 He's a world-class Grandmaster who's won several elite events including the Gibraltar Masters. He was the President of the Association of Chess Professionals. Today, he joins us as Director-General Fide. We are very happy to have with us Emil Sutovsky. Welcome to Gibraltar, Emil. It's an absolute pleasure to have you with us. Yeah, thank you. It's always a pleasure being here. Now you've been here several times. Your relationship with this event goes way long back. What's it like to be here but not play? Well, a very strange feeling indeed. I have been playing nine or ten tournaments here starting from 2005. And of course it was always a pleasure to play. I can say that it was one of the most successful places for me in terms as a player. And also previously we had a very good cooperation between ACP and Gibraltar. So it is indeed a special place for me. We are entering a tournament venue seeing all the colleagues sitting and playing and not playing myself. It is a bit of unusual but I'm starting to getting used to that. Right. Now you mentioned you came here for the first time in 2005. It's also the year you won the Gibraltar Masters. How have you seen the tournament evolve over the years? Well, I remember when it started I think it was 2002 first. Then the announcement came that it will be a new tournament in Gibraltar. I remember at that time Stewards Reuben was organising it. And well, nobody even knew properly how to get here. I mean for the chess players it was a new place and from year to year it went stronger and stronger. When I won it in 2005, I shared the first place in 2005, it had several very good players but still it was not the best open tournament by no means. But then few years passed and I think for the next decade it was just absolutely by far clearly the strongest open tournament in the world and still it managed to retain the atmosphere of a big festival. It is very important actually because you have a lot of amateur players, you have club players, you have players like from 60 countries every year coming in. You have a lot of women players so it is still a unique tournament. It preserves its strengths, it's probably now the second strongest open tournament in the world after Isle of Man. But at the same time it's the first choice for many players and I remember when we conducted a poll in ACP about the favourite open tournament and Gibraltar won it like four or five years in succession. Yes absolutely and it is one of the only true opens in the world with no rating cut-offs. Yes, that is also important. Some organisers put this rating bar on 2200, 2300, here you don't have a rating cut-off so definitely it provides a chance for players with maybe 1800, 1900, 2000 at least to play some against strong grandmasters and it's also quite special for this event. It is really a festival I think, that's one of the things that makes chess specials and you have a top professional like Leveronian or Hikari Nakamura or Maxim Vashilagrov playing here and nearby you could occasionally see it on the adjudged boards, you have players who are maybe 1900s and so on. Absolutely and now you were also the president of the Association of Chess Professionals before you took on the role of Director General Fide. When you look back at the success of ACP, how do you feel about it and which achievements for you have been very special? Well I think we did a decent work in the time I was a president, I was president for seven years and we had so many projects which we managed to implement, one of them was contacting with all organizers with major tournaments and providing wild cards for players so we established a sort of qualifying system that allowed players to qualify to the top events like like to Bill, like to Bekovsky so they qualified. We established an agreement also with organizers of open tournaments that provided exceptional conditions for our players like it happened here and you brought so many occasions, it happened in Isle of Man and it happened in Qatar and it happened in Bill once. So it was really fruitful cooperation. Another side of our activity which was always very important for me it was the support for chess veterans. We established a program together with the then administration of Fide and it ran successfully for four years and we managed to support about 25 veteran players with the stipends and the words and they helped them in not so easy years of their life after their career was way after its peak. So it was an important topic. We were also what I considered to be very important. We were maybe not that strong but everybody knew that ACP is an organization that you can approach and can ask for an advice for help and we were always there for the players. Always there, it's not like we always could help but we always would try to do it and on many occasions we did. These very feelings, I want this very approach, I want to convey now through Fide because it is my responsibility on what I'm doing now to let everyone understand that Fide is changing its policies. Fide should become much more friendly towards chess community, not only professional players. I'm more in charge of the professional players and those who are involved in world championship cycles and so on but in general Fide should become much more open, much transparent but also much more friendly that you approach Fide and you know that you will get an answer. That's really nice to hear and especially ACP was often the voice of chess players across the world and the fact that you want to translate that for your work with Fide now. It's something that I'm sure the chess world looks forward to. Tell us a little more about your role and responsibility as Director General Fide. Well, my position involves several important duties. One of it is I'm being in charge also as Director General and Chairman of the Global Strategy Commission of Fide of everything related to the world championship cycle. It connected to World Championship match itself, candidates, Grand Prix, Ceres, Olympics, World Team Championships and so on and so on, World Rapid. And it was important for us to establish a proper mechanism for decision making and taking there, establish a proper cooperation with partners because previously a lot of these things were so untransparent that we really as ACP we saw it from inside that it couldn't continue like that. Now this whole policy is changing