Boris Gelfand, Older and Wiser

Well, at least they have one paying customer, an American tourist in Azerbaijan whose trip was funded by the state of Bulgaria - an amazing match of circumstances if you think about it...

FIDE-bashing is popular and sometimes legitimate, but here I don't get it: Why would FIDE be interested in a weaker field for the candidates tournament? Why should they secretly have hoped that the #1 seed doesn't win the World Cup?

BTW, Ivanchuk has still reasonable (more than theoretical) chances to qualify via the Grand Prix, what he needs is
- winning the last event, and
- Radjabov finishing no better than shared 3rd.
The first "cannot be ruled out", the second actually appears rather likely - given Radjabov's shaky performances in recent top events.

Sarcasm and trolling aside (seriously), I'm wondering exactly what FIDE bashing has not been legitimate? Exactly what virtue(s) would you extol?

I'm an ardent opponent of FIDE, so I'm curious to know what facts there are upon which one could possibly hang one's hat these days. About the only thing I can come up with is that the organization may have had some positive contributions back in the 40's-60's, but since then, bupkis.

"FIDE can grant the eighth spot if they leave the ill fated grandprix series unfinished"

It would be embarrassing for FIDE with another rule change with just one event to go, especially considering that several players have moved between events to make it all work. The final tournament has also been moved half a year from its original starting date and many players have had to change their plans accordingly.

May in Astrakhan is what it says on the FIDE site, and the 2011 date for the last half of the candidates (as they are scheduled at the moment) might even end up in 2012 if the usual postponements will occur (Elista candidates in 2007, the planned Kasparov matches 2003-05, Topalov-Kamsky 2009, etc). The usual difference between planned and actual date for FIDE's candidates matches has been big, if they have been played at all.

The Azeris would surely be unhappy if Gashimov and Radjabov wouldn't be allowed to play a sixth event, and their having two participants in the Candidates (the likely outcome otherwise) suddenly would be ruled out. Since they pay most of the costs for the Candidates they might also be less content if some new organiser suddenly is given the spot that probably would be their through #2 in the GP according to the rules when they won the bidding. And it's not totally certain that Aronian would have been clear #1 if Wang Yue, Radjabov and Gashimov hadn't moved to the last tournament (even if I think he would have won the series easily also if all players had participated according to FIDE's original schedule). In any case, with FIDE you can never be too sure what will happen.

"Not all the candidates matches will and can be played in Baku due to Aronian´s qualification. So there´ll be another venue for candidates matches and its organisor may well want to nominate a player, too."

Yes. Carlsen is great, but the older guys Anand, Kramnik, Topalov, Ivanchuk, and Gelfand are still very strong and more experienced in head to head matches. Has Carlsen ever won a 12+ game match at classical time controls against a top 5 player like Aronian? If so, please cite the match.

"Carlsen is great, but the older guys Anand, Kramnik, Topalov, Ivanchuk, and Gelfand are still very strong and more experienced in head to head matches. Has Carlsen ever won a 12+ game match at classical time controls against a top 5 player like Aronian?"

Few have played such matches these days, even guys like Ivanchuk and Gelfand have never participated in a 12+ match, and they were top players already in the 1980s.

"Has Carlsen ever won a 12+ game match at classical time controls against a top 5 player like Aronian?"

No, but he qualified as Candidate in 2005, and in 2007 he played his Candidate match against the top seed Aronian 6 classical and 4 rapids to a draw. Aronian needed 2 blitz games to win.

Mind you, that was before Carlsen was a 2700+ player... and had Kasparov as a trainer.

short and sweet. darn right noyb. i have a close friend, who's name is not mentioned, in world top 100--once super GM--who knows FIDE 'A to Z'. he told me, as recently as maybe four years ago, that when a friend tried to contact FIDE on an urgent matter, didnt have voicemail but you had to FAX. now, i dont know if its still the case, but this person never lies to me or exaggerates. its pathetic. now, i know all about capital markets. FIDE cum Kirsan DOES fulfill a function, even if it is to finance X or Y event, fair enough, even if filled with cronies from 3rd world militaristic or fascist countries. but i couldnt agree more with noyd. thank you. i dont have a solution. and PCA evidentially didnt solve it, but we can agree the problems are serious.

now, all in he same breath, the whole crux of it is aptly highlighted by jaideepblue. this is also true. well said. thank you. maybe its not perfectly true that 'we never had it so good' (cf. candidate process of 60/70's brutal but produced contenders in objectively resolved path, good or bad) but we have had it good. but who is we? fans or players? yes lots of events and money, but a bit like the good grandfather passing milk chocolate candies to the grandkids to his gluten/dairy free when mom and dad expressedly forbid it. how do you compete with that? 'we will f_ck you up the a_s but you can get money while we do it, changing rules as we go?'. that said, again, you are right, and i say this without hint of sarcasm, please. we have had a lot of great chess A. and a chaotic system B. from the point of view of whole systems. blessings, dk

Spot on David. I think professional players are coming around to the fact that FIDE just can't do for them what they could do for themselves (i.e., efforts over the last 35 years such as Fischer individually, Kasparov (GMA, PCA) and more recently the ACP). If I were them, I certainly wouldn't worry about the "legitimacy" of FIDE's title (FIDE's turned that into a joke in the past decade). Any serious fan or player understands the lineage of the WC.

