time in the history of Chess Olympiads, this year8217;s edition at Istanbul from October 27 to November 13 will have doping control. Fide Medical Commission chairman Dr Pedro Barrera revealed in London that his commission in collaboration with the IOC Medical Commission will introduce doping control measures starting from the Istanbul Olympiad. 8220;The details are being worked out and will be communicated to the national federations as soon as they are finalised,8221; said the Fide vice-president.

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The presidential board meeting at London also resolved to exclude computers from all Fide rated events. The Board emphasised that while it will continue to encourage chess exhibitions, strictly along commercial lines with computers, it will not support the use of machines or computers against humans in official competitions in view of the recognition of chess as a sport by IOC.

The Board also approved the reduction of rating of Myanmar chess players by 100 points from the next list in the wake of the controversy surrounding the high ratings of players from the Myanmar Chess Federation in tournaments held within the country. The reduction will apply to only players who are above 2105.