I rather lost interest in this when it became apparent that FIDE wasn't involved from the start, but just for the sake of completeness I'll polish off a good weekend away from the blog with links to the latest from Kramnik manager Carsten Hensel and a short reply from FIDE's Makropoulos. I lost interest because I'm interested in combining the resources of FIDE with the classical title of Kramnik with the current top player status of Veselin Topalov. In short, unification.
Kramnik was attempting to poach the FIDE title holder Topalov, which make sense. Why pay 20% to FIDE if you don't have to? Just get Topalov to break his contract with FIDE and you have a ready-made challenger. Topalov, for his part, figured he'd hear what they had to say before talking with FIDE. He could use FIDE as a bargaining chip with Kramnik, saying he needed extra guaranteed money to make it worth his while to break with FIDE and a possible lawsuit.
I'd like to see a match, but FIDE stabbed us in the back with the change to another final tournament instead of a match at the end of their announced cycle. Without that change I would be much less patient with Kramnik not wanting to play under FIDE. But it's more than the change itself, it's the illustration of how this FIDE cannot be trusted. It also shows, again, how short-sighted they are. That Topalov scored +6 in San Luis and is also the world #1 does not mean a double round-robin is a good format for a classical championship. San Luis was a quickie unification attempt and fine for that. But the obvious danger is having a tie for first at +2 and rapid tiebreaks. Boring, inconclusive, and no way to end what is described as a fairly rigorous cycle.
To sum up, life goes on without a Kramnik-Topalov match. The most pressing need is for new leadership at FIDE, a team that understands the importance of a strong world champion and that has the business savvy to reward and keep such a champion in today's commercial world. (The first truly post-Soviet championship immediately fractured FIDE.) We also need players to stand up and take sides and take action. Professional shoulder-shrugging is costing them all money in the long run. Greater prestige for the champion means more publicity for the sport and more sponsors around the world.
There is another idea circulating now: the Russian Chess Federation could sponsor the match between the winner of this year Russian Championship Superfinal and Topalov.
Just a rumor yet.
And I am not sure how this would help unification if the winner is not Kramnik.
"I lost interest because I'm interested in combining the resources of FIDE with the classical title of Kramnik with the current top player status of Veselin Topalov. In short, unification."
So, no interest in a Topalov-Kramnik match that would only be for Kramnik's title?
Heck, I just want to see Kramnik defend the title against top or one of the top GMs every once in a while.
Oh I'd watch! I don't mean I wouldn't be interested in the match itself. But they could have played that match a year ago if you get my drift. I just lost interest in the negotiations and press releases and arguments. They can fight all they want about a privately negotiated match, who cares? That's all about ego and money. That's still mostly true with FIDE involved, of course...
Actually, I dont understand why we need a unification anymore. Kramnik it the World Champion winning it against Kasparov. Thats it. One champion now. If i were Kramnik is wouldnt play against some San-Luis winner and would say that this random San-Luis-winner has to qualify first to play thw world-champion.
The only Problem was before Kasparov left, because he always wanted a rematch and everybody thought Kasparov was the better player, so something like unification was needed. But now, that Kasparov is gone, there is only Kramnik. The only thing we have to do is, to pursuade FIDE that they give their name for Kramniks title. And under Kirsan that will never happen, so we need Karpov or someone else to be FIDE-president.
"Kramnik-Fan", you can't be too happy with Kramnik as he himself said that "now there are two world champions".
My wish list for ??? ?????:
- Kramnik accepts to play under FIDE auspices.
- FIDE gets gets 20% of the actual prize fund and in turn gives up unrealistic demands; so does Topalov.
- FIDE recognizes Kramnik's title and the unification match.
- FIDE switches back to matches instead of tournaments; the new "unified" world champion plays the winner of a new candidates cycle in an open-ended match (14+2+etc) in order to avoid draw odds.
Ups, cyrillic. That shoud read "my wish list for Ded Moros". :)
What's in it for FIDE to give their blessing to Kramnik's title? And don't you want a classical cycle, or is anyone who plays Kramnik good enough? FIDE is useful because they have been able to put together events and Kramnik has not.
