`Youngest’ rated player had a price tag for his wins!

“Yesterday the AICF got an e-mail from the Fide executive director Emmanuel Omuku saying there had been irregularities there. One of the district office-bearers, VR Vinod sent an e-mail to Fide headquarters alleging Gowrishankar earned his points from `fixed’ games. The AICF has asked the Kerala Association to conduct an inquiry.”

Neither the AICF nor the All Kerala Chess Association received an application from the organisers for conducting such a tournament, Koya said. The federation has clarified that the results of the Thiruvananthapuram tourney will not be sent to Fide at all. It has also decided to conduct an inquiry into the tournament held at Kochi two weeks ago because some of the players alleged to have thrown games had participated there too.

“The status of the Kochi tourney will be decided only after the inquiry,” said Koya.

It may be recalled that from the Kochi tournament, Gowrishankar’s brother, nine-year-old Arjun Vishnuvardhan got a rating after `creating’ some upsets. The organiser at Kochi, John Ralph, said he had received telephone calls from two players while they were playing in the Thiruvananthapuram event that the boy’s father was offering cash awards for points given to his son. “I warned them against throwing points but the results show that this happened,” said Ralph, who is also the district association (Ernakulam) secretary.

The association has decided to take action against the two players — Unas and Ravindran — by debarring them for a year.

The Thiruvananthapuram tournament was illegal on many counts. Firstly, it was not sanctioned. Secondly, there was no recognised arbiter for the event. Three rounds were played on a day, which is against the Fide regulations. Then the allegations about points being thrown to the eight-year-old boy by other players.

The e-mail sent by Vinod to Fide says: “A Fide-rated chess tournament was held at Thiruvananthapuram India from 15-5-2000 to 20-5-2000. The main aim of the tournament was to award youngest Fide-rated chess player status to one CM Gowrishankar. Mr Manoj, father of Gowrishankar has (compensated) players to get points. Out of the 6.5 points, Gowrishankar achieved, 5.5 points were garnered through illegal means. In the above tournament, Gowrishankar lost against lowest-ranked players like N Sugunarajan, VT Thomas.

“If tendencies like this are allowed to continue chess lovers all over the world will lose respect in the game and they will look down upon chess tournaments with suspicion. Therefore, it is the duty of Fide to act immediately. I request that before entering the name of the above player to the next rating list proper inquiry should be conducted. The playing strength of the above player should be ascertained with the help of a computer programme. Proper action should be taken against the players and organisers of the tournament who are responsible for match-fixing.”

The Elo problem

Three decades after Professor Arpad Elo devised the rating system, chess has now nosedived into a whirpool of complexities.

The news that a eight-year-old boy from Thiruvananthapuram became the youngest-rated player in the world should warm the cockles of the Indian hearts but unfortunately it is now a shameful episode in the history of Indian chess.

Arpad Elo might not have imagined that records could be `created’ according to the whims and fancies of a few individuals when he presented the system to the world of chess. The `creative’ part of the record was on display in the tournaments at Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram.

Elo, the system (not the professor) was scorned last year by World champion Alexander Khalifman. Soon after winning the World Knockout Championship in Las Vegas, he charged Elo was responsible for the unhealthy divisions in the chess community. So if Vishwanathan Anand was not available to play for his country or meet his fellow GM Dibyendu Barua in the Nationals, Elo was the culprit; if Khalifman could not play former World champion Garry Kasparov, it was also on account of Elo. In short, Elo created a class system: the world champion, 2700-class, 2600-club etc. Thus chess untouchability came to stay.

Though agreement in draws (Grandmaster draws in chess parlance) is an accepted practice in chess, throwing points is never heard of at least in top class competitions.

In India one of the players was said to have enabled a Bangladeshi to become a GM in the 1980s. But in general players always complained they were `not helped’ by teammates in `fixing’ games. But things may change now if the Thiruvananthapuram experiments are allowed to go unpunished.

About the record itself, “It is much ado about nothing,” said Koya. “We cannot react to press reports about a record. There is no such `record’ in the Fide handbook.”

Koya referred to a previous `record’ some five years ago in a Nasik tourney from where a seven year old `attempted’ to become the youngest-rated player. “On that occasion, the father of the boy who was a rated player himself, was also an organiser. The Maharashtra Chess Association took action against the father after an inquiry,” said Koya.

Two years ago, under-7 champion NT Rama Rao was found over-age and was debarred for forging certificates. He was stripped of his title.

In this case Gowrishankar is not the real culprit. Sadly, few realise that his under-7 National title carries more weight than the concocted world record. The Indian age-group champion today is a world class commodity while a rated player belongs to the lowest rungs in chess classification.