Press conference Grand Slam Chess Association

As we reported earlier, during the Corus Chess Tournament the Grand Slam Chess Association was established. Yesterday morning the Association held a press conference in Linares, in which more details about their plans were made public. We present video selections (20 min.) from the press conference, and a reaction by Corus Chess Tournament director Jeroen van den Berg.

The full 35 minute audio (mostly in Spanish) is available here for download.

Presenting were (from left to right): Andoli Madariaga, the technical director of the Bilbao man/machine tournament, Juan Fernandez, the mayor of Linares, and Silvio Danailov, organizor of the MTel Masters tournament, in Sofia.

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Highlights from the press conference include:

• The GSCA office will be held in Bilbao
• The Grand Slam will initially be comprised of four tournaments (Corus, Linares, MTel, and one to be determined), but the GSCA is open to new tournaments. E.g. two from Mexico will propose to join, Dortmund, a tournament from Russia, may also be considered. Finals will be played in Bilbao, September 2008.
• Potential fourth tournament organizors have unil May 2 to submit proposals.
• Candidate tournaments must meet certain requirements: at least Category 19, classical time controls, substantial prize fund, and participation from top 10 players.
• The Association wants to be on good terms with FIDE. FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov will arrive Saturday evening, for a meeting on Sunday in Linares.
• The GSCA is open to new ideas from all parties, including press, players, organizors, sponsors.
• The Grand Slam tournaments will have some system to cut down or eliminate the “short draw.”

Here’s a reaction of Jeroen van den Berg, tournament director of the Corus Chess Tournament (Wijk aan Zee):

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