FIDE, if it were a decent organization, would be interested in not self-interest, but unification. As for FIDE's ability to put together events better than Kramnik, that's also debatable as Kramnik had a match with Leko and just offered a decent deal for Toppy.
As for FIDE being able to put up a cycle instead of just individual events, that remains to be seen...but you can't expect an individual to pull off cycles...even Kasparov didn't have enough weight for that.
For me it would be enough if Kramnik from time to time played against the strongest opposition, cycles or not. On the other hand, if Kramnik doesn't start performing decently in tournaments and winning once in a while, there's no point in holding him in high regard, even if he were to win all of his matches. (i may have said earlier that it's enough that WC wins his matches, but actually even if you can't ask WC to be always dominant in all tournaments, he should have decent results).
Especially in the case of Kramnik who wins his matches by boring his opponents to death.
To Kramnik-Fan:
Against whom should Kramnik be seeking to defend his classical title, if not Topalov? Even Kramnik's most rabid fans must concede that he eventually needs to defend against *somebody*, or his title will become irrelevant. If he doesn't play a match against Topalov, then where would a meaningful opponent come from?
Kramnik's only other alternative is to organize another Dortmund-like qualifier. But why should he do that (even supposing that he is able to), when such an event has already taken place, and it yielded an unmistakably qualified opponent, in Topalov?
Indeed, my take is that Kramnik needs Topalov now much more than Topalov needs Kramnik. Given his mediocre playing results lately, coupled with his lame title defense against Leko last year, Kramnik would have a very tough time finding sponsorship for another pair of events like Dortmund & Brissago. Topalov is a ready-made opponent, and Kramnik won't easily find another.
Fide: "Such a practice is against any deontology..." Good grief, where's Nigel when you need him??
Deontology is the branch of ethics dealing with duty, moral obligation, and right action, or so my Big Dictionary tells me.
to Marc Shepherd:
You are right! I exeaggerated. My hope is that in one year another person (than Topalov) wins the "WC-tournament" and Topalov (everybody wants him to play Kramnik) will be just a FIDE-WC such as Khalifman, Ponomariov (remember: everybody wanted him to play Kasparov), Anand, Kasimdhanov (remember: everybody wanted him to play Kasparov.
But concerning sponsors, its unfortunately indeed a mess. Bad 4 Chess.
It is essentially a good thing that there is no progress here! Who in their right mind would want sucsessful negotiations before the elections?
Mig: "FIDE is useful because they have been able to put together events and Kramnik has not."
Interesting, so If Kramnik organizes a classical cycle you are perferctly happy? Even without unification? Please explain your stand. I have the feeling that I misunderstood you.
Perfectly happy, no. If we have a classical cycle and I marry Uma Thuman, THEN I'm perfectly happy. I would still prefer a cycle under FIDE because FIDE has resources and is still widely recognized as the official title. (E.g. San Luis didn't get much press but it got a lot more than Linares or Corus because it had the FIDE WCh tag.) The global chess community and all the member federations should not be ignored. There are good reasons to shun FIDE or to not trust FIDE on some things, but they shouldn't be shunned "just because."
But when it comes to the title itself, I don't much care who holds the standard. If everyone has a chance to play and the qualification process is rigorous and the final is a long match, I'm happy. I would also like to see a strong element of succession, with the champ defending in the semis or final. All of this of course hasn't happened since 1995-96. Everything else is a substitute of varying degrees of inferiority.
So as long as we have a classical cycle like those before 1993 with a long match in the end you do not care who is organizing it. I agree.
Personally I prefer the proposal at Prague, that FIDE gives up organizing the WC events to a professional buisness figures, and receives money instead. Kok seems to move in that direction, but he did not say a single word about World Championship and unification.
BTW, sorry but Uma Thurman just accepted a proposal by a 48 year old hotelier :-(
I dont think it is possible for Kramnik to put together a cycle because FIDE opposes it. FIDE makes all the top chess players sign contracts to not play in any world championship cycle outside of fide. so no one who is a top player can participate in Kramnik's cycle.
