Too bad Mr. Leong wasn’t the arbiter (although he is listed as such at the Swiss Manager site:
http://chess-results.com/tnr25011.aspx?ix=1&lan=1&m=-1&wi=1000&turdet=YES

2nd Women World Team Chess Championship Organizer(s) FIDE
Chief-Arbiter Ignatius Leong
Arbiter Xie Jun(Deputy)
) for the China-Vietnam match incident. Though there is a difference between isolated players agreeing to a draw off the chessboard, and powerful federations doing the same thing.

Translated from Chinese lanaguage which was published in Sina Sports http://sports.sina.com.cn at 21:21 hr on 21 September 2009.

In the 6th round of the Zhejiang Lishui Xingqiu Cup International Open Chess Tournament held in Lishui, Zhejiang Province, an extraordinary incident happened when two young star players Wang Chen and Lu Shanglei agreed to a draw. After the end of the round, the Chief Arbiter declared both players to have lost their game. This is the first time that a double default has ever been meted out in chess competition in China.

What actually happened? This brings us back to 16:00 hour when the Chief Arbiter announced the start of the round and the two players wrote their result as drawn, signed on their scoresheets without making a single move and left the playing hall. The Chief Arbiter from Singapore, Mr Ignatius Leong, General Secretary of the World Chess Federation, saw what happened and after checking that no move was recorded on the scoresheets, declared the game lost for both players.

After the incident, Mr Leong was interviewed by the sports reporter from Sina Sports. Mr Leong said that while this was the first time that such a ruling had been made in China, it was also the first time he had ever made a double default in his 30-year carrer of arbitratiion in major international competitions all over the world. In his opinion, such conduct does not show respect for the competition, the organisers and the chief arbiter.

There may be different reasons where short draws are made during a game. However, as in today’s case, agreeing to a draw without making a single move are rare. When the reporter asked Mr Leong if there are regulations which support his decision, Mr Leong replied smilingly asked if there are regulations which do not support his ruling. “I have arbitrated in numerous major world and international competitions for 30 years and have not made a mistake. From my perspective, a sportive result cannot be achieved without making a single move.

The players had come to the tournament hall, signed on the scoresheets without makiing a single move and left the tournament hall immediately. This is as good as fixing the result prior to start of play. Such behaviour is bad for the image for the development of Chess. This was why he made such a tough ruling.

The reporter contacted a Chinese International Master Xu Yang who supported Mr Leong’s decision. Xu said that such conduct of the players could lose the support of sponsors. Moreover, from the professional view point, this is unfair to chess fans who want to see interesting games.

Before the start of the 7th round, Mr Leong will announce his ruling in the presence of all the competitors. This will be a good lesson not only for the two players but to all competitors to respect their profession as chessplayers, to respect the efforts of organisers and to respect the development of Chess activities.

Posted on the FIDE Website

About the pre-arranged draws… it’s normal, get over it. Friends, both being hungover, family stuff, emergencies…. it happens and chessplayers are generally the kind of person that likes to help in that kind of case.

The people that nag about this, are…. unsportsmenlike.

TO be fair, the KNSB never seems to like jokes… I remember playing:
1.Nf3 Nc6 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Ne5 Nd4 4.Nd5 Ne4 5.Nc6 Nc3 6.Nf6+ Nf3+
lol both kings are in check…. we moved the knights back to b1, g1, g8, b8 later and started a normal game…. halfway they insisted on the rules and the normal played game was stopped untill the Nf6 check when a draw was the only result possible.

My conclusion is that the chess bureaucrats are way to full of themselves. Sure when prize funds of over 50.000 are at stake contracts and behaviour are in order. But a measly 6000 gives the organisation less symbolic right to nag about the little things IMO.

Grow up KNSB and get some perspective!

You are correct that both sides contradict each other. This proves the point I am trying to make: Unless something is in writing there is no proof of obligation, or as you say, “no one can possibly tell who’s right and who’s lying or remembering things wrongly”.

Now, if Tiviakov had insisted on Stomphorst putting his alleged promise in writing he would be in much better standing. If he had the conversation he said he did he could have insisted it be in his contract. As it stands now he has been condemned by his fellow players.

Seems clear enough to me that talk (if it in fact occurred) is cheap.

They did. It’s not ideal, but starting the tournament earlier would have given other problems. The main problem is probably that Tiviakov expects some rest time between the two tournaments and wanted to leave saturday evening. But this was not part of the agreement between him and the federation…

One thing which hasn’t been said before: thanks and kudos to Peter Doggers for his efforts to come up with a balanced report, and also for leaving his own opinion (if he has one) out of the story – it’s a report, not a column after all.

Reading through the report again two quotes are 100% contradicting each other:
Tournament director Jan Stomphorst: “already in May he knew that he had to play in Croatia. Why didn’t he tell us before?”
Tiviakov: “On May 28th I spoke with Jan Stomphorst and Jeroen Bosch [Sports Director at the Dutch Chess Federation, PD], when I already informed them that I had confirmed my participation in Croatia. There and then, Stomphorst promised me that the Championship would be organized in such a way that I wouldn’t have to miss the Croatian league. ”
While some posters take Tiviakov’s version for granted, I would say noone (not you, not me, not Peter Doggers) can possibly tell who’s right and who’s lying or remembering things wrongly. Peter could have made the additional effort to ask Jeroen Bosch – but I guess he wanted to get the report out quickly.

BTW (but this may only be relevant from a legal/court point of view): I checked flight schedules ,:) and Tiviakov could still reach his connecting flight in Zurich taking a 7:05am flight from Amsterdam Monday morning. Not ideal of course (most chess players aren’t morning people, and there would be a risk to miss the connection), but – from a legal point of view – the Dutch federation could even claim that they honored Tiviakov’s request!?

For the rest, my previous comment was just to point out that Tiviakov’s statement “both Bacrot and Mazé had left earlier [from Montreal], which was no problem for the organizers” is rather irrelevant IMO. Maybe there was no contractual obligation to attend the closing ceremony, maybe they informed the organizers who agreed, maybe they were actually punished (keeping part of their prize money), who knows?

The player should stop right there and get this assurance in WRITING. Written contracts have greater evidentiary value than verbal assurances in court. Verbal contracts are subject to misinterpretation. What was said and what was heard are often miles apart. GM’s are treated poorly in the chess world. They need to push back and do it legally.

Get it in writing. So what I meant in the first post was that contracts need to be specific and address eventualities such as occurred here.