FIDE has announced the sponsorship of its 2005 KO World Cup tournament, the first stage of the new world championship cycle. ChessBase has a handy report that includes maps and the full press release.
The World Chess Federation has reached an agreement with the leadership of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Region-Yugra in respect of the organisation of the 2005 World Chess Cup. The tournament will be taking place from 3 to 24 December 2005 with the total prize fund of USD 1,572,000. [On the 28th this was changed to Nov. 26 - Dec. 17 to accomodate the Russian Championship final.]
The respective document was signed today between FIDE and the Executive Direction of "Yugra-Intersport". According to the Agreement, the first tranche of 200,000 USD has been transferred to FIDE today. The balance of the agreed prize fund should reach the FIDE Bank account by 15 October 2005.
The Organiser covers the organizing costs and USD 1,300,000 of the prize fund. The FIDE President H.E. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has also contributed with a sponsorship to the tune of USD 300,000.
My former ESL teacher self loves seeing 'dictionary words' and hokey idiomatic expressions in press releases. Next: "Sponsorship costs a pretty penny!" This is yet more good news from FIDE, what's up with that? This is taking all the irony out of the "I heart Kalmykia" button my friend Kat made me last year. Oh, a return to the halcyon days in the romantic Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Region-Yugra... Just rolls right off the tongue. How about K-MARY instead?
That they already have money lined up for the first stage of the cycle makes the case for unification with Kramnik ever more marginal. Maybe it's not too late for him to Tonya Harding someone in San Luis and sneak in.
Looks like a cold place to play chess in December for the 2005 World Cup but I am glad they are having it somewhere.
Wonder Gata K. will play?
It seems to me the Mr. Kramnik has been marginalized from the Championship in every way but "officially". I would be interested to know what the world community thinks about his status as world champion after San Luis. From a fan's perspective I have slowly come to the conclusion that the upcoming round robin will produce, for me, the champion that really counts. This then will lead to a cycle which, if it continues to get sponsorship, will be good for chess. Ultimately I believe that this is in some ways unfair to Mr. Kramnik. But I am tired of the mess and ready to recognize (for what that is worth) the winner of San Luis.
Nice, but...
Isn't it strange how FIDE can get all the things in order now that elections are coming up..?
Hmm, unlike earlier KO's, this time even the semifinal and final will only consist of 2 games. Credible?
The difference here is that the top finishers go to candidates matches. It's a world cup and a qualifier, not a world championship. Huge difference. I'd still prefer a double-elimination KO, and even the old Swisses did a pretty good job of qualifying the top seeds. But they had tons of short draws and got very boring.
Right "double-elimination KO" seems a lot fairer, giving a last chance to everyone. And qualifying five players from that format is a lot simpler... BTW how are they going to qualify five candidates (is it really the number??) from a KO ??
The official FIDE regs for the knockout, including describing how it fits into the full World Championship cycle, are at the link below, although it's a Word doc. Look at the very end for the World Champioinship regs:
http://fide.com/news/download/Regs2005-07.doc
The knockout is one method of qualifying for the Candidates, but there are several others, including a Last Chance Tournament.
For the knockout, the top 5 (places 1-5) qualify for the Candidates right away. Places 6-10 go on to the Last Chance Tournament.
Alaskan Bishop,
I would be more than happy if this tournament would produce a challenger to the true world champion, but I cannot accept them doing an end around of Kramnik and calling it the world championship. No way. Kramnik is willing to play the winner, so that is the only acceptable solution. I also think that FIDE needs to admit that their knock-out champions cannot be considered world champs- they are all just knock-out champs. I agree with those who have pointed out that once you water down the title, it becomes meaningless. The old world champs mean something to us and we all know their names. No one will remember the so-called world titles of Khalifman, Anand, etc, because these are not true titles.
Knight Tour
True. The KO's were never in any sense world champions. I also agree that FIDE should let Kramnik play the winner to unify.
For all the other players talk about Kramnik as World Champion they sure were quick to jump into the World Championship Cycle.
Alaskan Bishop
You haven't seen many other players say much about Kramnik in a while, other than Leko of course, and he's playing in San Luis. As Kasparov pointed out long ago, few of the top players care at all, certainly not enough to do anything like take a stand. The small club of top players occasionally benefit from dueling cycles and aren't much concerned about how things might improve long-term - for them and for the majority of players - if we had a unified title.
I agree that the pro players probably don't care who is considered the real world champion. But the vast majority of amateur players in the world do care, and it is usually these amateurs who write and remember the history of the game over time. A hundred years from now they will still remember the real world champions, but players like Kasim and Pono will not be among them unless they win the real thing.
Topalov even said it explicitly once, "I only care about the rating". And any GM would play me for the world title provided there is a prize fund of $1 million +
What is really annoying, is that the Cup 2005 is scheduled to be held at the same time Russian Chess Championship Superfinal was scheduled long time ago!
Kirsan is Russian (President of Calmikia), the Cup will be held in Russia, and they create a scheduling conflict with a top Russian official event! By the way, Kirsan and Co. just ignored a letter on a manner from the Russian Chess Federation signed by a Federation Chairman, russian vice-prime minister!
Are they idiots? Or this is a sort of Russian politics Garry is trying to succeed in?
By the way, the typical temperature at the time of event there is -30 C (-22 Fahrenheit).
Heh
"Following an imperative request from the Russian Chess Federation, supported by the organizers of the World Cup, which is going to be held in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, and after the African championship dates have been changed, FIDE is announcing that the dates of the World Cup will be amended to: 26th November (arrival) - 17th December (departure)."
http://www.fide.com/
This round to Zhukov!