FIDE denies Barce’s GM bid

ISTANBUL, Turkey — United Chess Federation delegate William Kelleher confirmed his apprehensions Sunday when Grandmaster-candidate Rogelio Barcenilla, Jr. was denied his application for a GM title by the FIDE classifications and titles committee. Kelleher, a member of the committee and the powerful FIDE Executive Council, said the committee denied Barcenilla’s application but he will protest the initial decision.

The point being questioned by the committee is the Marshall Invitational Scheveningen tournament last June when Barcenilla won the third and last GM norm by scoring six of nine points.

The FIDE issued a circular last year during the FIDE Congress in Doha, Qatar excluding unrated Scheveningen type of tournaments from the rating system. The Scheveningen system employed in the US event called for an elimination phase, from which the finalists are chosen to play grandmasters in the final phase.

In the finals, each player from the elimination plays members from the Grandmasters Group. The FIDE has ruled against unrated Scheveningen tournaments because organizers had abused the system. The system allows a non-rated player to earn points easily through the elimination phase where unrated chessers play. A player who has amassed huge points in the eliminations will carry these to the finals where he needs to play only one or two grandmasters to earn the required norm for an IM or GM.

Kelleher said the Scheveningen tournament, sanctioned by the USCF, is an all-rated tournament where Barcenilla played against five international masters and four grandmasters. He scored 3.5 of a possible five in the eliminations and 2.5 of a possible 4 in the category 10 tournament.

In a communication from his residence in Arizona, Barcenilla told PCF officials that "politics" again reared its ugly head, expressing his second disappointment after failing to earn his GM title during the FIDE Congress in 1998 in Kalmykia, Russia.

Barcenilla told PCF officials in Manila that he received an overseas call from National Chess Federation of the Philippines president Eugene Torre who told him he should enlist as member of the NCFP and dump the PCF. He was promised that they would ensure his acquisition of the GM title if he became a member.

He was asked to fax to Istanbul his intention to become NCFP member Nov. 3, but Barcenilla, board 1 player of the team formed by the PCF for the ongoing Chess Olympiad, refused to become a member.

"The point is they (NCFP) could have pushed Barcenilla’s GM application, but now that he is not their member, the other group has even worked to deny him his title," said PCF chairman Art Borjal from Manila.

"If only we were given a chance to sit in the committee, which the other failed to do, we could have fought for Barcenilla. But the PCF was denied an accreditation here," said PCF secretary general Edgar de Castro.

He said the same argument to be used by Kelleher — that the Scheveningen tournament sanctioned by the USCF was a rating tournament which included IMs and GMs — could be the same line NCFP adviser Florencio Campomanes, the former FIDE president who still holds a big clout in the FIDE hierarchy, could use to gain approval for Barcenilla if he decided to cross the fence.

Barcenilla, who has been at odds with Campomanes, also did not gain his GM title in 1998 when he failed to qualify by a mere 0.01, a minimal margin which could have been taken as an exemption by the classifications and titles committee.

Campomanes himself then advised the committee in Kalmykia in 1998 to be very strict with the rules lest it be used as a precedent in the application of future members. However, there have been reports that other countries whose candidates face the same situation, succeeded in getting their IMs into the roll of grandmasters.

Campomanes had denied having used his influence in FIDE to deny Barcenilla a GM title.