Armenia withdraws from FIDE Online Chess Olympiad following rejection of appeal

Armenia's chess team withdrew from Chess Olympiad, following rejection of its appeal over Haik Martirosyan losing a game due to internet disconnection.

 

Armenian Chess Federation reports that when the score was 2,5 – 2,5 , GM Haik Martirosyan lost connection with official platform of the tournament chess.com and lost the game on time. The situation was draw. Also Haik Martirosyan did not disconnect from Zoom video call.

 

Armenian Chess Federation officially filled a protest against this decision. After two hour consultations our appeal was declined and Armenia lost the first match. IT specialist of Armenian Chess Federation proved that player Haik Martirosyan was connected to internet, during disconnection to server Haik Martirosyan have not disconnected from Zoom call and if the problem was in internet than he would be out of Zoom as well. Our IT specialist mentioned that federation has internet from two different sources and if one line is down the router automatically connect to second line within seconds and in this case the IP address changes. Chess.com acknowledged that there was no internet loss on Haik Martirosyan side, but could not explain why they did not receive his moves.

 

Our team believed that the decision is highly unfair and they can’t play in this kind of competition and boycotted the second match as gesture of protest against the groundless decision.

 

Armenian Chess Federation requested information regarding load of chess.com servers and networks but received no answer.