Isa Kasimi

Isa Kasimi
Rausis at the 2011 Winterthurer Schachwoche tournament
CountrySoviet Union (until 1991)
Latvia (1992–2002)[1]
Bangladesh (2003–2007)[2]
Czech Republic (2007–2020)[3]
FIDE (2020–2024)[4][5][6]
Born(1961-04-07)April 7, 1961
Komunarsk, Luhansk Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, USSR
DiedMarch 28, 2024(2024-03-28) (aged 62)
TitleGrandmaster (1992, stripped in 2019)
International Master (2019)
Peak rating2686 (July 2019)
Peak rankingNo. 46 (April 2020)[7]

Isa Kasimi[8][9] (April 7, 1961 – March 28, 2024), born Igor Kondylev and known as Igors Rausis until 2020, was a Latvian chess International Master. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 1992, but the title was stripped away after he was caught cheating in 2019. He won the Latvian Chess Championship in 1995. He represented Bangladesh from 2003[2] to 2007, when he switched to the Czech Republic.[3]

In July 2019, Kasimi was caught cheating in a Strasbourg tournament, after which he admitted to the transgression and announced his immediate retirement from chess. The Czech Chess Federation subsequently cancelled his membership,[4] and the FIDE Ethics Commission stripped him of his Grandmaster title and gave him a six-year ban. At the time, he was the oldest player ranked among FIDE's top 100 players.[10] Kasimi is featured as a key character in the Juhani Seppovaara novel Shakkimestari ("The Chess Master", 2024).[11]

  1. ^ "Rausis, Igors". OlimpBase.
  2. ^ a b "Transfers in 2003". FIDE. Retrieved September 6, 2023.
  3. ^ a b "Transfers in 2007". FIDE. Retrieved September 6, 2023.
  4. ^ a b "Vyloučení I. Rausise" [Expulsion of I. Rausis] (in Czech). August 27, 2019. Retrieved September 6, 2023.
  5. ^ "Top 100 Players February 2020 - Archive". FIDE.
  6. ^ "Rausis, Igors". FIDE.
  7. ^ "PERIOD: APRIL 2020 – RANK STANDARD RATING WORLD". FIDE.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Doggers was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference Doggers2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ "PERIOD: DECEMBER 2019 – RANK STANDARD RATING WORLD". FIDE. Retrieved September 6, 2023.
  11. ^ "Shakkimestari". docendo.fi (in Finnish). Retrieved October 18, 2024.