2014 Micronational World Chess Championship

This article is about the proposed 2014 micronational world chess championship. For other instalments of the same series of championships, see Micronational World Chess Championship (disambiguation).

Micronational World Chess Championship

2014
Tournament information
Sport	Chess
Date	January 2014 (intended date of first Grand Prix) December 2014 (intended date of Championship)
Administrator	Inter-Micronational Chess Federation
Format	Eight round chess match between champion and challenger
Current champion
Rigas Papadopoulos of St.Charlie
Final champion
Disputed

The 2014 Micronational World Chess Championship would have been a competition to determine the micronational world champion of chess. The incumbent, Rigas Papadopoulos of St.Charlie, won the previous instalment of the championship and would have defended his title at this event. Unlike the round-robin style of the previous event, the 2014 championship was intended to be split into four distinct tournaments: the Championship itself, a Candidates tournament to pick a challenger, the IMCF Cup, and four Grand Prix seasons, to enable the contest to more closely emulate its macronational counterpart. The structure of the tournament meant it would have been the most logistically involved MicroWiki sector chess tournament ever conducted if it had taken place.

There is no documentation indicating the 2014 edition of the world championship ever took place; the website for the organising body, the Inter-Micronational Chess Federation (IMCF), went offline in 2015. It is disputed who is world champion as a result.

Background

Main article: 2013 Micronational World Chess Championship

The 2013 edition of the World Championship was a round-robin event featuring twenty-two participants from various micronations. The winner, Riga Papadopoulos of St.Charlie, won 20.5 out of a possible 21 points, putting him ahead of every other contestant - as a result, he was named world chess champion by the IMCF. In a post in December of 2013, the IMCF announced the next cycle of the World Chess Championship, in which Papadopoulos would have the opportunity to defend his title.

However, at some point between 2014 and 2015, the IMCF became defunct; their website went down and there is no surviving documentation indicating the 2014 season of the World Chess Championship ever took place. As a result, it is arguable that Papadopoulos remains world champion to this day, though that potential claim is disputed by the World Micronational Chess Federation.

Proposed format

In December 2013, the IMCF issued a proclamation announcing the 2014 World Chess Championship cycle. The organisation proposed to conduct the world championship by operating four distinct tournaments:

World Championship

The World Championship would have been the competition to decide the identity of the world chess champion. Papadopoulos as the incumbent champion would play an eight-game match against the micronationalist selected to challenge him, the winner of which would become world champion. In the event of a tie, rapid tiebreakers would have been played, followed by blitz tiebreakers, continued until a winner was determined.

The World Championship was scheduled to take place in December 2014.

Candidates Tournament

Intended to emulate the structure of the Candidates qualifying tournament for the macronational world championship, the Candidates would have been a 6-person closed double round-robin tournament, the winner of which would be selected as the challenger for the World Championship.

Entries for the Candidates would be distributed as follows:

Qualification method	Player	Micronation
Top two chess players by IMCF Elo rating	Not known	Not known
	Not known	Not known
Top two performing players in the IMCF Cup	Not known	Not known
	Not known	Not known
Winner of the IMCF Grand Prix	Not known	Not known
Runner-up of previous World Championship	Stepan Ignatiev	Lostisland

The incumbent champion would not have been allowed to participate in the Candidates; if the incumbent champion obtained a spot, that spot would instead have gone to the next best performing eligible candidate. Additionally, candidates who qualify in more than one way may keep only one of their spots, and the others would be distributed in similar fashion.

The Candidates Tournament was scheduled to take place between October and November of 2014.

IMCF Cup

The IMCF Cup would have been a 20-player tournament, mixing round-robin and single elimination tournament formats. Players would be divided into four groups of five, playing in single round-robin format; thereafter, the winner and runner-up of each group advance to a single elimination match where each stage is played over two games, where they alternate colours. The final would take place over four games, also with alternating colours, the winner of which would win the cup.

Both the winner and runner-up of the Cup would qualify for the Candidates. This makes it similar to the Chess World Cup operated by FIDE, which also qualifies between one and three individuals to the macronational Candidates Tournament every season since 2005.

The Cup was scheduled to take place between August and September.

IMCF Grand Prix series

The IMCF Grand Prix series would have been a series of four round-robin tournaments. Twelve players would have participated, nine of which would play in each tournament - each player participating in three of the four tournaments. The ultimate winner of the Grand Prix would qualify for the Candidates. This makes it similar to the Grand Prix operated by FIDE, which also provides qualification to the macronational Candidates Tournament for the winner.

The four Grand Prix seasons would have taken place between January and July:

• January: First Grand Prix
• March: 2nd Grand Prix
• May: 3rd Grand Prix
• July: 4th Grand Prix

On 18 January 2014, the IMCF Facebook account posted the list of participants for the January Grand Prix:

Participant	Micronation
Kuri Kabanov	Renasia
Paco Velazquez	Nolland
Emanuel Terranova	Gran Pais
Fraeortis Satarawalla	Aryavart
Emanuel Tsompanoglou	Ashukovo
Hasan Cakar	Ashukovo
Edward Jacobs	Ashukovo
Yaroslav Mar	Lostisland
Alejandro Whyatt	Burnham
Dominic Thompson	Burnham
Emiel Hardy	Mahuset
Harshvardhan Singh Rawlot	Aryavart

There were no posts about the Grand Prix after that, and no documentary evidence exists that this contest ever took place.