FIDE President Sponsors $1 Million Campomanes Memorial Tournament Series

FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov announces his sponsorship of the $1 million Campomanes Memorial tournament series during the ASEAN Chess Confederation annual meeting in Subic Freeport, Philippines. -Photo and caption from FIDE website.

FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov recent visit in the country during the ASEAN Chess Confederation (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) annual meeting in Subic Freeport left some promising events that will be held in a series of tournaments all over the ASEAN region for the next ten years in memory of the late FIDE Honorary President, Florencio Campomanes. According to FIDE website recent press release, "Ten $100,000 tournaments are slated over ten years in the 10-member ASEAN nations starting with the Campomanes Memorial tournament this August in Manila, Philippines and then in Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Brunei."

Simply put, this announcement will surely gave Ilyumzhinov some extra points he needed before the FIDE election begins. Though $1 million doesn't amount that much (it may also nailed the coffin that there won't be a regular, possibly much bigger, annual memorial tournament dedicated to Campo anywhere else!) and the ASEAN chess federations are not as influential compare to federations from Europe who one by one is turning against him, the Campo memorial tournaments will endear the ASEAN Chess Federation members and mark that the ASEAN more particularly the Philippines, Vietnam and Singapore still remain some of the fast emerging chess market in the globe. And just a few hundreds of miles north of ASEAN is well, you have China. You need more men, put up camps and gather resources and off you go for a battle. Nice move! Got a clear picture now what Ilyumzhinov is up to? He won't be a FIDE president, president of Republic of Kalmykia and a multi-millionaire businessman for nothing!

1st Florencio Campomanes Memorial Tournament

Now how about this one? It may not be a major tournament to get the full attention of the whole chess community but it looks like the Turks just got ahead of us Filipinos to posthumously honoring the late FIDE Honorary president Florencio Campomanes. I hope someday we can also duplicate such an event by adding a major annual international tournament like the Pichay Cup or Philippine Open in memory of the most influential chess personality in the history of Philippine chess? I don't like the idea of changing the Pichay Cup or the Philippine Open to Campo's memorial actually. Let them be. Or perhaps, it is already in the work but in secrecy just for the sake of element of surprise? It's a shame if such thing won't happen in Campo's own home land. Our friends over there at chessdom first brought this event to our attention and has some details of the ongoing tournament:

The first Florencio Campomanes memorial is currently taking place in Turkey.

Originally named Angora Chess Tournament, the event changed its name upon learning about the passing away of the Honorary FIDE President Florencio Campomanes.

The event is taking place May 17th - May 22nd. Top seeded in the main section is GM Azer Mirzoev, who is joined by IM Ivan Marinkovic, GM Petar Genov, WGM Zoya Schleining, and WIM Lyubka Genova.

The female group consists of FM Ali Marandi Cemil Can, WIM Kubra Ozturk, Demre Kerigan, Engin Topak, and Batuhan Dastan.

After 8 rounds GM Petar Genov is leading with 6,5/8. In the female section first is Topak Engin with 4,5/8.

More information on the official website

Florencio Campomanes on February 15, 1984 termination match

In this video interview, FIDE Honorary President Florencio Campomanes talks about his decisions on the controversial termination of 1984 Garry Kasparov-Anatoly Karpov FIDE World Chess Championship. Campomanes cited the health of both players particularly Karpov who was advised by his doctors not to continue playing as Karpov had already lost 23 pounds and was being hospitalized several times during the course of their match. As we know, the match was abandoned without a result.