Wednesday
Aug042010
Danailov on the Upcoming Candidates
Wednesday, August 4, 2010 at 1:00PM
Have a look. He makes some good points there (e.g. why didn't FIDE re-open the bidding and why did Mamedyarov maintain his wildcard status after Baku was scrapped), and there's also the incredible possibility that neither Carlsen nor Topalov will play in the Candidates - and not because of Kramnik's presence.
Reader Comments (7)
The ramblings of a mad man.
Frankly, the whole concept of "World Champion" seems rather tarnished and irrelevant nowadays. As far as I am concerned, the champion is the person currently at the top of the Live Ratings.
Player at the top of the live ratings is the Champion??? That makes no sense. Why bother with playoffs in any sport? Based on your suggestions, the Cleveland Cavaliers are the NBA champs for the past 2 seasons. Oh, and you can tell the New York Giants there was no need to play the super bowl vs New England. The Patriots had not lost a game all year, so they were obviously the champions.
The live ratings are nice, but the truest test of a champion in chess is a match, preferably a long one.
Look at it another way. Topalov lost a match to both Kramnik and Anand. Let's say Topalov becomes the highest rated player. You would now consider him to be the champion, ahead of Anand?
Anand can make a strong argument that if he was concentrating on rating points rather than World Championship matches he would be the #1 rated player today.
Topalov and Danilov's accusations might be off base but its clear that they believe them. Its the obligation of FIDE to provide a venue where the players feel comfortable and can play their best chess. If Euwe had not been flexible with Fischer's outrageous conduct in 1972 the Chess world would have been deprived of one of its best World Championship match.
David, I am joking about the Live Ratings as the sole indicator of the champion. :-)
But not joking about the "World Champion" title. With all the ridiculous politics and abuse it's gone through over the past few decades, it just does not connote "the best chess player" to me at all. In order for it to have real meaning, ALL the best players (and here the live ratings DOES take on significance) need to compete for it on an equal footing, with no political BS determining who gets to play when and where.
Take the top ten (or whatever) players in the ratings (other than the current World Champ), have them play one round-robin tournament to determine the challenger, then the champ and challenger take each other on in a subsequent match for the crown. Why does it need to be any more complicated than that?
RuralRob: I think your comment is at least 3 years out of date. Anand won Mexico City in 2007, which was a sort of top eight with everyone but Topalov, and he won it. Then he beat Kramnik in a match, taking away Kramnik's "Yeah, but you haven't beaten me in a match" boast. Then he beat Topalov too. No one who should have had a chance to play didn't get that chance, and there were no competing cycles. The only top players who haven't had a recent crack at a final are Ivanchuk and Carlsen. For Ivanchuk, it has been bad luck, that he had rating dips when selection was underway, and Carlsen. But Carlsen was in the Candidates for 2007, when he lost to Aronian, and made it to the semi-finals of the previous World Cup, where he lost to Kamsky. So I see no basis for disparaging the current legitimacy of the world championship title.
Let me rephrase that. Three years ago it would have made more sense, while it's a lot less plausible now. The reasoning is the same.