Sergey Tiviakov: “I had no choice but to leave the Championship”
15 September 2009
Report by Chessvibes.com
Special thanks to Peter Doggers for sending us the article
The already seriously weakened Dutch Championship lost its top seed yesterday, after the third round. Sergey Tiviakov had prearranged a draw for his last-round game on Sunday and had told the organizers that he couldn’t attend the closing ceremony and possible tiebreaks. This was not accepted, after which Tiviakov decided to withdraw immediately. ChessVibes spoke with all people involved.
Three rounds have been played so far at this year’s Dutch Championship, which has GM Sergei Tiviakov (2670), GM Sipke Ernst (2589), GM Dimitri Reinderman (2572), GM Anish Giri (2552), GM Friso Nijboer (2540), GM Robin Swinkels (2511, IM Frans Cuijpers (2480), GM Karel van der Weide (2462) IM Ali Bitalzadeh (2437 and FM Roi Miedema (2396) on its participants list.
This year’s edition is one of the weakest Dutch Championships ever held, with no less than seven players from the top 10 missing. After the withdrawal of its main sponsor, the Dutch Chess Federation had to downgrade the prize fund considerably. The last three years, when the tournament was held in Hilversum, the first prize was € 12,000, € 8,000 and € 10,000 respectively; this year it’s € 6,000.
Players who we don’t see this year include Loek van Wely, Jan Smeets (reigning champion), Daniel Stellwagen, Erwin l’Ami, Erik van den Doel, Jan Werle and Jan Timman. And now, after three rounds, the tournament organizers had to say goodbye to the only top GM who did agree to play: Sergey Tiviakov. What has happened?
After the opening ceremony, which was held last Friday, Sergei Tiviakov walked over to his townsman Sipke Ernst, his opponent in the last round, and offered him a draw. Ernst accepted, but then Tiviakov added that he could’t play on Sunday, because he had to play in the Croatian league on Monday. Ernst suggested him to contact the arbiter, which Tiviakov did. At that point the arbiter and tournament director didn’t object (yet).
After the third round (Tiviakov had drawn with Bitalzadeh, lost to Swinkels and beaten Miedema) the organizers told him that they couldn’t allow it. As stated in the players’ contract, which was signed by Tiviakov, all participants have to attend the opening, closing and all rounds. If he wouldn’t appear in the playing hall, his game would be declared lost by default. Tiviakov immediately decided to withdraw from the tournament, which thus lost its top seeded player.
Here is the full article.
Sergey is a loser. Contract is contract.I hope he will never play in the dutch championship again.
Tiviakov? Is that the guy who claimed to have seen UFO’s? Also, Croatia is very nice this time of year.
So what?! He agreed to and signed the contract, why does he complain now? Should have discussed this with the organizers prior to signing it. Solely his own fault.
‘why does he complain now?’
I don’t see him complaining about anything?!
He just shouldn’t have played in a tournament in which he signed a contract which he knew beforehand he couldn’t keep.
And he calls himself pro? Needs to learn a lot still.
Is anyone defending Tiviakov?
He was unprofessional and insulting to the Dutch, IMO.
Pre-arranged draws are against FIDE rules.
Did anyone bother to read the full article? Tiviakov *did* inform the organizers beforehand that he would be playing in Croatia, and they told him they would work around it, which eventually they didn’t.
There’s plenty of blame to go around here, but on balance I think the organizers come off worse. I can’t take seriously the demand that the players attend the dog-and-pony show of a closing ceremony. If the objection was that Tiviakov’s last-round game wouldn’t be played, they could have tried to work around it by rescheduling the game. Of course, his opponent might have refused, but there’s no evidence they even tried.
MetalPig did you read the full article?
He informed them that he couldn’t make it to the closing ceremony, but he said nothing about missing the last round and fixing the games!!!
Sure, he could have handled that part better, but I was reacting to people who say ‘he should have discussed it with the organizers’ and ‘he shouldn’t have signed the contract he knew he couldn’t keep’. These people seem unaware that he did talk to the organizers beforehand, and that he only signed the contract because of promises the organizers made.
The organizers will take steps so I don’t think this version of Sergey is very strong.