A Pawn's Life

Interesting Opinion Piece About "Women's Chess."

“Women’s chess” is an outgrowth of women-only chess tournaments and titles, which are artificial creatures of the chess world. Like many epithets accumulated through outdated and persistent usage, its meaning is not well understood. Whereas “women’s gymnastics” or “women’s figure skating” make sense because the female competitors are (i) confined to competing only against other women, (ii) have exclusive rankings relative only to other women, and (iii) are scored based on completely different physical techniques than those employed by men, chess is different: Women play by the same rules as men and with the same pieces and boards."

http://en.chessbase.com/post/women-s-chess-a-misleading-and-counterproductive-label

Will Mueller's Trump-Russia Investigation Shed Light On FIDE, Agon and Chess Lane?

The financial tentacles of the Russian oligarchs, including Kirsan, may begin to see the light of day.

Bloomberg News today noted the direction Mueller's probe is taking.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-20/mueller-is-said-to-expand-probe-to-trump-business-transactions

"Another significant financial transaction involved a Palm Beach, Florida, estate Trump purchased in 2004 for $41 million, after its previous owner lost it in bankruptcy. In March of 2008, after the real-estate bubble had begun losing air, Russian fertilizer magnate Dmitry Rybolovlev bought the property for $95 million."

Rybolovlev was at that time married to Elena Baturina. Baturina has had business dealings and disputes with Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.

https://sites.google.com/site/rusmafiaeng287/persons/elena-baturina-head-of-zao-inteko

"In the late 90''s the company Inteko also became general contractor in the construction of Chess City (City-Chess) in the republic of Kalmykia under agreement of Baturina and the President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. Some budgetary funds might have been used in a building, which actually meant a misappropriation of funds.

Years later Baturina argued that Ilyumzhinov had not paid her money for the construction. While Ilyumzhinov argued that she had received the money in full.

Source: "News of the Week" on 23/05/2004"

Note also that Rybolovlev is involved in the phosphate business in Russia similar to PhosAgro, sponsors of the WC match put on by Agon, Ltd. in NYC. It will be interesting to see what comes to light about ownership of offshore entities by Russian Oligarchs, including Kirsan and others associated with Chess Lane and Agon.