and if you saw it was the very first event we organized by ourselves in St. Petersburg we managed to make it in absolutely different level to have people coming to visit the venue, to be engaged with this massive chess what's called FIST and it was great. I really, it's like self praising but it was great. I was there and I enjoyed every minute when I saw the spectators, kids, veterans coming enjoying the atmosphere. Of course, very important thing is to try and establish proper cooperation between chess and corporate world. We have been talking about that for years but doing almost nothing. We are going to change it and one of the steps is going to have a bidding procedure tender for every major event like World Championship match or candidates and we are going to do that. It is also important to establish some sort of understanding where we are heading to and the Global Strategy Commission which I chair. We have to envision what will happen with chess in 5 years, 10 years. How do we respond to the challenges of today's world? Because it's a bit different from what it was in the 90s. Let's say you have a chess boom in Asia. How do we make it happen to something even bigger? Let's say, like in India for example. 20 years ago there was almost no India on the chess map except for Vishay and now it's completely different and things are changing and we have to think about new formats, about new ways to attract spectators, new ways to communicate with sponsors. It's a lot of work and we are trying to do it in the best way. Absolutely. Now as president of the ACP you were in close contact with the old FIDE and now you are part of the new FIDE. Personally for you, what are the big differences between these two administrations? Well, there are so many differences. I can start counting and it would be... I think it's not for me to evaluate, I think. The proper way would be to work properly and to see public responses for what we are doing. I do think we have a sort of support from general chess society and the feedback we are getting is very positive. It's understandable that this is a transition period now and some people can feel that they are not very happy with what we are doing. Some decisions may seem to be a bit too radical or whatever but all in all I think we've got this feeling that what we are doing is appreciated because everyone says that we work hard to do the best and I think we will keep delivering good news for chess world. Yes, I was just going to say that the current FIDE is only five months old but there have been big positive changes already in the chess world. What have been the big highlights for you? I think it's even four months old. Yeah, October 5th and then we actually started to work properly only in November after the first presidential board, all the management team was appointed. So it has been very little time indeed but I think we managed a lot of things today, really. I mean, we rescued this world rapid and bliss championship. We established a totally new system for a women's world championship cycle. We increased the prices drastically there and we are coming soon with some very important news actually. I already sort of hinted on that during the opening of the round. So it is something massive that's going on all the time and it is a huge challenge for everyone. I can say not only management team because I can say for FIDE president, who is many expected for him to be like the guy who is coming to be president but mostly a figurehead, nothing of the kind. He works as hard and maybe even harder than the management team does and we do a lot of things. What is important, we keep informing chess community so I do not think I should praise ourselves. I'd rather be expected to be praised not personally but as FIDE by the chess community. Yes, and I'm sure that the response from the chess world has in fact been phenomenal for this new FIDE. Let's move to the candidate selection because that's always a very hot topic for the chess world, especially the wild card spot. What is your opinion on it? Well, candidates has been always discussed and debated heavily how the composition should look like and obviously the public has been discussing but previously it was mostly decided behind the curtains, not this time around. We are going to assemble in three days in Vaikon. There is a commission meeting in Vaikon there and we are going to finalize all the details and I can only convey my personal belief that we should try, if possible even in this cycle, to get rid of any wild cards in the candidate's tournament. I think we should try and stick to the format which will allow all the best by sportive merits, whatever the merits are. It's always debatable but sportive merits and not a wild card selection. We have successfully done it in women's candidate tournament. As you know, women candidates will take place in Kazan 2019 in summer and we don't have a wild card there and I would strive to... It is not entirely my decision but I would strive to push for decisions that will remove the wild card per se in the candidate's tournament. In the women's cycle, this transition to the men's formula has also been very positively accepted by the chess world. It's something that we've all been waiting for. Now I want to ask Emil the chess player. As Rapid and Blitz continues to grow in popularity, there's been a lot of talk, especially after the World Championship in London where it went into tie breaks without a single game that ended in a result. Do you feel, personally, that the classical format is going to lose in popularity and we're going to see more and more Rapid and Blitz event? What is your take on this? Well, there are two sides to your question, actually. If you ask if more Rapid and Blitz are going to take place, yes, I would say so, but at the same time, we do not have to shift to make something evolutionary here or even revolutionary in this regard in terms of World Championship match. We will do adjust the format. It has already been discussed. Inside we sent a post to all the top players asking for their opinion. Actually, we sent two posts. One was about the World Championship match format and another about World Cup format. We inquired about the length of the match, how many games, what would be a preferable time control and so on, and the response, actually, even from the top players, they are actually valuing pretty