the Appeal of Anatoli Gantvarg

[anatoli gantvarg]

The Appeal

The reason for this appeal of mine to draught players and draught's communityis in the unacceptable, openly discriminatory actions of the leadership of the FMJD (World Draughts Federation) in relation to the women's draught sport in general, and to individual players in particular. The decisions of individual FMJD leaders, and, above all, of the Tournaments Director J. Pawlicki, whose violations of sport principles, ignorance of regulations and common sense, complete incompetence, lack of knowledge and understanding of the game, favoritism in decision-making and frank manipulations and frauds led to the fact that the best players of 2017 M. Nogovitsyna and V. Motrichko found themselves out of the participants of the 2017 World Championships, while O. and D. Fedorovich, and V. Motrichko were not included in the final of the 2017 World Cup held in the city of Ufa, contrary to the qualification regulations from the World Cup tournaments.

The members of the FMJD's Executive Committee (EC) try to justify themselves by the fact that the participants of this official tournament were defined by the organizers thereof (Yu. Chertok). Once again, these officials demonstrate the neglect of regulations, the FMJD's Charter and the players' rights.

They are no longer ashamed and include F. Teer, their Executive Committee colleague, into the IMSA Elite Mind Games 2015 and World Championships 2017. It is hard to imagine a bigger scam.
For the time being, I will limit myself by describing the state of affairs of women, since some issues demand urgent consideration.
I an now follow the events in women's draughts more closely, after the Belarusian Draughts Federation had asked me to help Olga Fedorovich to get ready for the 2015 World Championships. What I see now goes beyond not only of the draughts, but the sports in general. I believe that there is an urgent need for draughts players and community of this sport to interfere in order to end the women's injustice and ensure the participation of the strongest players in the 2017 World Championships.

Incompetence and favoritism

Let me remind you that V. Motrichko and M. Nogovitsyna, who were among the leaders by the results of the World Cup 2017 tournaments, could not qualify for the 2017 World Championships from the qualifying 2016 European Championships in Turkey. To clearly compare the 2017 results, I asked experts to calculate the ratings based on the results of four World Cup tournaments, having assigned them the same rating of 2200 points as of January 1, 2017. Here is what they found:1.V.Motrichko 2223 2.N.Sadovska 2222 3. A.Idrisova 2220 4.O.Fedorovich 2209 5. E.Chesnokova 2202, 6.M.Nogovicina 2199
J. Pawlicki, who is also the President of the Polish Federation, that is, an interested person, is knocking out, by his personally imposed limitations and intrigues, strongest male and female players out world championships. Another problem is that he does not understand the game and is unable to assess the results of his incompetence.
How can they limit, for example, the Russian Federation in women by two participants of the 2017 World Championships, if Russia has four 4 grandmasters of the highest level and many other worthy players? How can they prevent M. Nogovitsyna from playing at the World Championships, if she took the third place in the qualifying 2016 European Championships, ahead of 7 other participants who got the right to play in the 2017 World Championships?
V. Motrichko, who lost her place in the 2015 World Championships in connection with the birth of her daughter, has the best results in 2017. Why should she give way to the participants, who showed worse result in the 2016 European Championship? Why should she and M. Nogovitsyna be eliminated from the struggle for the title and punished because of J. Pawlicki's incompetence and intrigues?
Now, women have six players, who can claim the title of world champion by the level of their performance. A competent specialist should have had enough opportunities to ensure their participation without any risk.
The excellent result of M. Nogovitsyna at the 2016 European Championships, which deprived her of the right to participate in the 2017 World Championships, has demonstrated the complete depravity of the Pawlicki's system. One year was still to come. It was possible to make changes. When they needed, they solved the issue through electronic voting. However, being the President of the Polish Federation,J Pawlicki is happy with the elimination of competitors.