Fide plays dirty fighting down in the trenches. this is one reason they are not cooperating now with kramnik.
as far as I am concerned FIDE is total hyprocrit. they only use words to play up to the fans and try to look good. but they have no intentions of allowing Kramnik to play topalov or anyone else.
this is a battle to the death and Kasparov almost killed off and destroyed fide. but now fide holds all the good cards and almost for sure now is in the final dash to total domination.
Chess Players who became great players because of their independence will become sheep and pawns of nothingness under the iron control of FIDE.
Chess is in big time trouble. much worse than people think. the time for decisive action will soon pass. the critical time is now.
I dont think it is possible for Kramnik to put together a cycle because FIDE opposes it. FIDE makes all the top chess players sign contracts to not play in any world championship cycle outside of fide. so no one who is a top player can participate in Kramnik's cycle.
Fide plays dirty fighting down in the trenches. this is one reason they are not cooperating now with kramnik.
as far as I am concerned FIDE is total hyprocrit. they only use words to play up to the fans and try to look good. but they have no intentions of allowing Kramnik to play topalov or anyone else.
this is a battle to the death and Kasparov almost killed off and destroyed fide. but now fide holds all the good cards and almost for sure now is in the final dash to total domination.
Chess Players who became great players because of their independence will become sheep and pawns of nothingness under the iron control of FIDE.
Chess is in big time trouble. much worse than people think. the time for decisive action will soon pass. the critical time is now.
To Mig and all the purists who want to retain the classical format of the world championship...how come none of you complains about the number of games being reduced from 24 to 14??
After all you only need use the same logic which you use to look down on tornaments and knock-out tournaments to realize that a 24 game match would give you a 'truer' world champion than a 14 game match.
Havent we seen several matches already where the player leading after 14 games comes up second best? Can anyone tell me how many/which of the 'classical' WCC matches have seen such a scenario?
Thanks
Why do you say we don't complain about it? I've complained about it since 1995 when it was reduced to 20.
The question isn't whether or not the winner can change after 14 games, or 24. It's that if one side hasn't shown dominance after 14 they aren't going to by 24. But of course longer is better. You get real ebb and flow and match strategy when you have ten whites. You see many more opening ideas as well. Just add move minimums...
For trivia's sake, since the modern era of matches starting in 1951 no one has come from behind after 14 games to win. Several matches have been tied at that point, however, which illustrates the point. Petrosian and Botvinnik were tied at that point and so were Spassky and Petrosian in 1969. Even if you take it all the way back to 1886 no one has come back after 14, with a few more ties in the first Alekhine-Euwe match and the second Steinitz-Chigorin match. So statistically 14 isn't an unsound number based on history. But 20 is certainly a much richer experience. Five weeks is pretty brutal for players, fans, and the media, however.
I agree with what Mig says, but I would add that I think the move to 14 or 16 games would have a practical side also. People found out the hard way that having a match go on potentially forever doesn't work. So, there has to be a way of holding matches down to a reasonable number of games. However, many of us also do not like the idea of using quick or blitz chess to decide a classical title match! So, I think it is reasonable to hold a match of 14 or 16 games, with the idea that if it remains tied at that point then the players will play 2-game sudden death mini-matches until someone wins. If they reached 24 games still tied, then I would think it is obvious that no one demonstrated superiority over the other, so no one deserves to be crowned world champ for that cycle. Hey, why did Botvinnik deserve to be called world chess champion when he couldn't beat Bronstein or Smyslov? Doesn't sound like a world champion to me.
It's just a practical consideration. A match that goes to sudden death is essentially an unlimited match of the sort you point out we can't stand. They could easily reel off a week or two of draws, as has happened in just about every match in the past 20 years. That's trouble for venue rental, sponsorship, etc. So it's both convenient and traditional to give the champion draw odds. The challenger has to prove superiority by going +1.
I could do without draw odds, definitely. I just don't want the alternative to be rapid playoffs so things can end in a timely fashion.
The more the better. ;-) 14 games is certainly the minimum.
I wonder if the reduction has anything to do with logistical problems. In the Soviet Union it wasn't that much of a problem to book a theater for more than a month. In a free-market economy there are bills to pay and we all know that chess can't compete with, say, Andrew Lloyd Webber...