much the classical part of the match. We will make some adjustments. One thing which I can already say is that it will be more dynamic, it will be less free days, because days often the match were just too often and it sort of ruins the pace, you know. But there are some ideas which has been supported by several top players. We took it into account already and once again I think we will have some sort of a decision during the meeting, but all this to be approved in March, I think for the final decision we shall have to wait till presidential board in March. But I believe that there is obvious need for a change, but not for a drastic change, but for adjustment. But yes, once again we realize that the format of rapid play or bleeds play has its appeals and it should also be more and more, let's say, promoted, but not replacing the classical championship. Not at this stage anyways. Very good point. Now Emil, you had some big announcement to make which you had mentioned in the earlier rounds here. Can you share it with us? Yeah, I think Gibraltar deserves to be a place for the big news coming from. And the news are about our agreement with World Chess, previously known as Aegon. You know Aegon previously had control over the whole World Championship cycle. It's no more, the agreement has been signed and starting from the already next candidate tournament and World Championship match everything. It passes under the direct control of FIDE. So FIDE would be in charge of all these events, regaining control. Aegon or World Chess, I call it Aegon because everybody knows under its name, although it's for a couple of years now World Chess, will conduct Grand Prix Series in cooperation with FIDE 2019 and 2021. They preserve this right to conduct the series. FIDE will actually help financially to raise the status of these events because the Grand Prix Series we are launching. We also wanted to be very strong and to have all the best players because we also have two spots to the candidate tournament through this Grand Prix Series. But the most important part that the World Championship, which is a pinnacle of whole chess activity, which is the event everybody follows, FIDE will be in full charge and control and responsibility, of course. It is important also to notice that the Grand Prix Series changes its format and it will be, I think, rather attractive KO and knockout format with 16 players on every leg. And we expect it to be attended by the most of the top players because two spots, once again, two spots will be there. And previously, if you remember, the Grand Prix Series did have a spot but did not have a decent prize fund. And we found out that players basically had to play it even under not very convincing conditions just in order to try and qualify with thought it should not be a case. And FIDE stepped in just finding money to increase the prize funds to a decent level. This is big news. So FIDE and Aegon's agreement on the World Championship, the contract, has been terminated? Yes, it has been terminated or amended, whatever you call it this way. And the new agreement has been signed and it has been just a couple of days ago confirmed by the FIDE Presidential Board, which means we are sort of untying our hands and we are already announcing that we will stage a tender, a bidding procedure, both for candidates and for World Championship match. And the party is interested, could also take part in it. So it would not be under the curtains decision. It would be proper tender. We would be welcoming bidding procedure and everybody who believes that it is on a high level are welcome to bid. Of course, under the regulations we are going to issue. So it will be a very transparent process? Well, it will be very clear regulations. Then you submit a bid. It is not going to be a direct and very blunt one who pays more gets it. There are several factors to it. Obviously it's the level of organization, proven experience, the venue and so on. But obviously we are going to do it and I cannot confirm officially the numbers but the prize fund for the match will increase drastically. I have to say, Emil, that your style of play that enterprising and spirited play translates into your administrative roles as well? Well, maybe. But I would not take on myself the responsibility for all these decisions. Maybe the responsibility but not all the praise anyways. The responsibility I'm ready to take. But of course it's not only my decisions. It's the decisions of board. A lot has been done by president himself personally to contribute and to find the ways to attract sponsorship for these or that format. And of course the work of the whole management board which involves many people, actually it's paid off with all these developments. But I try to do my best. It sounds like great teamwork and my final question to you, Emil, is that what do you enjoy more? Do you enjoy the action over the chess board or the one in the boardroom? Well, that's a good question. I can still say that nothing was more pleasing than playing a great game of chess. At the same time I can unfortunately admit that with the years it was less and less these games I have produced. So yes, it was, let's say, there was a life in an old dog, yes. But at the same time I saw this new challenge as very, very encouraging. And when we sat down with Mr. Dvokovic to discuss what could be my role, I felt that my experience both in ACPN as a player of a high level and also as a person who knows quite a lot about how the things are regulated and done in an organizational point of view. I felt my contribution here might be more valuable than the games I still could produce over the chess board. So unfortunately I had to basically quit as a professional player. The only event which I have kept just because due to my old ties I'm playing for my team, local team in Israel, but that's the only event. Unfortunately I cannot even think of taking 10 days off and play something. I could occasionally take some time out but I would be so unprepared to play on a good level and I don't want to play poor chess. So I would rather resume it once I finish my career as an administrator. We are going to miss all your tactical masterpieces. You've produced several which have gone down in history books, but we also really look forward to your work with Fide under Mr. Dvokovic. Thank you very much, Emil. Thank you, Tanya. Thanks.