Discrimination of women in draughts

The fact that an incompetent member of the EC is dealing with women's draughts in the FMJD creates many difficulties. Another fact that this gentleman is pathologically prone to frauds and has repeatedly squared personal accounts with his opponents is a catastrophe.
I think that many people have the question: why should women, in order to clear out their relations in the World Cup tournaments, play in super-exhaustive men's tournaments? That is, they must qualify for the World Cup Final and Games in China through men's tournaments.
If you watch the matches of the 2017 World Cup tournament in Turkey, you will see that the strongest men play simple matches among themselves, more often of 40 moves, and then they "attack" the women who broke through into the leading group. Matches with them are usually complex and long. The men's pragmatism is understandable and justifiable: they play nine matches in six days, then the blitzes – it is an overload. And what have women to do? That is, the load on women is incomparably higher than that on men. Besides, without asking them, they are dragged into the favourite creation of J. Pawlicki and H. Otten – super-blitzes: the maximum loads and the maximum degradation.
If we take into account that the World Cup tournaments are held simultaneously within the same open tournaments, how could we understand the fact that men-grandmasters are exempted from fees, while women-grandmasters are not, while the women's prize fund is 4-8 times lower than that of men. And the documentation of these conditions come from the FMJD. How can such a federation be recognized by the International Olympic Committee?

What Mr Pawlicki was guided by when creating his ugly qualification system? In whose interests is the FMJD leadership acting?

It is difficult to imagine that a person in his right mind can offer such a qualifications system: players play different amounts of matches and tournaments. One should play in four tournaments in order to qualify for participation in the Games in China, where everyone aspires. That is, to spend about 3000 euros, which is unbearable for people with low incomes, as well as for all working players and students. The system of stars, invented by J.Pawlicki for tournaments, is a complete fraud (see more about it below).
One should bear in mind that in the course of selection process, Pawlicki comes up with new conditions and changes regulations, and there are no guarantees that the regulations will be followed. He even changes results after tournaments. Thus, he changed the results of the 2016 World Cup in Suriname a week after the tournament. Neither the referee, nor the participants were notified about J. Pawlicki's illegal actions of. As a result, he took away 100 points of the World Cup from V. Dumesh and gave them to T. Tansykuzhina.
Now the website of the KNDB has posted the results approved by the main referee, while the website of the FMJD has the results approved by J. Pawlicki. By what right? How should we treat this kind of tyranny? In order not to admit V. Dumesh to the 2017 World Championships, J. Pawlicki, by violating the regulations, has crossed out the Netherlands and included the Lithuanian female champion into the list of participants. It took V. Dumesh six months to achieve justice through the KNDB. And what should the champion of Lithuania do, who was included, and then excluded from the tournament?
One can obtain the status of an active woman-player without playing in any tournaments. This creates great opportunities for manipulations with the list of players in World Championships, which was demonstrated in 2015.

For whom is this absurdity created? Players in a big financial minus; then, who then is in the big plus

To answer these questions, I need to reveal some facts and figures.
Referees for tournaments are appointed by F. Teer and J. Pawlicki. Being members of the EC themselves, they defined for themselves 60 euros per day for refereeing tournaments.
Also, unlike players, they are paid all the costs associated with the tournaments. Now, let us compare: even the female winner of the World Cup receives a prize of only 500 euros in a three-star tournament, and 150 euros in a one-star tournament. Minus the expenses of 600-800 euros. That is, even the winner is in the minus; other players are in a big minus. Plus huge physical loads.
The income of a referee: the guaranteed salary for refereeing the tournament at the expense of players. Also, players pay 600-800 euros – the referees' expenses associated with the tournament.
F. Teer and J. Pawlicki appoint themselves for refereeing the most profitable tournaments, and give the rest of them to J. Demazyur and, occasionally, to someone else.
They have a very big plus during a year; and the load is incomparably less than that of the players.
That is, all the activities of J. Pawlicki and F. Teer are connected with their desire to gain the greatest possible benefit for themselves. The more tournaments – the more incomes for them; while on the contrary – for the players. The more tournaments – the more expenditures. With such a system, created by J. Pawlicki, there is no hope that someone will organize normal international tournaments.
And this is not all!

