Commie Chess

After the penultimate round of the recently concluded European Championships in Israel the Russian player Evgeniy Najer had eight points, half a point more than the two players tied for second place, David Navarra, of the Czech Republic, and another Russian, Denis Khismatullin. The two Russians were paired in the last round, while GM Navarra was paired the Bulgarian Ivan Cheparinov, who had scored seven points, half a point less than the two aforementioned players tied for second place. The pairings for the final round were Khismatullin vs Najer, and Navarra vs Cheparinov. These are dream pairings for a chess fan! Khismatullin needed to win and had the White pieces, and the same could be said for the board two battle. This is the game “played” by the two Russians:

GM Denis Khismatullin (2653) – GM Evgeniy Najer (2634)
16th ch-EUR Indiv 2015 Jerusalem ISR 2015.03.08
1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 c6 5.a4 Bf5 6.Nh4 Bc8 7.Nf3 Bf5 8.Nh4 Bc8 9.e3 Bg4 10.Nf3 e6 11.h3 Bh5 12.g4 Bg6 13.Ne5 Nbd7 14.Nxc4 h5 15.g5 Ne4 16.h4 Bb4 17.Bg2 Nxc3 18.bxc3 Bxc3+ 19.Bd2 Bxd2+ 20.Qxd2 O-O 21.O-O f6 22.f4 Nb6 23.Na5 Qe7 24.Qe2 Rae8 25.Bf3 Qf7 26.Kh2 e5 27.fxe5 fxe5 28.Qa2 ½-½

I do not need a 3300 rated chess program to inform me something was rotten in Denmark. If a student showed me this game I would have to question why he played 17 Bg2. It is incomprehensible that Najer did not take the Rook in lieu of the Bishop on move 19. All chess players with four digits after their name would question the move made by Black, 19…Bxd2+. This game brought to mind the famous article in the August 1962 issue of Sports Illustrated by Bobby Fischer, The Russians Have Fixed World Chess. My next thought was that a new chapter on chess should be included in a revised issue of, The Fix Is In: The Showbiz Manipulations of the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and NASCAR, by Brian Tuohy. Then I thought of a chess player of yesteryear, Oscar Al Hamilton, who believed, “Everything is rigged.”

What have the “mainstream” chess websites had to say about the collusion conclusion of the European Championships? The first article, dated March 10, appeared on the chess24.com website, Najer is European Champion, by IM David Martínez, who wrote, “Russian Grandmaster Evgeniy Najer has won the European Individual Championship in Jerusalem after drawing with compatriot Denis Khismatullin in the final round. After a fine tournament he could afford to offer a draw on move 28 in a very favourable position and still finish half a point clear of the field on 8.5/11.” (https://chess24.com/en/read/news/najer-is-european-champion)

A day later an article appeared on the Chessbase website, Evgeny Najer is 2015 European Champion, by by Albert Silver. He writes, “The fresh European champion for 2015 is Russian GM Evgeny Najer! In the final round having a better position he accepted a draw offer by his compatriot Denis Khismatullin to secure the desired championship title though not before making sure that David Navara, the other runner-up, wouldn’t achieve more than a draw against Bulgarian Ivan Cheparinov.” (http://en.chessbase.com/post/evgeny-najer-is-2015-european-champion)

Bobby Fischer was proven right and the commie collusion continues to this day. It will not stop as long as the Russians who still think, and act, like communists are in control of FIDE. The day after the tournament ended saw this headline, Putin just awarded a medal of honor to the chief suspect in one of Russia’s most notorious political murders, by Jeremy Bender, dated March 9, 2015. “Russian President Vladimir Putin has just awarded the chief suspect in one of the past decade’s most notorious political assassinations a medal of honor, AFP reports.

The Kremlin honored Andrei Lugovoi, a member of Russia’s lower house of parliament, for his “great contribution to the development of the Russian parliamentary system and his active role in lawmaking.”

Lugovoi is still wanted in Britain as one of the two chief suspects in the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. Litvinenko, a defector from the FSB, Russia’s leading intelligence service, died after being poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 in London.

