October Yahoos

The two Yahoo stories I spotted this month were both about the FIDE Presidential election, which I covered on my World Chess Championship blog:-

• 2018-10-10: Out with the Old!, Ilyumzhinov / Makropoulos
• 2018-10-17: In with the New!, Dvorkovich

Both Yahoo stories used similar photos of outgoing FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov to illustrate the headline. The logo for the Russia news agency, Interfax (wikipedia.org), is seen in the background.

2018-10-03: Global chess body elects new head amid claims of Russian meddling (yahoo.com; AFP). At the time I captured the Yahoo introduction shown above, the headline and the partial paragraph beneath the headline didn't match. The headline said that Dvorkovich had been elected. The lead said the 'federation is set to vote'. Here is the entire lead sentence and first paragraph:-

The global chess federation is set to vote for a new president on Wednesday, replacing its veteran, highly controversial Russian chief, amid allegations of undue influence exerted by Moscow. The race to head one of the world's largest sporting federations will see former Russian deputy prime minister Arkady Dvorkovich run against current World Chess Federation (FIDE) deputy president, Georgios Makropoulos, who is Greek, and British grandmaster Nigel Short. Whatever the result, the election will bring to an end the more than two decades-long reign of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov as president of the body uniting the world's 188 national chess federations.

Now the lead paragraph on the same link says,

Batumi (Georgia) (AFP) - The global chess federation elected former Russian deputy prime minister Arkady Dvorkovich as its new president Wednesday, replacing a colourful but controversial chief amid allegations that Moscow was putting pressure on national federations.

I don't like online news stories that change from one moment to another. There's something sneaky, bordering on deceptive, about them. The second story was more straightforward.

2018-10-03: World chess gets first new president in two decades as Putin loyalist takes power (yahoo.com; The Telegraph).

The World Chess Federation elected a new leader today bringing to an end the colourful two-decade rule of a Russian politician who claims he was abducted by aliens. Arkady Dvorkovich, Moscow's preferred candidate, was installed as the new king of Fide after delegates from 182 nations voted at its congress in the Georgian resort city of Batumi. Mr Dvorkovich, the chief organiser of the Fifa World Cup, replaces the eccentric businessman-turned-politician Kirsan Ilyumzhinov who reigned supreme over the chess world for 23 years.

There was one other significant story that appeared on Yahoo, but which I didn't see in their headlines. It could be even more important to the development of chess than the election stories above.

2018-10-20: Meet the first American since 1972 to compete for the world chess title by Daniel Roberts. The same writer was behind two previous posts on this blog:-

• The Money Game (May 2016)
• Chess @ Yahoo Finance (ditto)

Let's hope that 'November Yahoos' will be filled with stories about next month's 2018 Carlsen - Caruana match, although the often repeated 'first American since 1972 to compete for the world chess title' is a disservice to Gata Kamsky. For more on the subject, see Gata Kamsky taking objections to the claim that Caruana is the 1st American since Fischer to play for World title (reddit.com).