Norway Chess cancels Alexander Grischuk • Hacker News Board

Re: Norway Chess cancels Alexander Grischuk

#91

Post by shagmin » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 7:40 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #32

wedn3sday wrote: post #16

It doesnt matter if the person themselves opposes the Ukrainian invasion, the person is representing Russia. Is it the tournament organizers job to vet the political views of every single participant to make sure they're sufficiently anti-putin? Blocking Russian participants isnt about blocking the individual people, its about sending a blanket statement across the board.

If that were actually the issue they’d be allowed to play, but not on behalf of Russia. Though I’m curious - how much time in your opinion has to pass before Russians are allowed to participate again? If actions have to be taken, which ones? If actions can be taken to allow them to participate then in a sense is that saying the actions are sufficient to compensate for the senseless killing of Ukrainians? If no time o…

Chess isn't something that's played "on behalf of" countries like the Olympics are, are they, or some gray area in between? Aside from that, I kind of view it as a blunt instrument. If there were a way to target Putin and his regime directly within a reasonable amount of risk, I think they'd have chosen that option. In 2014 I think I remember some people under Putin took it as a badge of honor to be on the sanctions list, it seemed like an inconvenience that could be solved by more corruption to work around it. I think if you make it policy to try to isolate a country, but start allowing exceptions, then it's not going to be ordinary Russians that benefit, but instead only connected people and the whole thing loses its bite. And it's a response to a specific action by a specific regime. I don't see why these bans wouldn't be lifted once sanctions are lifted.

Having said that, I could see it resulting in a small increase of harassment of Russians in other countries.

Re: Norway Chess cancels Alexander Grischuk

#92

Post by agambrahma » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 7:41 PM UTC

Eh, punishing individuals like this seems pointless, especially _after_ they've made their personal stance clear.

Or at least, it doesn't "advance the game of chess", which is what organizers should care more about.

There is probably some creative middle ground to be found here, such as awarding them without recognizing Russia, etc.

Re: Norway Chess cancels Alexander Grischuk

#93

Post by dmitrygr » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 7:42 PM UTC

wedn3sday wrote: post #16

It doesnt matter if the person themselves opposes the Ukrainian invasion, the person is representing Russia. Is it the tournament organizers job to vet the political views of every single participant to make sure they're sufficiently anti-putin? Blocking Russian participants isnt about blocking the individual people, its about sending a blanket statement across the board.

No post body was provided.

Re: Norway Chess cancels Alexander Grischuk

#94

Post by Mo3 » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 7:42 PM UTC

agambrahma wrote: post #92

Eh, punishing individuals like this seems pointless, especially _after_ they've made their personal stance clear. Or at least, it doesn't "advance the game of chess", which is what organizers should care more about. There is probably some creative middle ground to be found here, such as awarding them without recognizing Russia, etc.

Yeah giving them the EU passports and just attributing them to „EU“

Re: Norway Chess cancels Alexander Grischuk

#95

Post by bjourne » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 7:45 PM UTC

But Saudi Arabia can bomb Yemen for years and Israel Palestine for decades without repercussions? I'm all for sanctions against Russia but the hypocrisy here is so thick you couldn't cut it with a knife.

Re: Norway Chess cancels Alexander Grischuk

#96

Post by TomGullen » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 7:47 PM UTC

ASalazarMX wrote: post #84

sethbannon wrote: post #7

For those curious, Alexander Grischuk did put out a fairly strong statement of condemnation of the invasion: https://worldchess.com/news/all/alexander-grischuk-on-the-ru... Pretty brave of him.

Frankly I'm getting tired of all the psyops flood. This helps nil because they're only inconveniencing Alexander, not the Russian government, their military or their oligarchy. Of all the sports, I would have thought chess would be much less prone to politics because chess players are almost free agents.

> Of all the sports, I would have thought chess would be much less prone to politics because chess players are almost free agents.

Are you at all aware of the history of chess?!?

Re: Norway Chess cancels Alexander Grischuk

#97

Post by brimble » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 7:47 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #85

brimble wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Not drones. 2) I assume you brought up drones in particular because the drone war has raged, as you wrote, "all over" the Middle East, which is part of what's alarming about it. Iraq and maybe Syria have experienced US-led saturation bombing during the drone war (but not by drones). Countries subject primarily to the drone part of the war have not.

1) fair enough. My mistake. And yeah your interpretation of my point is correct.

Cool. Again, I find the drone war more than a little worrisome, so we're probably more-or-less on the same "side" here, but drones have not, as far as I know, been used for this sort of "destroy an entire large area kinda indiscriminately" attack—not because they couldn't be, but because that's not the usual tool the US happens to use for that at this time, so if they did it it'd be with traditional aircraft (as in the linked article), and also because the drone war has, as far as I can tell, mostly not involved those sorts of strikes. Iraq is a big exception, but that's not because of the drone war—it's because of the ordinary war that the US waged there.

The drone war has caused plenty of collateral damage regardless, of course. I'm just not sure characterizing it as carpet bombing is either accurate or helpful in pinpointing exactly what's uniquely bad about the drone war. In fact, I don't even think the people in charge of it are trying to cause widespread damage beyond their typically-very-limited targets—though lack of accountability ultimately is one of the bad things about it, along with normalizing that kind of extraterritorial violence in the first place, the everything-looks-like-a-nail factor (when all you've got is a Predator drone...), and so on.

Re: Norway Chess cancels Alexander Grischuk

#98

Post by toxik » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 7:48 PM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #77

jstx1 wrote: post #4

Not sure why the title is about Grischuk specifically, Norway Chess banned all Russian players. Which sucks given that many of these players have spoken up against what Russia is doing. Seems like they're being penalized unnecessarily.

Grischuk is a special personality who most of any chess enthusiast will know. This is like banning a Michael Jordan style personality - charismatic, charming, and a world class player on top. And he does this all in his own sort of unique deadpan style package. His demeanor and comments from the video in this thread are **EXTREMELY** out of character for him, emphasizing how much this is all clearly personally affect…

The logic is simple.

If Ukrainians can’t play, then neither should Russians.

Re: Norway Chess cancels Alexander Grischuk

#99

Post by altcognito » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 7:50 PM UTC

shtopointo wrote: post #58

altcognito wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Yea what is the solution when the west throws sanctions but keeps buying Russian oil and gas? Basically bankrolling this invasion. Like others have said the solution to this crisis might be “drill baby drill” but that’s unfortunately more toxic or an argument than a country getting bombed to the ground. I guess we can stomach the war but not domestic oil and gas production.

I would definitely support stop buying Russian gas as well. I encourage folks to call their reps as I will. (for those in the states)

Re: Norway Chess cancels Alexander Grischuk

#100

Post by sneak » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 7:51 PM UTC

Perhaps we can take this time to stop having competitors in international competitions play under a national flag, as if they are property of a nation. The place one is born frequently has no bearing on one's personal identity.

To always be associated with one's nationality (which we generally do not get to choose) seems exhausting and rude.