Photos from the General Assembly

I snuck in a quick visit to the FIDE General Assembly this morning. It must have started late as I arrived just as it was opening. After a welcome, anthem and condolence motions, the real fun started. The report from the committee tasked with approving proxies was read, and when it finished, a roll call of voting countries was begun.

The problem with this was that the report on proxies wasn't put to a vote to validate it's conclusion. This elicited a number of points of order from the floor, and when they were ignored, the clamour grew louder. Soon Kasparov was on his feet to make his point (without a microphone, as the girls handing them out quickly worked out who to keep them away from). After A few minutes of shouting, by both Karpov and Ilyumzhinov delegates (and a stand up yelling match between Kasparov and Larry Ebbin from Bermuda), the FIDE statutes were read to show the meeting was following correct procedure. While all this was going on a grabbed few pictures of the action, which you can find in my chess photo galleries (Link on the left).

I only hung around until the roll cal was finished, but I assume it has been dragging on through the afterrnon. In fact there were 3 forfeits on the lower boards, from players who were most likely delegates fr their countries.