Even in Brissago where the place was owned by the sponsor they had a very tight schedule and no additional rest days in case a player fell ill. This lead to a very short draw on one occasion when Leko proved to be a gentleman, but it may as well have cost him the title. I hope that they drew the lesson from that experience.
The very top players achieve one decisive result for every five games played. Thus in a fifteen game match we can expect three decisive results. [In the fifteen games of Kasparov-Kramnik there were two decisive results. In fourteen games of Kramnik-Leko there were four.]
Draw odds is an overwhelming (and unfair) advantage when you have such a small number of decisive results.
Imagine having to play four games of, say, tennis, against draw odds.
To get really goofy, they could have a tiebreak armageddon game where Black has draw odds. One player chooses the time balance (with a fixed total number of minutes so it's a classical game), then the other picks which color he wants...
That's a bit weird of course. It's tough to find a venue that could be needed for a week or two beyond the scheduled number of games. Have we had a WCh match without draw odds? Can't think of one. Curiously, Kasparov says he was prepared to give up draw odds in a unification match back in 1995 if the challenger turned out to be Kamsky and not Karpov (since he'd beaten him already was his logic). But FIDE said no draw odds period and negotiations soon stopped. Incredibly, Garry tells that story as if it reflects poorly just on FIDE and not on both of them. Both should have been willing to cede the item.
Speaking of Gata, there were no draw odds in his FIDE WCh match with Karpov in 1996. Along with having Karpov play in the semifinals despite being FIDE champ, that was quite a progressive cycle by FIDE. http://www.uschess.org/news/archives/fide/uswc-13.html
I don't like the comparison to tennis because if you've drawn a dozen games you haven't shown superiority. You had your chances to win and you didn't. It's not a match of three or four games just because only that many might be decisive. But it's a bigger advantage today than it was back when Botvinnik was drawing his matches and draw odds should be abolished. That's especially true now that the matches are so short. It still leaves us with the problem of tiebreaks or endless matches. Back to the roulette wheel?
Mig:
Whom did Karpov beat in the semifinals in 1996 ? I know Kamsky beat Anand.
A hypothetical situation:
What happens if Kramnik retires from chess today?
(He could give some reasons similar to Kasparov- like he's tired of the mess... and maybe his head is aching from the weight of the imaginary crown he wears)
Does Topalov/Leko become the classical WC, or does the line come to an end? Or does someone organize a tournament to find another one?
Actually Kamsky beat Anand in quarterfinals in the FIDE cycle after trailing by two points. (Anand however beat Kamsky in the PCA candidates finals). In the semis for FIDE WC Kamsky crushed Salov in great style 5,5-1,5 and Karpov beat Gelfand 6-3 after trailing by one point after three games.
Mig,
That is why I keep proposing that if after the 2 game mini-matches (to break a tie after 14 games) they are still drawn then there should be no champion for that cycle. This would force them to have to TRY to win, rather than just play out draws to end the match.
For the record:
Chess Today has a link to an article in Spanish with quotes from a Topalov press conference.
Regarding unification, Topalov said: "la reunificación ya se dio en el último mundial de Argentina, donde estaban invitados ocho jugadores y acudieron siete. Kramnik no quiso jugar y quería partidas largas de siete horas. No jugó y perdió la partida. El título es mío legalmente. Si vuelvo a jugar contra él, pondré mis condiciones".
http://www.diariodeavisos.com/diariodeavisos/content/48471/
In short:
- reunification already happened in San Luis (!)
- Kramnik lost the game because he didn't play
- legally, the title belongs now to Topalov
- if he decides to play again against Kramnik, it will be under his conditions ("his" conditions, not FIDE's, interestingly)
I think it is now overwhelmingly clear that, at least this time, the blame doesn't lie with Kramnik if unification doesn't happen, despite the attempts to spin it otherwise.
I think its been overwhelmingly clear otherwise; even since Kramnik refused a rematch with Kasparov, despite efforts to paint black as white by a vociferous few
So ...
Fischer is world champion (nobody ever beat him since 1972).
