Saturday
Oct292011
A Long and Interesting Interview with Yasser Seirawan
Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 6:51PM It has been republished a bunch of places, but I'll send you to the point of origin, Chessdom. Worth a read.
tagged Seirawan
Seirawan
Reader Comments (4)
'the point of origin' - Chessdom was indeed the first to publish it, but their speed took its toll: they were also the only site to leave the spelling errors intact. ;-)
Chilly in Amsterdam? It's 14C (approx 57F) and relatively sunny, fine for this time of year. Fascinating read for the most part, especially his views on the WC cycle.
It confuses me a little though, #1 on the rating chart vs #2 in match play every other year and an 8-man tournament the other year? He has good arguments for a 12-game match, but why would he then also want an RR tournament? Surely, it's best to just have a #1 vs #2 every year; you wouldn't have to explain the RR tournament and you avoid splitting the titleholder(s) between players who perform best in tournaments and those who perform best in matchplay.
I really like his idea of having players perform in national championships, but there I foresee a slight problem. A >2700 in a country with few high-rated players will play against many lower-rated players, losing against them costs a lot of rating points. Not too big a problem, but something to be considered.
Knowing FIDE, it'll probably take them at least 50 years to come to an annual #1vs#2 match for the title, if ever. Seirawan made me a supporter of that idea though.
Maybe I'm too much of a Fischer fan, but it seems to me he slights Fischer's accomplishments. Sure, Fischer didn't always do so well against top players, but there's something to be said for the fact that the Russians rested against each other and had extra preparation against Fischer (and probably other non-Russians also). I believe Kortchoi has confirmed this, although admittedly, Kortchnoi may not be the best source.
It's widely believed that Fischer took the second board in USSR vs. The World because he was already preparing for Spassky and didn't want to give any of that away. Fischer's results in the Candidates cycle, against top competition, have never been matched. I don't believe that Spassky was ever beaten so badly in match play before '72, either. It seems to me that Fischer was pretty clearly dominant in '72.
The way Fischer destroyed the field at the blitz tournament following USSR vs. The World says something about Fischer's innate skill as opposed to him being just the best prepared.
I do like Seirawan's perspective on a lot of things, like standardizing the time controls.
The problem with Seirawan's proposed cycle is that the WCh title will lose its exclusivity. Quick question: do you know who won the Super Bowl in 1973?
[DM: Yes, the Miami Dolphins. Off the top of my head, in less than five seconds. :) (Sorry!)]
Or, if you are European, who won the Europe Cup I in 1982? That will happen to chess as well. The chess title is so special exactly because it's so extremely hard to earn.
[DM: Not a bad point, and I've generally been a fan of a more regal, less "democratic" world championship title. On the other hand, going back to your (American) football example, while most fans won't remember exactly which team won which year, they will remember that Pittsburgh was incredibly successful in the 1970s, San Francisco in the 1980s and so on. Maybe it's good enough if fans remember, say, that Carlsen dominated the early to mid '10s, Giri the late '10s and early '20s, etc.]