After Litvinenko’s defection from the FSB, he moved London where he became an outspoken critic of Putin and his regime. British intelligence believes that Lugovoi personally slipped the polonium into Litvinenko’s tea during a meeting at the Millennium hotel in London in November 2006. Twenty-three days later, Litvinenko died in a London hospital.

Lugovoi was cleared of wrongdoing after a questioning by a British polygrapher in Moscow following the murder. However, the polygrapher has admitted to skewing the results and said that Lugovoi actually failed a portion of the test in which he denied having ever handled polonium-210, the Guardian reports.

Putin giving an award to Lugovoi might be aimed at undermining Britain specifically during its ongoing investigation into the 2006 assassination. London is currently holding public hearings as part of an inquiry into Litvinenko’s death.

Lugovoi is being honored less than two weeks after the murder of prominent Russian dissident Boris Nemtsov. Nemtsov, an opposition activist and former deputy prime minister during Boris Yeltsin’s presidency, was shot to death on a bridge just 200 yards from the walls of the Kremlin on February 27. (http://www.businessinsider.com/putin-gave-medal-to-litvinenko-poisoning-suspect-2015-3)

Russian President Vladimir Putin Accused of Murder

There is an article by Jane Croft on the Financial Times website, dated Jan. 27, 2015, “Putin accused of presiding over ‘mafia state’ at Litvinenko probe.”

“Russian President Vladimir Putin was on Tuesday accused at the opening of an inquiry into the death of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko of presiding over a “mafia state” with links to organised crime syndicates in Spain.”

This man, RasPutin, is the power behind the world chess federation known as FIDE. This is also the man seen hobnobbing with the chess elite, including the World Human Chess Champion, Magnus Carlsen, and the man he vanquished for the title, Viswanathan Anand. (http://www.sochi2014.fide.com/closing-ceremony) Is it any wonder the public has tuned out the Royal game?

The article continues, “Ben Emmerson QC, representing Litvinenko’s widow Marina at the public inquiry, claimed that the evidence for Litvinenko’s “horrifying assassination” by a radioactive isotope “all points in one direction” and was only likely to have happened “on the order of very senior officials in the Russian state”.

In a hard hitting speech, Mr Emmerson claimed that Litvinenko was killed “partly as an act of political revenge for speaking out, partly?.?.?.?as a message of lethal deterrence to others and partly to prevent him giving evidence in a criminal prosecution in Spain that could have exposed Putin’s direct link to an organised criminal syndicate in that country”.

Mr Emmerson claimed that the events showed the “unlawfulness and criminality at the very heart of the Russian state”.

“The intimate relationship that will be shown to exist between the Kremlin and Russian organised crime syndicates are so close as to make the two effectively indistinguishable,” Mr Emmerson claimed.

“The startling truth, which is going to be revealed in public by the evidence in this inquiry, is that a significant part of the Russian organised crime around the world is organised directly from the office of the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a mafia state,” Mr Emmerson alleged to the inquiry.

Mr Emmerson added that Litvinenko had been a “marked man” since giving a press conference in Moscow alleging national security service FSB corruption and Mr Putin was a “ruthless and deadly enemy” to Litvinenko, Mr Emmerson claimed.

“The evidence all points one way,” Mr Emmerson said claiming that the two main suspects implicated in the poisoning had “links to Putin’s inner circle”.

Mr Emmerson said he believed the inquiry would show not just a trail of polonium from London to Moscow but a trail leading “directly to the door of Putin’s office” and Mr Putin would be “unmasked” by the inquiry “as a common criminal dressed up as a head of state.”

The former Russian spy, who died after ingesting radioactive polonium 210, may have been poisoned “not once but twice”, the inquiry into his death was told.

Sir Robert Owen, chairman of the public inquiry, said the circumstances of Litvinenko’s death brought in to focus issues of the “utmost gravity”, which had attracted “worldwide interest and concern”.

The inquiry, which is due to last for 10 weeks, will look at the circumstances around the death of Litvinenko who was allegedly poisoned as he sipped green tea at Mayfair’s Millennium Hotel in November 2006.

