A Dutchman of course does not need a passport to cross borders between Schengen countries - nor does anyone else who is already inside the Schengen zone. You could not use even if you wanted to since there are no border crossings any longer.

I imagine that some form of identification may be required, though, to border the plane.

Didn't I read somewhere else (ChessBase, I think?) that the very same thing happened to GM Seirawan?

I am confused.

It was poor Yasser Seirawan, I believe:

" "Anchorman" Yasser Seirawan wurde in der Bahn auf der Fahrt zum Flughafen in Amsterdam Gepäck, Notebook und Brieftasche mit Ausweis gestohlen. "
http://www.chessbase.de/

:(

"Against the suggestion of the GM Council it's the old 90'+30" FIDE semi-rapid garbage."

I don't get it. Who was debating about this? Because if all the players are against these time controls why are they being used anyway?

Two words: Khan Kirsan. This ain't a democracy, at least not of the players. Federation delegates vote for the president, the president decides the time controls.

Mig,

You really seem to be down on Kirsan today. Just meditate on all that negativity and send Kirsan love vibrations. It is all he and the world needs, all we need is love,love. Love is all we need. And remember with all this love that Kirsan receives, there still will be bodies turning up in ditches.

Seirawan has his laptop and passport stolen.... and a sentence later we're into Kirsan and the murder of Larisa Yudina.

Haven't seen a leap like that since Evel Knievel "rode his motorcycle" over the Snake River.

Is chesstraveler and tommy the same person ?

Have you ever seen both of them in the same place?

No damnit, I just wanted to beat him to the punch peach and I thought since Mig opened the door to trollsville, I might as well have some fun before it took off.

Kirsan may be a ruthless dictator, but he's a ruthless dictator of LOVE.

Just rented "1984" last night (the version with John Hurt playing Winston, and Richard Burton playing O'Brien. I don't recall the name of the actress who played Julia, but she was hot). Who would run the Ministry of Love today? Kirsan? Or Tommy? Big Brother is following your game?

Jon,

Susanna Hamilton.

I'm not surprised the time control is 90'+30". What IS surprising is that this was actually in any doubt until the last minute.

Quite right, macuga. I'd say only a dictator of love could deal with with a journo-mosquito like Yudina. Let's remember Peggy Noonan's reproach to Republican naysayers before the "kinder gentler nation" speech! Yudina just paid the price for getting too close to the love - not unlike Danny Casolaro.

A reaction to the first post: whenever I travel from Schiphol Airport (Amsterdam) to a European country, they DO want to see my passport. (The even have a special queue for 'European passports'.

Since 1984 and Schengen passport rules came up in the same thread, heres the facts:

Inside Schengen you do not need a passport to travel, if youre from a Schengen country. Nice. BUT you do need to carry some sort of ID, and there are special Schengen requirements for IDs, which no other ID than your passport meets.

Q

It shouldn't be any problem for Kok, unless he bears a resemblance to Julio Granda. Once somebody is in the EU, there are no internal border crossings to contend with--hence, no need for a passport. A real pity to lose the Lap Top, though--there is a lot more crime in The Netherlands than there used to be. I'm sure that there are plenty of sociological theories to explain the worsening problem. Hopefully, the theft will not sigificantly hinder Kok's last minute campainging.

"A reaction to the first post: whenever I travel from Schiphol Airport (Amsterdam) to a European country, they DO want to see my passport. (The even have a special queue for 'European passports'."

You do of course need a passport in a situation when you are entering the Schengen zone from outside. For example, when you have just arrived at Schiphol from America and intend to take a connecting flight to another point in Europe. However, if your trip originates in Amsterdam (or any other point inside Schengen), you do not need a passport.

Imagine the conspiracy theories if it had been -Kasparov's - laptop.

Someone would certainly blame Topalov.

Come on Mig.
Are you trying to suggest that Mr. Kirsan (his last name is hard to write)has something to do with the steeling?
Are you watching too many 007 movies?
Anyway I really enjoy your "dirty chess comments".
Go Chavez, Go Kirsan, Go Fidel..( I am kidding of course)
Rafael LLanos.
Great State of Texas.

Q, that passport bit sounds more like "Catch-22" than "1984".

I'm surprised Mig hasn't yet accused Kirsan of assasinating John F Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln, and causing the space shuttle Columbia crash...

Well yes, Catch 22 was on my mind as well, but consider a great bureaucracy to create a passport free area, which for all intents and purposes has absolutely no impact... Quite Orwellian doublethink.

Q

Right Leto. Kirsan may have done damage to chess, but one would think calling him a murderer without proof is a bit harsh.

Oh, is there so much information about Kirsan and Kennedy? I haven't seen many papers from human rights organizations about that one. How many of Kirsan's employees were jailed for killing Kennedy? You guys will shove your heads pretty far up your asses just to pretend I'm a bad guy. Your saying that I'm calling him a murderer is far more asinine than my linking to a well-known case.

Yeah, I was starting to form my own hypothesis to explain Leto's comment -- simply that he's a Kirsan apologist -- but Mig's explanation (that Leto and acirce simply scrape up whatever excuses they can find to trash Mig) is more convincing.

For the uninitiated: Even this conspiracy-theory-hating, unabashedly pro-American/marginally pro-Bush source (i.e., me) accepts the concept that:

1) if you're the dictator of a region, and
2) a highly visible critic of yours is murdered (no one is saying Yudina got drunk and stabbed herself 79 times then fell in the ditch and drowned, are they?), and
3) the people convicted of her murder are known associates and allies of the dictator she was publicly criticizing,
4) then, at a minimum, the dictator's possible responsibility for and connections to the killing are worth investigating and/or speculating about.

Let's consider an entirely hypothetical parallel case. If, during the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign when Bush's National Guard record and various other potential scandals were being reported in the media, a prominent reporter covering one of those stories had been murdered while going to meet someone they thought was a source, and they had been getting death threats all along that warned them to stop writing about what they were writing about....if something liek that had occurred, then I think the president would have drawn some sideways glances even from people who are not reflexive anti-American Bush-haters (i.e. people who don't frequent this blog).

The Kirsan-Larisa Yudina link looks promising.

And a Kirsan-Kok's briefcase link would have been conceivable.

But I still need more convincing on the Seirawan's briefcase-Larisa Yudina link.

Ah, you see, this is where "humor" comes in. Absurdity to bridge the gap with comic effect. Of course when the item first went up I thought it had happened to Kok, which is what my source's email said. Seirawan being a Kok supporter wouldn't have been enough to go for the joke. But since it was already up, it's up.