The Russian team won the chess Olympiad. The tournament, which has been held every two years since 1927, was played online for the first time in history. This nuance allowed the tournament to be held during the pandemic, but it also led to scandals.
In the final match between the national teams of Russia and India, the second team lost their connection. The match was not finished, and the appeal of the Indians led to a very strange decision of the international chess Federation (FIDE) – to award gold medals to both teams.
International grandmaster Vladislav Artemyev, who moved from Omsk to Kazan at the age of 14 and is studying for a master's degree at the Volga region Academy of sports, spoke about the strangeness of this decision and the course of the tournament in an interview with BUSINESS Online.
RUSSIA WAS INITIALLY THE FAVORITE
During the playoffs, the Russians beat the teams of Hungary and the United States, and in the first round of the final they drew with the chess players of India. In the second round, the Russians led with a score of 2.5: 1.5, but then there was an incident: during the game, two Indian grandmasters lost their Internet connection. They didn't reconnect in the time allotted for the game and automatically lost. The Indian side appealed, after which it was decided to award gold medals to both teams.


"The trial lasted a very long time-more than an hour. We have already realized that the organizers somehow favor the Indian team. But we thought that these two games would simply be outplayed. We were ready for this, " says Artemyev.
Kazanets believes that the Russians would have brought this match to victory – the advantage of the Russian team was provided by the Vice-world champion Alexandra goryachkina, who beat the world's second-ranked chess player Hampi konera.
"This decision is very strange. It doesn't fit with sporting principles. In any case, there must be one winner in the tournament. Especially because we were by the score of 2.5-1.5. Not the fact that the Indians played the point. According to the positions that we had, I think we would have finished the remaining games 1-1, and, accordingly, would have won the match, " Artemyev is sure.
The international chess Federation violated its own rules. According to it, after the appeal is considered, the parties must continue from the moment when the connection was broken. But even in this case, according to Artemyev, the opponents could get a significant help for cheating.
"There is a nuance in continuing the game from where we left off. It's been a long time and I would have to rely on the honesty of the players. Someone could use a computer to view this position and get some hints. It's hard to control. Resuming from the site would be logical if there was a guarantee that no one used the computer, " says Vladislav.
In this situation, the most obvious solution was to completely replay the interrupted games – from the very beginning. But this option was not used either. Instead, the team that lost during the match received the status of the winner. FIDE is headed by a former assistant to the President of Russia Arkady Dvorkovich, but he made an offensive decision for his compatriots.
"Of course, we expected that one winner would be determined – this is not a festival, but a sport, but the Indians filed an appeal, justifying their position by saying that the Internet failures were global in nature. The rules state that I, as FIDE President, must make a decision in such situations. Having weighed all the circumstances, considering that the first match ended in a draw, and the second was not played due to a global network failure, I decided to award gold medals to the finalists. You can talk for a long time about the justice of the decision. As a fan of the Russian team, I recognize that it deserved the gold medal and won it in a fair fight, " Dvorkovich was quoted as saying by TASS.
According to Artemyev, no one consulted the Russian chess players about making the final decision, and they were very surprised by it.
"It's not our fault that the opponent's Internet connection failed. It would be logical to replay two games. A replay was the obvious solution. In General, the regulations stated that the player and the team are responsible for their own Internet connection. Individual cases are considered, of course. But I would say that Russia was clearly sued, " says Artemyev.
THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME FOR INDIA IN THE TOURNAMENT
The Indian team was involved in a similar scandal at the quarter-final stage, but only from the other side. Then India's opponent, the Armenian national team, lost and was eliminated from the tournament, but the delegation protested the result of the game of grandmaster Hayk Martirosyan, who could not make a move due to a failure in the online program. FIDE did not accept the Armenian side's protest.
The leaders of the Armenian national team – Levon Aronian and Elina Danielyan - sharply criticized the international Federation, reproaching it for one-sided decisions. But they could not change the course of the tournament.
"Does FIDE really think that they are the smartest and the rest are idiots? Shame on them for their foul-smelling rotten work. They should resign after this. This is a terrible shame for the entire chess world, " Danielyan tweeted.
"I think, as always, some people are less disconnected from the Internet than others," Aronian wrote, accompanying the entry with the tag #1984, making a reference to the dystopian novel by George Orwell.






Due to problems with the Internet, the Indian opponent lost, but the result remained unchanged. And in the final match, this situation was interpreted completely differently and the Indians, who had already lost the connection, won. There is an impression of some clear sympathy of the organizers for the Indian team. But Artemyev does not believe that the main rivals did it on purpose.
"I am sure that the Indians did not do this on purpose, they really had a problem with communication. But as far as I understand, our team was not offered to replay these games, simply announcing that two teams would be awarded "gold". I think this greatly overshadowed the final – very ugly on the part of FIDE, and the Indian team, too. The fact that they agreed to such a decision, " the athlete says.
ARTEMYEV HAD A GOOD TOURNAMENT, LOSING ONLY ONE GAME
In addition to the 22-year-old Artemyev, the Russian team included Polina Shuvalova, Andrey Esipenko, goryachkina, Alexander Grischuk, Yan Nepomnyashchy, Daniil Dubov, Ekaterina Lagno, Alexandra Kostenyuk, Valentina Gunina, Alexey Sarana and Margarita Potapova. The captain was Alexander Motylev.
The victory of the Russian team at the chess Olympiad was long-awaited – the women's team has not won the tournament since 2010, and the men have not taken the Cup since 2002. It is noteworthy that this year's tournament was supposed to be hosted by Russia and it was originally planned to hold the competition in Khanty-Mansiysk, but the coronavirus destroyed the plans.
Artemyev, who represents Rook Kazan, did not go through the tournament very smoothly-he started with a loss to a grandmaster from Croatia, but then, as he says, he picked up the pace and in the next four games always came out the winner. Only in the final two games of the tournament, he reduced the games to draws. Including in the final match with Harikrishna Pentala.
"Scored +3 for the team. Not to say that an outstanding performance, could have played better. But relatively satisfied. This is still a team tournament, and I didn't lose so much," Artemyev estimates his performance.
But he changed his attitude to conducting chess battles in an online format. If in a large interview with our publication Artemyev spoke positively about this practice, but now he sees online only as a platform for training.
"We played a lot of games and tournaments on the Internet. This is a very good format for training, but there are doubts about holding global competitions. If you do, then you need to make one General rule for all cases. If the Internet crashes, you need to understand-there will be a continuation of the game, replay or defeat. As for me, in serious tournaments it is strange to award a loss due to a discount. We need to overplay it, " Artemyev said.


"The mouse will fly off and you will lose." Chess moved online, but it didn't get rid of cheaters and bad Internet.
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