I supppose that the ultimate obstacle is that there is no practical way to prepare professionally on the one hand, and organize business support on the other. But at some point someone is going to realize/appreciate the fact that third world tyrants/diplomats are only interested in the perks that they make available to themselves by raiding FIDE coffers. It will require careful planning, marketing and a "no-quit" determination, but if Poker can make it to ESPN, there is no reason why Chess can't enjoy at least some greater recognition. The advent of software evaluations that can be shown on-screen for novices, along with suggested improved lines adds the necessary ingredient to promote the game to a more general audience. And if we still had players emoting to Kasparov's level when they realize a mistake (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZqcT66Fkzw&feature=related), the entertainment level would be there.

Putting it mildly, the Grand Prix system didn't quite work out as planned or promised/dreamed - still I think the original idea isn't all bad: a rather transparent qualifying scheme at the start, all players participate in four events, the best one(s) overall prevail.

Compare this was the Grand Slam which some (esp. Danailov fans) suggest as an alternative or better system: At the organizers' discretion, players participate in none, one or all of the events, for each event "winner takes it all" even if he is first on tiebreak only.

And if we acknowledge that chess consists not only of 2600+ or 2700+ players, just as an example:
- FIDE maintains the ELO rating system (frogbert's live list deals with a few dozen players and a few dozen events per year, the FIDE list comprises thousands of players and events). Who else would be interested in doing this?

I agree that it is best to ignore the trolling on the world title lineage issue, except to note the following:

Steinitz
Lasker
Capablanca
Alekhine
Euwe
Botvinnik
Smyslov
Tal
Petrosian
Spassky
Fischer
Karpov
Kasparov
Kramnik
Anand

I hope Carlsen will become the 16th world champion!

FIDE is the legitimate holder of the world title whether we recognize it or not. One can even argue that Kramnik's title was not legitimate since Kasparov had no right to take the title with him after bolting FIDE. He forfeited just like Fischer did.

Kramnik and Kasparov played for the BrainGames world title, a separate title. The split created by Kasparov himself. Kramnik won and and he later became FIDE World Champion only when he beat Topalov. The history is a mess with a lot of footnotes.

My prediction is that Carlsen will not become the 16th or the 20th. Anand and Topalov have to play first. :-)

"maybe they realized they won't be able to find six cities to sponsor it. Which means they will have to re-invent the whole World Championship qualification once again for the next cycle..."

I think so too, this time they had six cities and two official reserve cities. Only two of the events were held according to plan. Elista (probably with FIDE as the main "sponsor") had to be moved, and the remaining five cities all pulled out, with last minute replacements having to be found, possibly with the help of financial support from FIDE.

Considering also the fiasco with rule changes halfway through the series it's hard to see how the sponsors could be more interested in a new edition of the series than they were this time. So FIDE will probably have to invent some new system, not exactly for the first time the last years...

"Why would FIDE be interested in a weaker field for the candidates tournament?"

The less guarantee for a stable, transparent and just system leading to worthy contenders, the
more countries/companies are willing to cough up $$ to FIDE to secure a place for their lieblings. That would normally result in a weaker field. But in our case, two paying customers (Topalov and an Azeri) happen to be worthy and would have qualified anyway, and even the third possible case (Kramnik) turned to chess rather than the backdoor way, and demonstrated his worthyness at the table.

This one?

http://grandprix.fide.com/

The last 'upcoming event' is not there, though.

For Ivanchuk to have a realistic chance:
1. He should win the last Grand Prix, and
2. Radjabov, Wang Yue, Gashimov, and Leko should not finish better than shared 3rd.

Taking 1 for granted, your point 2 is not true - have a look at acirce's link to the spreadsheet.
The last column "max." shows how many points players can reach by winning the last event:
current score + 180 (for clear first) - current worst result [Ivanchuk's max is 425 points]

Clear second gets you 150 points, for a total of "max."-30 [putting everyone but Radjabov behind Chucky if he wins the event]

Radjabov would still be ahead of Chucky if he finishes clear third (130 points), but shared 3rd to 4th (120 points) puts him behind (423.33 vs. 425).

Ivanchuk can still make it because his score is "most improvable" due to his very bad result in Nalchik - which will be deleted if he does better in the last event (it's hard to do worse ...). BTW, only Radjabov and Wang Yue do not depend on any other results. If Wang Yue is first and Radjabov second, they both get 453.33 points, but Wang Yue has the better 4th result used as tiebreaker.

"he has a big potential in determining other players' fate"

Yep, and the three Azeri players may also determine the fate of each other a bit, since they get two spots in the Candidates if one of them finish second in the series, and all of them play the last event. But my guess is that Radjabov will end up second in the Grand Prix with a clear margin, and that Gashimov will get the organiser's spot.

I agree with your list of world champions TM. The FIDE format which produced Khalifman, Ponomariov, and Khazhimzinov as "world champions" in no way compares to the real match format that produced such greats as Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, etc. White Khalifman, Ponomariov, and Khazhimzinov are outstanding GMs, their so-called world championship titles were gained in a system where luck played a very big part in determining who won.

Generally agreed, but - while I am not a fan of Topalov - I would leave him on the list: A tournament as San Luis and subsequently Mexico also provides a deserved champion, at least if he wins it convincingly. And he satisfies other champion criteria: very high on the rating list, successes in other strong events after obtaining the title.
[Strictly spoken, Fischer didn't pass the second test because - by his own choice - there was no such test for him. But I may still be too harsh to delete his name from the list.]

Regarding Ponomariov (and arguably unlike Khalifman and Kasimdzhanov) I wouldn't say "luck played a very big part" in his victory. Given his results in subsequent KO events (finalist in 2005 and 2009, quarter finals in 2007 - each time eliminated by the overall winner) he rather seems to have a special talent and/or special qualities for that type of events. But he doesn't quite match the other criteria defined above.