The death of Litvinenko sent relations between the UK and Russia to a post-cold war low, with diplomats expelled by both sides.

Russia has long denied claims, attributed to Litvinenko on his deathbed and repeated by his friends and family, that Moscow ordered his death after the Kremlin critic was granted asylum in the UK.

UK prosecutors had accused two Russians Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun of the murder. They have strenuously denied any wrongdoing. Russia has refused to extradite them under the terms of its constitution.

Robin Tam QC, counsel to the public inquiry, told the hearing that scientific evidence will be presented to the inquiry that appeared to show that Litvinenko was poisoned with polonium “not once but twice”.

As well as a November 2006 meeting at the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel, the hearing was told an earlier poisoning attempt may have been made at a meeting weeks earlier.

Samples from Litvinenko’s hair show that he may have been poisoned twice with the first attempt much less successful, Mr Tam told the hearing.

Mr Lugovoi and Mr Kovtun were present at two meetings with Mr Litvinenko — including at the Pine Bar at the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair.

Litvinenko, who converted to Islam before he died, claimed to police on his deathbed that he believed he had been targeted by the Russian security services on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to details of his police interview conducted just before he died and read out to the hearing.” (http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/998d690c-a62c-11e4-9bd3-00144feab7de.html)

An article, “What’s Been the Effect of Western Sanctions on Russia?” appeared on the PBS website as a companion piece to the hard hitting documentary, “Putin’s Way.”

“When Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine last March, the United States and European Union responded with an economic weapon — sanctions.

The first few rounds, applied in March and April of 2014, targeted Russian and Crimean officials, as well as businessmen seen to have close ties to President Vladimir Putin — his “inner circle” — with travel bans and asset freezes.

Since then, the West has steadily expanded its sanctions against Russian entities, targeting major businesses and parts of Russia’s financial, energy and military industries.

FRONTLINE talked to Anders Åslund, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, on Jan. 8, 2015 about the effects and consequences of Western sanctions on the Russian economy. Åslund served as an economic adviser to the Russian and Ukrainian governments in the 1990s.
Which round of sanctions do you think really had an effect on the Russian economy? How would you measure that?

The sanctions the U.S. imposed came in two big chunks. The first concerned Crimea, and they were only personal sanctions for Crimean and Russian leaders involved in the Crimean drama.

Then, the important sanctions were imposed on July 16, which are called sectoral sanctions.

We can see that no money has been going into Russia after July. No financial institutions dared to provide Russia with any financing more than a month after that. And that we know from talking to banks. …

The point is that the [July] financial sanctions have worked out as far more severe in their effect than anyone seems to have believed.
Would sanctions alone have damaged Russia’s economy without the current plunging oil prices?

There are three major causes for Russia’s economic troubles. The first cause is the corruption and bad economic policies that Putin pursues, which on their own would lead to stagnation, or at most 1 percent growth.

The second element is the falling oil prices. The oil prices have now fallen so much that Russia’s total export revenues this year will be two-thirds of what they have been before. That means that Russia will have to cut its imports by half. This is a big blow.

This is then reinforced by the financial sanctions, so that Russia cannot mitigate this blow by borrowing money. By ordinary standards, Russia is perfectly credit-worthy with a public debt that is only 10 percent of GDP. But if you don’t have access to financial markets, then it doesn’t matter how credit-worthy you are, because you’re not credit-worthy so-to-say.

[Editor’s Note: On Jan. 9, Fitch Ratings cut Russia’s credit rating to BBB-, one step above junk.]”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defense/putins-way/whats-been-the-effect-of-western-sanctions-on-russia/

Vladimir RasPutin has become a pariah. The world will watch as he is consigned to oblivion because he, and his friends, like FIDE President Kirsan the ET, is on his way off of the world stage. He is learning first hand something a fellow Georgian, Martin Luther King Jr., said decades ago. “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Garry Kasparov must be following these events closely. In the immortal words of Bob Dylan, “For the loser now will be later to win/
For the times they are a-changin’.