The Chess Mind

As mentioned here, there was some controversy about the tiebreaks at the American Continental Championships. Maybe the evidence isn't 100% clear, but the burden of proof is on those who think there was a fix against the youngster Gaston Needleman. Whatever the complete truth, the story has a happy ending: Needleman will play in the FIDE World Cup just the same, thanks to the intercession of the Argentinian World Championship Organizing Committee. It would make for a nice story if Needleman were to achieve something big as a result of this break, but even if not, I'm still glad the situation was resolved as it was.

[Hat tip: Brian Karen.]

See here for my original post on the matter, here for a follow-up, and finally, here are some ChessBase readers' reactions to their publication of the story.