Rd 6 Candidates 2020: Suppose Nepo tests Positive for Wuhan Virus?

Nepo is leading by a full point after 6 rounds, with a sterling score of 4.5/6.  He was coughing noticeably in the post-game conference, a great win over Ding with the White pieces, and he was thinking of getting a quick draw because he wasn't feeling well.  

Suppose Nepo tests positive for the Wuhan virus on the rest day.  What should the FIDE organizers do?

A)  Cancel the tournament and start over later with the scores reset to 0 for everybody.

B)  Cancel the tournament and start over later with the scores reset to 0 for everybody and Radjabov plays instead of MVL.

C)  Suspend the tournament and play later with all scores carrying over from after Round 6.

D)  Continue the tournament but without Nepo.  

If these were the Candidate Moves under consideration by the Organizers (pun intended), then which move choice do you think they should select?

I would choose Option C.  How about you?

Good questions. I think the event should be suspended and everyone there in quarantine. That’s an extended C if you are keeping score. Test results usually take several days. 

Please revise your language, however. It is COVID-19, the disease, or SARS-CoV-2, the virus. Wuhan virus, Chinese virus, and similar terms are not only incorrect, they are harmful.

See https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/technical-guidance/naming-the-coronavirus-disease-(covid-2019)-and-the-virus-that-causes-it

I think C is also the most likely and reasonable result. Also, +1 with the comment on the name.

C without a doubt seen as if he has it he'll have infected the other players. Covid 19 (or coronavirus, less accurate but often used to describe it) would be better terms when describing this.

C

I was wondering why "Wuhan Virus" was being used. Why say that?

Donald trump calling it the chinese virus

The correct answer is:

E) Continue the tournament uninterrupted with all participants attending in hermetic suits, and no spectators, as long as the players are able to do so.

Paul Morphy played (and won) his match with Anderssen while violently ill.  Capablanca finished at tournament in 1938 (though not so impressively) after having a mild stroke.  Health has never been a valid reason to be excused from a tournament unless it is completely incapacitating.

Besides, by the time one player tests positive for COVID-19, it's safe to assume many, if not all, of his opponents will have picked it up simply by capturing pieces OTB.  It is impossible to fairly handle any delay, as it gives players unnatural prep time.  Of course, in this environment, a knockout format would have been safer than the round-robin format, as an infected player could only infect one opponent at a time, as opposed to the entire field.

Lyme disease was discovered in Lyme, CT. 

Yes. And Ebola is the name of a town as well. The World Health Organization calls it COVID-19, while a prominent racist calls it by the name of the country where it originated.

H1N1 killed more people 1918-1920, it is believed, than any other disease epidemic in human history. Of course, there is no reliable way to discern how many millions of indigenous Americans perished from multiple waves of smallpox, measles, influenza, bubonic plague. cholera, and other diseases. All that is known with certainty is that their populations never recovered, in contrast to the populations of peoples in Eurasia following the fourteenth century bubonic plague pandemic.

The 1918 pandemic started in Kansas, but many call it the Spanish flu because Spanish newspapers were not restricted by war censorship, which led people to misunderstand its origins.

Context matters. Don’t use the vocabulary of racists.

Off topic.  Ziryab, why are you up so early, lol?

This is almost as bad as Trump.

It is NOT the Wuhan Virus

It is NOT the Chinese Virus

It is COVID-19 - Short for Corona Virus Disease 2019 (I think, not 100% sure of the "D" part of it)

As far as the Question - Option E - Play on with Nepo - if they all get it now, they will be immune later in the year when Carlsen hasn't had it yet, he comes down with it, and the Challenger will dethrone him!

My wife couldn’t sleep. She was working at 4:40 am because her mind wouldn’t let things go.

Yes. The D stands for disease. The World Health Organization calls the virus SARS-CoV-2 and the disease COVID-19.

Post #2 has a link to the WHO explaining the name.

A possibly unforeseen problem with any solution would be the appearance of impropriety.  For example, the Russian Chess Federation has large sway over FIDE and chose the must maligned sub 2700 wildcard.  With a Russian player leading, they might push to cancel the tourney and declare Nepo the winner, and even if they didn't, outside observers might believe that they did.  FIDE isn't known for it's sterling anti-corruption measures (to put it nicely) so any solution will probably be closely examined to see who benefits and who doesn't.

There's also the question of contracts, both with the players and the organizers, and whether the tournament can even be canceled without resumption and how things like prize money would be paid.

