If you are interested, I also recently made a video on this topic, feel free to check it out if you want
youtube.com/watch?v=J1QSjXEq…
17/17
Of course, this is not the only instance in the history of this competition. In fact, last year it was precisely Mr.Dick's teammate, Rob Duijn, who made FM with the performance of 1951. Do note that Mr. Dick was playing 1st board.
It was less blatant than this year, but...
12/17
This is precisely what happened. Bloemendal lost 5 matches and won in the last round. Mr. Dick scored 5.5/7 and became FM. Do note that he beat 1575, 1645 and 1677 players and actually ended up LOSING rating.
11/17
This is precisely what Dick de Graaf's team Bloemendal did. They put him on the last board even though he was the strongest player in the team! He was playing below 3 sub-2000 players and 2 UNRATED ones.
9/17
In the recently concluded European Club Cup, Dutch player Dick de Graaf became FM by scoring 5/7 on the 6th board.
Alas, this is the result of a shameless abuse of FIDE's direct titles regulations, which demonstrates why they need to be changed.
A thread!
1/17
IDK why, but this tweet immediately reminded me of that brilliant Caddycarus clip from his Crash Bash video
Dear FIDE friends, family members and colleagues! Dear players, arbiters, organisers and many more chess lovers and professionals!
Eight years ago I was elected as FIDE president. It has been a big honor, a huge challenge and a real pleasure to serve FIDE throught this period full of intensive chess life.
I thank our team for all the success stories we had. I thank all chess federations - both experienced and new ones - for moving chess forward out of the woods together. Anything we could not achieve is on me.
But I firmly believe that it has been a positive time for us and our chess family is more prosperous now than ever. And we have laid a foundation for even brighter future.
It is a day for a new team to take over and I am confident in their ability to do even better. Chess will continue to bring joy, build bridges and make people around the world skillful and happier.
I will be around.
Gens Una Sumus.
Yours,
Arkady Dvorkovich
Suffered a devastating last-round loss in the Zagreb Open against a nominally lower-rated, yet very good opponent, which ruined my tournament (big rating minus instead of a top-10 prize finish).
How do you guys deal with immense anger and disappointment after such games?
:(








