A Political Yahoo

Tired of Amazon Yahoos? So am I. The previous Yahoo post, May Amazon Yahoos Crumble (May 2019), wondered,

I have no idea why Amazon keeps pushing this book. [...] I won't be buying it from Amazon. Let's see how long the ads continue.

Every time I look at a book on Amazon, Yahoo follows me for days with ads for that book or for related books. That last episode continued for almost a week. The ads stopped for three weeks then came roaring back when I looked at Linder books for the recent post Chess Historians Discuss Linder. Enough already!

Fortunately, Yahoo served a legitimate -- even interesting -- chess story this month. It's shown in the following screen capture.

2019-06-01: Falklands fallout over chess game held on islands by Argentina (yahoo.com; The Telegraph). The story that starts in that snippet continues,

A decades-long rivalry over the Falkland Islands is playing out in the least likely of forums - the civil world of chess. An ugly row is brewing over a recent decision by the Argentinian Chess Federation (ACF) to host a tournament on the island and list the location as "Puerto Argentino" - the name given to the capital Stanley by Argentine troops when they occupied it for 10 weeks during the war. Staged in a hotel near a memorial of Margaret Thatcher it has prompted an uproar among the English Chess Federation (ECF), which has accused Argentina of a "diplomatic provocation", and ignited lingering tensions around the 1982 conflict.

The photo isn't from the Falkland Islands tournament; it's from the 2018 Berlin Candidates tournament. The story didn't attract many comments, but they were all pro-British, anti-Argentine, like 'Not a smart move'. FIDE quickly issued a statement.

2019-06-03: Statement of the FIDE Presidential Board (fide.com).

FIDE has received a complaint that, between September 2018 and March 2019, two tournaments and a chess match, which took place in Stanley, in the British Overseas Territory of the Falkland Islands, were filed for consideration for FIDE rating by the Argentine Chess Federation. Federations reserve the exclusive right to submit tournaments for rating which take place in their territory. Because this was not done, and no attempt was made to seek permission or even inform the English Chess Federation, under whose purview chess in the Falkland Islands comes, the FIDE Qualification Commission will exclude these tournaments from rating.

The statement ended with a general admonishment.

FIDE urges all federations to refrain from using chess tournaments for political purposes.

It's OK to use chess players for political purposes, but keep away from tournaments.