I think postponement with later resumption is the best solution.  Chess has an advantage over most sports in that it's individual, can be played pretty much anywhere, and requires few support personnel or spectators in a pinch.

With such a horrendously wrong statement, everything that follows must be regarded as suspicious, and wrong until corroborated. 

I've already provided a link to the World Health Organization. Learn the difference between a primary source and news media. And get off my lawn.

Suppose Nepo does test positive and FIDE has to take action, then there are other possibilities:

1)  GM Radjabov would be justified in having a "I told you so!" response.  Moreover, if he had an amused chuckle or outright laugh, I would not begrudge him that.

2)  If FIDE decides to cancel and restart the Candidates 2020 tournament from the beginning (erasing all previous scores), he would have legitimate grounds to claim to be included.   Only if FIDE chooses option C would Radjabov's claim be dismissed by FIDE.

Actually, I think there's another possibility.  Restart the entire Candidates 2020 from scratch, and have a 9-player Double Round-Robin instead!  Include BOTH Radjabov and MVL.

With regards to your last hypothetical, I don't think that will happen.  It's extremely improbable given the statistical data that's been collected so far.  

Here's a slightly more likely scenario than the one you pose.  Suppose Nepo transmitted the Wuhan/Covid-19 virus to Ding during their Round 6.  That would totally suck for Ding.  "I lose the game to Nepo AND I get infected by Nepo!!!  What the $%#!   I left China, stayed in quarantine for 14 days in Russia, and then I get infected in Russia??!"

I don't think Ding and the Chinese chess federation would be pleased.

I thought they had already said that should one or more of the participants test positive for COVID-19, the tournament is to be abandoned altogether? To me that says that the tournament shouldn't have been allowed to start in the first place. Radjabov withdrew because he found the organizer's answers regarding the outbreak unsatisfactory.

Having said that, I'm personally inclined to think C, now that they actually are playing. Or, E, continue the tournament regardless. It's highly unlikely that the others have escaped contagion if Nepo has contracted it.

Someone mentioned the wild card, Alexeev. (Going off topic now and apologies in advance for ranting: ) I'm not saying this because he blundered badly yesterday against Giri (that just goes to show that even very strong players are perfectly capable of making horrendous blunders), but I'm really pissed off with the way in which the candidates are selected. With only 8 spots at stake, there are so many things that are utterly wrong with the current system. First of all, a mixture of automatic qualification (the vice World Champion), rating, tournament qualification and wild card spots. Secondly, there are three different formats for the tournament qualification spots. One tournament series (the Grand Prix to which only a limited number of players are invited, inluding pointless wildcard spots for each individual tournament, meaning that some players who participate have zero chance of qualifying via that route [5 out of the 22 didn't play in more than one or two of the four events], but are still allowed to influence the outcome while the others have to do well in three events to qualify), one open tournament (the Fide Grand Swiss, to which all GMs over 2600 are invited), and then a knockout tournament (the World Cup to which, depending on your nationality basically anyone can enter) which is not even a genuine longplay tournament (most matches are actually decided by rapidplay or blitz).
 
To add insult to injury in this completely laughable set-up, the World Champion and the vice WC (automatically qualified for the Candidates) are allowed to participate in all three qualification events! Thankfully, both Carlsen and Caruana declined two of these three invitations, and only played in the Grand Swiss, but it's completely ludicrous that two players who have already qualified for later stages (the WC match and the Candidates, respectively) are allowed to influence the outcome of earlier qualification events. Anyone unlucky enough to play both Carlsen and Caruana in the Grand Swiss, in the earlier stages of the World Cup, or to face both Carlsen and Caruana in the same Grand Prix tournament(s) would see their qualification substantially reduced by two participants playing hors concours and without any pressure whatsoever. Carlsen and Caruana are given free training games against their potential future opponent(s), and a chance to knock them out of the running. This also goes for those participants who manage to qualify from the World Cup (September 2019) and the Grand Swiss (October 2019): if they qualified for the Candidates in one of those events and were still to play in either or both of the remaining Grand Prix tournaments, they could still help knock out other competitors from the other qualifying, or for that matter by withdrawing (having qualified), facilitating qualifying for other players.

While 100% fairness is probably never achievable, I can only agree with Karpov: qualification should only be possible through results on the board in dedicated qualification events. Nothing else.

I was referring to your gross misunderstanding of communism. When you are that wrong, you have no credibility and there reason to read further.

The link is useful without your filter of ignorance. Nonetheless, I generally avoid CNN, preferring the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.