New competition, another chess controversy. In the ongoing Candidates in Canada, Alireza Firouzja, one of the contenders, was in the eye of a storm thanks to a shoe. A look at the incident and why it generated heat. Here's what happened...
What happened?
In the ninth round of the event, Firouzja, the French-Iranian GM, took a walk during his match against Ian Nepomniachtchi on Sunday. Sometime during the match-up, an arbiter warned the 20-year-old as 'his shoes were making a lot of noise'. Firouzja had a small advantage during the match but allowed his opponent to escape with a draw.
How did Firouzja react to the warning?
He claimed that the arbiter's words made him lose focus. "Shameful action by the chief arbiter Marghetis towards me during the game," he tweeted. "Middle of the game, in the most intense moment when I was walking during Ian's move, the chief arbiter came to me and told me to not walk any more because my shoe is making noise on the wooden floor. He told me to not walk and bring new shoes for tomorrow (Round 10) but I have the formal shoe that is approved and I have been wearing it for more than 1 year. This was a big distraction for me during the game and I completely lost my focus. I told one of the organisers this arbiter needs to be punished."
(When asked if they were high heels by one of the respondents on the social media site, he replied: "It's a normal formal men's shoe. In the women section they are wearing high heels and no action by arbiter.")
Has Marghetis responded to Firouzja?
Speaking to chess.com, Marghetis was quoted as saying: "Most players walk around during the tournament. But you don’t hear them walking, you hear the floorboard creaking. After about 60 minutes in, when Alireza was pacing around in the refreshment area, he had a very heavy footfall. It was ‘stompish’ if you will. That’s when one of the players, who was closest to the refreshment area, complained to me about the noise. As a chief arbiter I have a few responsibilities. One of them is to protect all of the players. So I had to make a decision, whether he was disturbing another player more than I would disturb him (by talking to him),” he said. Marghetis said the player in question was Nijat Abasov.
Anything that happened in Round 10?
Firouzja's father, Hamidreza, threatened to call the cops if he wasn't allowed to watch games from the playing hall balcony whenever he wanted to (reports have indicated Hamidreza was escorted out of the balcony during the Round). Pavel Tregubov, FIDE's Technical Delegate, spoke to chess24, about the issue. "We decided to allow team members access to the playing hall in the first 15 minutes (of further rounds) since everything went well in the first few rounds. We also got positive feedback from the fairplay team. This changed rule went well in round 8 so we extended in rounds 9 and 10. But Hamidreza didn’t use this opportunity for round 8,” Tregubov told Chess24. “But sometime after the beginning of the 10th round, my team told me that Hamidreza had contacted one of our staff members and threatened to call the police if he’s not allowed to enter the balcony whenever he wants. Obviously, we could not satisfy this request.”
