Sunday
May042014
No Bid On The Carlsen-Anand Rematch: Trouble?
Sunday, May 4, 2014 at 12:01AM
According to the FIDE website (HT: Chess Today) the deadline for bids on the world championship rematch between Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand has come and gone, with nary a sponsor to pick up the tab. Not Norway, not India; no one. The FIDE page basically says "stay tuned", which might mean that come November the journalists will pack their bags for Elista or Khanty-Mansyisk.
Reader Comments (10)
If sponsors or countries don't want to pay to see Carlsen (presumably) defeat Anand again, who will they pay to see play Carlsen? Aronian? Grischuk? Caruana? Kramnik? Topalov? Nakamura?????????? (Ten questions marks after Nakamura on purpose! ) Kasparov in the biggest comeback in chess history? MVL seems to be up and coming. Perhaps the "threat" to Carlsen is between ten to fifteen years old right now.
Some say a twelve game match is too short (Anand-Carlsen 2013 was over in ten), some say another world chess championship match within one year is too soon, and it seems that some, if not all, are not willing to pay to see Carlsen-Anand II.
Perhaps Carlsen, who is the current king of tournament play as well as the number 1 and the WCC, should organise an open tournament for the world champion's title. By winning that tournament he proves that he is the undisputed best player in the world. After all, Carlsen and other top ten players have shown vulnerability when playing opponents that they don't know well. Witness Carlsen losing to more than one "weaker" player at the Olympiad. Anish Giri where are you when we need you?
The FIDE page basically says "stay tuned", which might mean that come November the journalists will pack their bags for Elista or Khanty-Mansyisk.
Hmm. I wonder if this will (a) make Carlsen more interested in the organizational side of chess and (b) boost Kasparov's bid for the FIDE Presidency.
As for (b), Kasparov and Co. seem fairly confident that they're pulling ahead on the delegate count. I'm thinking that's a mistake, as how many of these 'reform' tickets thought they were making progress in the last 30 years only to get crushed at the end? Also, I'm still leery of Kasparov as FIDE leader, given how many of the organizations he started fell apart when he lost interest (usually, or so it seemed, after not getting his way).
And as for (a), while Magnus getting more involved might be good for changing things (he's a young, charismatic champion with pull), I don't really want to see him distracted from the game. I'm not particularly a fan of his, but dang, let Magnus play chess!
Why would India be interested in hosting the World Championship Match again? We made that mistake last November and had enough invectives hurled at us, Indians. It was said that playing in India would give Carlsen illness and disorientation - that those visiting India would have to wear gas-masks - what not? People were highly critical of the fact that the Match was awarded to Chennai without bidding. Now that Match is up for bidding, why don't the 'affluent' countries take it? And, by the way, hadn't those critical of India hosting the Match last November forgotten to compliment us on the excellent job we had done in hosting the Match?
[DM: That controversy was addressed here long ago, and it was noted that Carlsen himself more or less apologized and praised the Indian organizers. I haven't said anything different, so we're not going back down that path. The other criticism of India holding the match was not a critique of India per se but of any player getting to be in his home country. Holding this year's match in Norway would be susceptible to the same criticism.]
Last year, when Chennai was given the hosting rights people were crying hoarse. Where are they now? It is really sad for the chess world that not a single bid was made to get the hosting rights for the world championship.
A rather odd turn of events, since it a fairly safe bet that the next Carlsen/Anand match promises to be more of a fight than the last.
Answering mostly Icepick's comment:
a) Of course it wouldn't be Carlsen himself, but his support team or management - few players were ever directly involved in organizing events where they participate themselves [Shirov comes to my mind, but he may be past his prime]. Last time, there was early interest to have the match in Norway - but when Chennai became an option, they insisted on a match on neutral ground. This time, they again expressed interest but "5-6 million Euros is a lot of money" - someone else has to come up with such a sum?! Which might raise the question whether an event with two players (OK, bigger support teams already months before the event) really has to be an estimated 5-6 times more expensive than any supertournament, maybe they have to settle for less.
b) Kasparov's role: He interprets the situation as 'noone wants to deal with Ilyumzhinov' - a logical statement during an election campaign, regardless of whom one prefers (my personal opinion: Kasparov may or may not be the lesser evil). During his press conference in Wijk aan Zee, Kasparov insisted that he should be involved in the FIDE decision process for the WCh match - is any government obliged to involve an opposition that may or may not win the next election? So if he played a role behind the scenes, it could even be to discourage interested venues from bidding _now_, but rather to wait until after the FIDE elections. August would be pretty close for an event scheduled in November.
Any potential sponsor only has to google Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and find a long list of irrational behavior. Playing chess with dictators such as Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi. Meeting with Aliens. Accusations of ordering the murder of Larisa Yudina. Assorted corruption. It simply isn't smart business to entrust this man with millions of dollars.
Kasparov tweeted -It says everything when Ilyumzhinov's FIDE cannot find sponsorship for a WCh match with charismatic young world champion @MagnusCarlsen.
.@TarjeiJS @MagnusCarlsen Only if you say Kirsan's FIDE is "the product"! Magnus has many sponsors. I do, too! Kirsan's FIDE does not. Hmmm!
It's really sad that Sreenivas believes that India was not appreciated for hosting the World Championship match in an outstanding fashion. It is easy to take criticism of the way the bid was awarded, plus other minor items like the variable commentary or the banning of Kasparov and conclude that the world believed that India hosted a poor event, whereas almost everyone (except perhaps Anand) would be thrilled if India was the host again since the job they did overall was so good. Few had a bad word to say about the city of Chennai either. Whether India wants to spend such a huge amount of money on a chess match again is another question but I would judge the worldwide publicity to have been almost universally positive, especially given that Carlsen's original reservations were proven to be so unnecessary.
There's quite a good article at chess24 (https://chess24.com/en/read/news/no-bids-for-anand-carlsen-rematch-what-now) on the subject.
Thomas's comments in italics:
(my personal opinion: Kasparov may or may not be the lesser evil).
That's kind of where I stand. Although a Kasparov win does have this advantage: If Kasparov screws up or walks away after winning, he will have still removed the entrenched KI regime, which likely won't return in the same fashion. At the least [DM: Snip! No libelous material, please.]
During his press conference in Wijk aan Zee, Kasparov insisted that he should be involved in the FIDE decision process for the WCh match - is any government obliged to involve an opposition that may or may not win the next election?
Not really, nor should they.
...
I don't know if I wrote anything about Chennai's hosting of the WCh or not, but I was happy India got to host a WCh match during the Anand years. I'm not sure that Anand was happy about it (potentially more pressure playing at home) but I thought it was a good thing nonetheless. And it seemed to go off without any major hitches, organizationally. So from that standpoint it was a success.
The bidding process preceding Chennai being awarded the event was messed up, but that was hardly their problem.
...
Finally, my understanding is that Norway is already doing too much chess activity this year to be able to absorb another major even, much less a WCh match.