EURO: You reach arguable better results during matches then in tournaments. Traditionally, the World Champion title was to be won in matches. A challenger had to beat the reigning World Champion in the direct fight in order to become the new World Champion. The only historical exception was the situation just after the end of the Second World War, when Alexander Aljechin had died during his reign and so a tournament was played.

KRAMNIK: You can call me an old- fashion guy, but I still believe that the real chess championship is actually a match between the best players, not a tournament. So that is going to be the match which will take place between me and Vishy Anand this autumn in Bonn. The tournament in Mexico which you are asking me about was from my point of view a huge compromise.

The problem was that the situation around the World Champion title was still difficult even after my unification match against Top alov. There was a need to find an acceptable compromise. After the unification my aim was to come back to a final match contest for the world champion crown under the umbrella of FIDE. In all th e years after defeating Kasparov I felt this responsibility. Anything else would not have been in accordance with chess history, and also not with the desire of the overwhelming majority of chess fans all over the world.

It was always my goal to end the unhappy period when the World Chess Federation organised their ridiculous knock-out or round robin tournaments for the title. The problem was that the tournament in Mexico had already been agreed and I was informed that if I had refused to play there, the event would not have taken place at all. This would have ended in another impasse. So in order not to cause another split I, in the end, agreed to compromise and played the tournament, which FIDE called World Championship. The truth is I did not win in Mexico, the winner was Anand, and I will compete against him this year in the real contest for the chess crown. I attach ten times more attention to the coming match in Germany – consequently this event is ten times more important to me than the tournament in Mexico.

EURO: So d o you consider Vishy Anand to be the World Champion or not?

KRAMNIK: It is not a question of simply yes or no. Anand won the tournament, which was called the World Championship Tournament, and I competed in that tournament as well. The I nternational C hess F ederation FIDE agreed to do it this way, so I have no right not to consider him the World Champion. A question is, however: what is the value of such a title? Similary I considered Kasimdzhanov to be a FIDE Champion, after winning the knock-out tournament in Libya. However I did not consider him to be the real champion. He had won a tournament and by FIDE’s definition he was a FIDE World Champion . But the value of this title was lower compared to the classical title won in a one-to-one match by Champions like Lasker, Spasski , Kasparov or me. The winner of the match Kramnik -Anand won’t be World Champion only from a legal point of view , he will be considered to be the World Champion and best chess player by the entire public.

Originally posted by inky.:
Interesting thought - with which I agree except that the new set-up for picking the opponents to play the WC is awful. First we have Topalov - Kamsky. Topalov should have been given a re-match with Kramnik, and the tournament in Mexico just cancelled. Kamsky - who I think will beat Topalov, if I haven't just put the 'inky curse' on him - won the knock-out. So, he is in the same category as Kasimdzhanov, although he didn't get the title of FIDE World Champion.

The Grand Prix is another poor way of choosing a candidate for many reasons. So, even if we consider the winner of Anand-Kramnik to be a true World Champion, the line ends there, unless FIDE revises it's method of choosing a challenger.

From the Kramnik interview:

Kramnik: "I attach ten times more attention to the coming match in Germany – consequently this event is ten times more important to me than the tournament in Mexico."