While it has been pretty widely excepted that the measures taken by World Cup officials against Li Chao and Wang Yue were correct Chessvibes has taken the mantle of dissention (not uncommon for their articles, which I LOVE!). In their article entitles "Too late to leave?" the editors of chessvibes bash the zero tolerance rule.

I fully support this opinion. The zero tolerance rule is the knee jerk reaction to the Karpov-Anand Incident (see the article). On the other hand, I also agree that it was ridiculous for the players to not be present in the playing hall so close to the round time. the exact time of the round may have been ambiguous to the Chinese players but they knew it was close to time (they were in the building, after all).

However, the zero tolerance rule does not just apply to rapid games. In a World Championship match if a player chooses to take an extra few minutes to calm himself who can blame him? Let the time tick on his clock and his opponent smile at the psychological victory. the FIDE president has pushed this rule and its only effect seems to be to create more beaurocratic chatter. Rules beget more rules. It reminds me of the film "Blazing Saddles" ... "we've got to protect our phoney-bologna jobs, gentlemen".

The News from Chessbase:

The official World Cup bulletin states: "Two Chinese players, Wang Yue and Li Chao, were late for the second game of the tiebreaks against Vugar Gashimov (AZE) and Etienne Bacrot (FRA) respectively. According to the FIDE regulations the games were forfeited." More about this in the interview below.

Apparently both players were in the smoking area after the first rapid chess tiebreak game. The arbiter went to the area and announced that the games would start in three minutes, and then again in one minute. Unfortunately Wang and Li arrived at their boards two minutes after the starting time and lost their games by forfeit. Both went on to lose their third rapid chess game and were thus eliminated from the World Cup 2009.



Q: Perhaps now it is a good reason to quit smoking? Less chances to get into a trouble and more chances to be healthy.

Wang Yue: I don't think so… After such a shock you only think to take a long smoke!