J. Pawlicki's deceptions

Players pay not only for the presence of referees, but also for prizes and incomes of some organizers. All the participants of the 2016 European Championships in Turkey witnessed a scandal: Vita Dumesh found on the Internet that the cost of the hotel was two times lower than the price offered by the organizers for the same hotel.
She transferred money to the hotel; however, when she arrived in Turkey, the organizer I. Ismailov demanded a two times higher pay. Vita refused, and she was expelled from the participants of the tournament. The main referee, naturally, was J.Pawlicki, who rejected V. Dumesh's protests. At the last moment, the excess payment was made by Rob Clerc.
I have to mention that Pavlitsky set up mutually beneficial barter with some representatives of Turkish federation. Also he was named main referee at turkish draughts World Championship in Katar.
Quite often, organizers manage to achieve discounts for participants; and they also often take some of the discount to themselves. But I have never seen the demand of a two times higher hotel accommodation fee. It is easy to calculate that this margin brings the organizers several thousand euros for 9-10 days. That is, players pay not only for the referees, for the prize money, but also for the appetites of some organizers.
However, J.Pawlicki presents the prize fund as organizers' merit, awarding invented stars to tournaments, which force strongest world players to take part in them and incur financial losses. These "stars" cannot be treated otherwise than frauds. For example, the tournament in Suriname gave 2-5 times more points than the tournaments, which were much stronger by their participants. Those who played in Suriname, for two years have a huge advantage over other players. I repeat once more that the J. Pawlicki's entire system is a fraud.

I have addressed Mr H. Otten, the FMJD Acting President, with a proposal to change the system for holding the 2017 Women's World Championships, but received no response, which was quite unexpected fore me..
However, these several FMJD figures should know the opinion of strongest players and the public about the problems raised by me. This opinion should be decisive.
References to the regulations on my point 1 cannot be decisive in this situation, since from the 2015 World Championships two places were provided for the 2017 one. However, already after the end of the 2015 World Championships, J. Pawlicki achieved, by acting retroactively, through the General Assembly, another place for a particular player. Such retroactive changes in the rules and regulations are obvious violations, which jeopardize the whole qualification system.
Besides, we should not forget that several players were illegally not included into the World Cup final.

In this situation there's only one possibility to resist the abuse of power coming from couple of people of FMJD: the players and the public should frankly have their say on all the issues mentioned. I hope that my suggestions will be supported.
I suggest adding 2-4 players, not depriving anybody of their places in the 2017 World Championships, with the same number of matches. The added players can play at their own expense. As for my second proposal, it must be perceived as the first step towards the elimination of lawlessness and manipulations.

My suggestions:

1. To restore justice and include the strongest players of this year into the 2017 World Championships. To do this, to add M. Nogovitsyna and V. Motrichko (possibly at their own expense) to the list of participants. 18 participants should be split into 2 groups. Then, the final 6 games in 2 rounds for the 1-4 places, for 5-8 places, etc.
Or to add also the champion of Lithuania, who was first included into the list of participants, and then excluded therefrom, and Heike Verheul, who won the second place at the strongest World Cup tournament in Salou, and hold the tournament under the same schedule with 20 participants. The number of matches under these changes will not increase.

2. To eliminate manipulations, only those countries that develop women's draughts sport, that is, at least organize their national championships, should take part in discussions and voting on women's draughts at the sessions of the General Assembly (GA).

3. Ensure maximum competence for making important decisions.

Anatoli Gantvarg

[Wieger Wesselink]

I would welcome some radical changes in the setup of the important tournaments. In my opinion the last couple of decades it has been a complete mess. The rules for the top tournaments are changing more often than not. Arbitrary and completely experimental rules are introduced at the highest level. The way how players can qualify for these tournaments is subject to a lot of changes too. To me it often looks completely arbitrary how players can qualify. It certainly doesn't look like to be aimed at creating a fair competition with equal chances for all players. What I find a point of concern too is the increasing amount of sponsor places, organization places and other giveaway places. On top of that there are too many irregularities caused by interventions from above. All of this doesn't contribute to a fair competition. In my case it has caused a decreased interest in these tournaments.

So I would like to see clear and stable rules for these tournaments, that are published in a central place, well ahead of the tournaments. The rules for qualification should be verifiable. The setup for the tournaments should no longer be made by the officials only, but it should be done in cooperation with the players.

The proposal to take away voting rights in these matters from countries that don't organize any kind of serious national events seems completely reasonable to me.

