Alexander Grischuk, Nikita Vitiugov, Dmitry Andreikin, Vladimir Fedoseev and Alexandr Predke will play in Belgrade as the 2022 FIDE Grand Prix resumes under the cloud of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It may be the last time Russian chess players are able to compete for some time, since on the eve of the tournament the IOC recommended that no Russian or Belarusian sportsmen be allowed to take part in international competitions. Top seed for the tournament is Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, one of 9 players making their Grand Prix debut.
The five Russian players in Belgrade won't play under the Russian flag
As recently as Sunday 27th February, the FIDE Council decided that while preventing Russia or Belarus from hosting any international events they would allow Russian and Belarusian players to compete in events, as long as they didn’t use their national flags. They cited the International Olympic Committee:
Following the call from IOC, the FIDE Council decides that no Russian and Belarusian national flag be displayed or anthem be played in all FIDE-rated international chess events.
That meant Russian players could still compete in the FIDE Grand Prix series, and the pairings are out for the 2nd leg of the series.
Dmitry Andreikin and his wife Svetlana have been vocal in opposition to Vladimir Putin for many years, something that may have held back Dmitry’s career. Alexander Grischuk was spotted with Daniil Dubov at a protest in Moscow last year over the arrest of anti-Putin activist Alexei Navalny. Nikita Vitiugov recently tweeted after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Which could be translated:
It’s impossible to believe. In 2022 people are dying in a war in Europe and the fates of tens of millions of people are being shattered. Horror. I don’t see how emotions on the internet can help. I’ll state my position — you can’t defend yourself on someone else’s territory. Russians and Ukrainians are brothers, not enemies. Stop the war.
When it comes to boycotts, however, it’s less about the individual views of players than imposing restrictions on a whole country to apply pressure to the government. English and Welsh football teams announced they would refuse to play Russia, as did the Polish football team. Soon the major footballing authorities made it official policy.
It’s a similar story in chess, with the Polish Chess Federation announcing that Poland would refuse to play the World Team Championship in April if Russia are allowed to play. FIDE are yet to make a similar statement, but their room to manoeuvre now looks limited since the IOC has also decided to take the further step of excluding all Russian and Belarusian sportsmen.
If FIDE does adopt the same policy, there is still a loophole that could apply to Belgrade. The IOC comment:
Wherever [not inviting any Russian or Belarusian players] is not possible on short notice for organisational or legal reasons, the IOC EB strongly urges International Sports Federations and organisers of sports events worldwide to do everything in their power to ensure that no athlete or sports official from Russia or Belarus be allowed to take part under the name of Russia or Belarus. Russian or Belarusian nationals, be it as individuals or teams, should be accepted only as neutral athletes or neutral teams. No national symbols, colours, flags or anthems should be displayed.
So for this leg the players should be able to compete, but it’s not clear if the fact the line-ups have already been decided would be enough for it be possible for Russians to compete in the third event in the series… and indeed in the Candidates Tournament to follow.
The place for Ian Nepomniachtchi is also now in question, while Sergey Karjakin’s cheerleading for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of his old homeland has been condemned by FIDE and left him facing an Ethics Committee case. It’s reached the stage that if he somehow still played the other participants might well refuse to take part, not to mention that sponsors and others would be unlikely to want to be associated with the event.
In any case, these are the standings after the 1st leg of the Grand Prix.
Hikaru Nakamura defeated Levon Aronian in the final in the 1st leg to score a maximum 13 points, but neither plays in Belgrade, with Richard Rapport the player best placed to set a high target when he completes his Grand Prix campaign in Belgrade.
The playing hall in Belgrade | photo: Mark Livshitz, FIDE
In total seven players are playing their second and final event — Grischuk, Bacrot, Harikrishna, Rapport, Vidit, Fedoseev and Shirov, while nine are making their debut — Giri, Vitiugov, Mamedyarov, Andreikin, MVL, Tabatabaei, Yu Yangyi, Predke and Shankland, with the latter getting ready for the tournament with an eye to making a declaration of support.
It’s notable that Dmitry Andreikin will now be able to play two events despite having had to drop out of the first leg after testing positive for COVID.
Once again, there are four groups, with only the top player qualifying from each group and the four winners then going forwards to a knockout.
On paper Pool D is perhaps the toughest, with Mamedyarov, MVL and Yu Yangyi, but as you can see, there are no weak groups. Pairings to look forward to in Round 1 include Grischuk-Andreikin and Rapport-Fedoseev, which is noteworthy for the fact that Richard won both games when they also found themselves in the same pool in Berlin.
The schedule is the same as in Berlin, with four days before a single rest day, though if tiebreaks aren't needed we can also have a free day before the knockout and after the semi-final
We’re going to have Peter Svidler and Jan Gustafsson commentating on all the Belgrade FIDE Grand Prix action from 09:00 ET | 15:00 CET | 19:30 IST on Tuesday March 1st.
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