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Roberto Lavieri wrote on Tue, Aug 30, 2005 11:24 PM UTC:

Gastón Needleman, a young 15 y.o. chess player from Argentina and without
any FIDE tittle, was eliminated in the tiebreaks of the Continental
Championship after a brilliant Tournament in which he finalized second,
but tied with other seven players, and from these only six could advance
for the World Championship. In the tiebreaks, it was seen how all G.M
accorded fast draws between them in the majority of the games, and all
played to fire the weakest player: Gaston, who was finally eliminated...
but was given a special ticket to the World Cup by FIDE President
Ilyumzhinov. In the tiebreaks, Gaston was the weakest player on the paper,
400 or more ELO points below the others, all Grand Masters, so strategy of
the G.M.´s don´t surprise to me, regardless some emotional articles some
people wrote. I´m surprised by Ilyumzhinov decision, for me absurd. If
Gaston were 5 years older, I doubt someone could give emotional opinions
about, neither the decision could be taken. Incredible, Ilyumzhinov.

Roberto Lavieri wrote on Tue, Aug 30, 2005 11:47 PM UTC:

The Grand Masters were critizised with hard words in a few press articles,
and the honourability of them was put on the carpet. Why?. I don´t find
any wrong thing in the strategy. All of them wanted to advance to the
World Cup, and the logical way was what they did: Trying to beat the
apparently weakest player without taking great risks when they played
against the other G.M.´s. Is it dishonest?. For me, it is the natural
strategy, and if Gaston was not classified, it was, mainly, product of his
game in the tiebreaks, and not of the strategy of the G.M.´s.

Michael Nelson wrote on Wed, Aug 31, 2005 08:20 AM UTC:

The grandmaster strategy is blameless--it is legitimate to sacrifice a possible win to enhance your chances of success in the event. But it doesn't feel legitimate.

The problem is in a scoring system the rates two draws as good as a win and possibly the tiebreaker method. The conditions of the contest create incentives to play for draws.

Other games have done worse--I can cite examples in bridge, football, and hockey where the conditions of contest created incentives to lose certain matches.

But then this can happen in Chess in any kind of elimination event. Say I'm assured of qualifying for the next round and in my final game of this round I'm playing A who is 1/2 point ahead of B for the last spot. Now let's say that based on past experience, I just can't beat B. It is to my advantage to dump my game to A to make sure B does not qualify.

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