[Piet Bouma]

It is a very long story of Mr. Gantvarg.
But I think he has a point.
It is not fair to make qualifications for Women World Cup final or Worldchampionship Women in tournaments where women and men play together.
There could be easily at the same time World Cup women tournaments be organized only with women. I think publicity (and maybe prize money) will be also better. A women worldchampion who ends in a tournament with men at the 27th place in a World Cup tournament is not so spectacular. It is more spectacular if she ends second in a World Cup tournament among women (not first!).
If there are less women, you can adjust the amount of rounds of a Swiss tournament or you could play a round robin (or even a double round robin).
Then you can make stars at a women World Cup tournament (amount of prize money and maybe also the average rating).
Women can then also play strategic (a draw in 40 moves, if necessary).
Most remarkable what I heard in the past. A Dutch woman : “I have qualified for the Women World Cup final. But in the qualifications I did not play against another woman!”
That seems really ridiculous.

[Jan Pieter]

Discrimination of women in draughts
...
why should women, in order to clear out their relations in the World Cup tournaments, play in super-exhaustive men's tournaments? That is, they must qualify for the World Cup Final and Games in China through men's tournaments.
...
how could we understand the fact that men-grandmasters are exempted from fees, while women-grandmasters are not, while the women's prize fund is 4-8 times lower than that of men.

There are no men's championships. The FMJD organizes general championships, open to every member, and championships for special categories, like youth, veterans and women. Of course the conditions for the latter are incomparable with the conditions for the general championship.

[Marcel Kosters]

The problem of Mr. Gantwarg is the same as the problem of Mr. Pawlicki. Mr. Gantwarg has been dictating draughts in Belarus for too long and so has Mr. Pawlicki in the world of draughts. At some point, everybody reaches his expiration date.

Speaking from own experience in this regard, any accumulation of tasks, responsibilities and power over a prolonged period of time at some point inevitably leads to conflict. Regardless of persons and regardless of possible positive or negative character traits. Although of course certain traits can mitigate or worsen circumstances.

That is exemplified by the attack that Mr. Gantwarg now undertakes on Mr. Pawlicki and other council members. An attack that is based on decades of animosity between Mr. Gantwarg / Belarus on one side and Mr. Pawlicki / the rest of the draughts world on the other side.

The National Olympic Committee of The Netherlands has ‘Recommendations of Good Sports Governance’. Mr. Gantwarg several times during the last decade reminded FMJD of these recommendations. One of the recommendations is to limit the duration of council membership to a maximum of two consecutive four year terms or to three consecutive three year terms.

By now, Mr. Pawlicki and most of his fellow FMJD council members have reached or passed the maximum term limit as per the recommendations of Good Sports Governance. Of course these are recommendations and not FMJD regulations. And the recommendations apply to national sports governance practices. But still, the principle seems relevant on the international level as well. Because every organisation needs to renew itself and for that it needs new people. Otten, Teer, Luteijn and Demasure after a decade of dedicated service to FMJD recognise this and as far as I’m aware will take a step back at the upcoming General Assembly in Tallinn.

Mr. Pawlicki however will probably be up for reelection. My suggestion to Mr. Gantwarg would be to put his time and energy not in attacking Mr. Pawlicki but in finding another candidate for FMJD Tournament Director. Of course in accordance with his suggestion number 3: to ensure maximum competence for making important decisions. And to make sure that this candidate receives the support from the FMJD members present in the FMJD General Assembly.

My suggestion for Belarus and all other FMJD members would be to also reflect on this once every two (or four, depending on how you look at it) year opportunity to put a candidate forward to help fill the other four(!) vacancies in the FMJD Executive Council.

Personally, I would wonder if Belarus could put forward a (youthful) candidate Tournament Director Youth. I’m under the impression that a good candidate could be found in the committee of the World Youth Championships organised in Belarus.

As for the issues related to women draughts: I’m under the impression that indeed some things are in need of at least some fine tuning. However at this particular point in time (just before the FMJD General Assembly with elections) I repeat my suggestion to put the energy in finding candidates for the unusually high number of vacancies this October in Tallinn.

[arjan vd berg]

I don't really see how women are discriminated against because they have to play with men and how that would influence who qualifies for the WCh for Women.
1. All women play under the same conditions and get the same 'treatment' from male grandmasters (saving energy against fellow grandmasters and 'attacking' the women)
2. Men that are not grandmasters also receive this 'treatment'
3. This treatment will only make one stronger: soon the one that has received this 'treatment' several times can hand out this 'treatment' her-/himself.
4. I think every year it becomes more strange that women have to play seperately at all. There is really no reason why women couldn't play as strong as men (we're not boxing or playing soccer). Kind of condescending, really.