Kasparov is world champion (he is still 1st on the rating list and will probably remain 1st for a while).
Topalov is world champion (he has won a tournament ... that was weaker than some Linares events).
Kramnik is world champion (he has beaten Kasparov).
Anand is world champion, as he's obviously been the strongest player for the last 5 years.
By the way, I'd like to point out the fact that I did beat a player who beat Kasparov. Therefore I think that I can have legitimate claims over the title.
Meanwhile, Kirsan just gave a huge interview to Yury Vassiljev (published in today's Russian daily "Sport-Express"). I hope ChessBase is to translate it. The most poignant excerpt (sorry for quick mediocre translation):
"When I asked [president Putin] whether I should run for the further term of FIDE presidency, he replied: "You must! It is important for Russia". Then he asked me incidentally: "How is Kasparov doing?"... I said: "Kasparov has decided to become President of Russia". Putin knitted the brows: "Indeed?!... Well, what else he can do - only to become a President. Sure, he is a chess player so is very clever". - "Was it said with irony?" - "I couldn't read his face".
Some other points:
"Why did Topalov - Kramnik match fail?" - "The main point is that Kramnik's side didn't fulfilled the necessary conditions: there were no bank guarantees for the money which suited all the sides. There were no 20% for FIDE".
"I agree with Topаlov. It doesn't matter after San Luis who, when and how called Kramnik before. He missed his chance".
"The main reason for a new formula [for FIDE championship] is its economic feasibility".
"Let Kok show whether he have anything but nice promises... There is an idea by argentinians: a candidate who is bidding for the presidency of FIDE should stand bail by deposting one million dollars. If he loses then 20% go to FIDE. If he wins all the money are kept by FIDE..."
Finally, the bonus from me: how to succeed in bidding for presidency (reference to "Putin Ilyumzhinov" image from blog of a Russian journalist):
http://www.livejournal.com/users/warsh/1332725.html
Thanks for the link and the translation, valchess!
I also hope that ChessBase will publish a complete translation. It's certainly worth it. Seeing Henry Kissinger and Saddam Hussain being praised in the same sentence alone is priceless.
Ilyumzhinov seems to be sure that the anti-Bessel-Kok measure described above (deposit of one million dollars) will be adopted very soon.
He claims to have spent 50 million dollars on chess. Regrettably, the journalist didn't ask how much of that money was spent on bribes.
Regarding unification, he uses the same arguments as Topalov, in fact, he even quotes Topalov: Kramnik lost his chance by not playing in San Luis which Kirsan refers to as "unifying match-tournament". Perhaps "match" has a different meaning in Russian...?!
Interestingly, the journalist suggests that Radjabov from oil-rich Azerbaijan might have the necessary money to challenge Topalov, but perhaps he does so only for the sake of the argument, in order to illustrate that this would give players from richer countries an unjust advantage.
According to Ilyumzhinov, if the world champion loses the match, the winner will also take his place in the next "tournament of 8". Of course, this could lead to the ironic situation that the player with the highest ELO rating is excluded from the tournament which is supposed to determine the world's strongest player. Isn't FIDE just great...?
Kirsan claims that there were no Bank guarantees from Kramnik's side for the match against Topalov, but he fails to acknowledge that 1.4 million dollars were "on the table" and that FIDE simply wasn't satisfied with that amount and wanted more.
What is the direct URL to the Kirsan interview (if there is one)?
'According to Ilyumzhinov, if the world champion loses the match, the winner will also take his place in the next "tournament of 8".'
This is so completely absurd, if true. More measures like that and FIDE won't be able to buy the loyalty of the top players with cheap promises any more.
Thanks, I found it at http://www.sport-express.ru/art.shtml?113196
Sorry acirce, I didn't even realize that the original link wasn't there, LOL. :-)
Ilyumzhinov seems indeed to be saying that in a match the world champion risks his place in the next world championship tournament. Translation: they want a really weak champion. I think this is the main motivation for all the changes that we are seeing.
Another interesting question: the "lex Bessel Kok" also applies to the candidacy of Anatoly Karpov, of course. Is he going to risk such a large sum of money in an already bribe infested environment?