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This is it, the official end of 2006 beginning of 2007 thread. It was another fascinating year of chess, the first complete one of the post-Kasparov era. On the board the usual suspects of Topalov, Anand, and Kramnik were joined by newcomers like Aronian, Radjabov, and Mamedyarov. It also saw the return of a former world championship contender, America's Gata Kamsky. He became one of the stories of the year when he nearly won the powerful MTel Masters in May and then helped lead the US team to a bronze medal in the Olympiad.
A 2006 supertourney recap in vaguely chronological order, ignoring system tiebreaks for the sake of expediency and irrelevance, skipping various rapid events. Fill in the blanks in the comments and I'll move them up here.
Corus Wijk aan Zee A Group: =1-2 Anand, Topalov =3-4 Adams, Ivanchuk
Corus Wijk aan Zee B Group: =1-2 Motylev, Carlsen 3 Almasi
Keres Rapid: =1-3 Ivanchuk, Karpov, Kasimdzhanov
Linares/Morelia: 1 Aronian =2-3 Topalov, Radjabov
Cuernavaca Young Masters: =1-2 Ponomariov, Vallejo Pons 3 Nakamura
Amber Rapid (not blindfold): 1 Anand =2-3 Topalov, Aronian
Karpov Poikovsky: 1 Shirov =2-5 Ponomariov, Zvjaginsev, Dreev, Bareev
Bosnia: =1-3 Nisipeanu, Carlsen, Malakhov
MTel Masters: 1 Topalov 2 Kamsky 3 Anand
Aerosvit Foros: 1 Rublevsky 2 Ivanchuk 3 Bologan
Tomsk Izmailov Rapid: 1 Karjakin 2 Rublevsky 3 Kasimdzhanov
Biel: 1 Morozevich =2-3 Carlsen, Radjabov
Leon Rapid: 1 Anand
Sparkassen Dortmund: =1-2 Kramnik, Svidler =3-5 Adams, Leko, Gelfand
Villarobledo Rapid: =1-4 Anand, I Sokolov, Korneev, Ponomariov
Staunton Memorial: 1 I Sokolov, 2-3 Timman, Adams
Rishon FIDE Blitz WCh: 1 Grischuk 2 Svidler =3-4 Radjabov, Anand
Essent Hoogeveen: =1-2 Mamedyarov, J Polgar
Cap d'Agde Rapid: 1 Radjabov 2 Karjakin
Capablanca Elite: 1 Ivanchuk 2 Bareev 3 Miton
Tal Memorial: =1-3 Leko, Ponomariov, Aronian
Russian Ch Superfinal: 1 Alekseev 2 Jakovenko 3 Inarkiev
Torre Memorial: 1 Ivanchuk 2 Bruzon
Pamplona: 1 Morozevich 2 Jakovenko 3 Shirov
Major opens: Gibtelecom Masters won by K Georgiev. Aeroflot won by Jobava. US Ch won by Onischuk. EU Individual Ch won by Kozul. World Open won by Kamsky. Ordix Open won by Kasimdzhanov. Russian 1st League Ch won by Inarkiev.
Major team events: 05-06 Bundesliga won by OSC Baden-Baden. 37th Olympiad Turin: 1 Armenia 2 China 3 USA. Euro Club Cup won by Tomsk-400. NH Tournament won by "Rising Stars" - Carlsen best score.
Matches: Unified world championship: Kramnik defeated Topalov. GrenkeLeasing Mainz Rapid match: Anand def. Radjabov. FIDE Presidential election: Ilyumzhinov def. Kok. RAG Man vs Machine: Deep Fritz def. Kramnik.
Off the board, a few cases of amateur cheating with rumblings of Topalov cheating culminated in outright accusations of cheating by Topalov and his camp against Kramnik during and after their Elista world championship match. This pathetic saga will no doubt continue. FIDE delayed, fudged, and proposed changes to the world championship system. As currently scheduled there will be candidates matches in Elista in May 2007 to decide the final four participants in the September 2007 Mexico City world championship tournament. According to a current Ilyumzhinov proposal the next championship after that will be decided in a match.
What was your favorite moment in the chess world of 2006? Favorite or most memorable game? Tidbit we shouldn't forget?
Forget running the bulls, there are brain-damaged yaks who predicted a big Morozevich victory in Pamplona, but they probably didn't get to Vegas in time to place their bets. Stupid yaks! Alexander Morozevich has a long history of putting up amazing scores in sub-super events and this was no exception. The top seed scored 6/7 for a performance rating of around 2950. His five wins included a victory over second-seeded Alexei Shirov that lived up to the expectations of a fire vs fire battle between the game's two premier exotic tacticians.
Moro's win would have been even more impressive had he won Q vs R against Jakovenko in round five. Oops. Had Morozevich finished in second by a half-point because of this he'd be getting a lot of grief about it. He lost this to Shirov a few years ago in Amber. This is won, or lost, depending on how you look at it, over 80% of the time at the GM level. 87.Ke7 would have closed the door. Jako defended very accurately, but it really appeared Morozevich didn't know how to win it. Study your endgames, kids!
Russian vice-champ Jakovenko finished a point behind Morozevich with an undefeated +3 score. His win over Wojtaszek is a fun two-fisted battle and his sacrificial win over Illescas is a gem. As always Shirov entertained the fans as he played six decisive games for third place. He fell to a negative score after losing a wild Sveshnikov to Wojtaszek and the loss to Moro but then won 3/4 to actually gain a few points. His last-round win over Illescas is another fun one. The peripatetic Korneev bombed out with five losses. I'm sure he'll soon make up the points bashing 2400s in league play.
Not to inflame the situation, but just for the record I'm told that Sr. Bellón has the entire Topalov interview recorded and that there were no errors in transcription. So efforts to deny it - instead of apologizing and retracting it, are just going to make things worse. As Nixon taught us, it's not the crime that gets you, it's the coverup.
ChessBase has an item on chess records including a brief set from the divine Edward Winter and a call for more from the same. The Guinness Book has changed its format in many ways over the year and is now more meant to be read than to serve as anything comprehensive, let alone relevant. It's no surprise the more traditional records in sports have given way to "largest collection of [insert brand name here] toys" and the like. In 1986 chess historian Ken Whyld did a book of chess records ("Guinness Chess The Records") that is still very much worth tracking down. It contains many crosstables and lists of national champions and not really much in the way of longest, oldest, etc.
Winter mentions the book "Kasparov Against the World" as the longest analysis of a single game. It's true the book had a lot of diary material – it follows Garry around as he plays the game from all over the world. But that was certainly the most deeply analyzed game in history. Apart from Kasparov there were teams of strong players and amateurs with strong computers going over every move and variation in coordinated fashion for months. I have Garry's PGN file on that game and if printed out it would run many dozens of pages. (My own "most analyzed game" runs a few pages, excerpted here.)
Even if you don't have much knowledge of records you can participate by suggesting new categories. Then we can all try to track down the answers. Plus, this leads to oodles of jokes. Tim Krabbé already has many game-related records covered here. I'd expand submissions to include "firsts" and "onlys" as well just to keep things moving. How about the first champion of Israel who also once held the "longest game ever" record? We could further expand this to general trivia, so give us your best bit of fascinating, lesser-known lore. Emphasis on the fascinating please. So as not to take Mr. Winter's name in vain, try to provide sources, especially if you are rehashing old canards in the Chernev/Horowitz/Reinfeld/Koltanowski tradition.
Anyone else notice that Pamplona 2006 started yesterday? It's their strongest event ever, a quick sprint of a round-robin with eight players. Morozevich is the top seed, followed by Alexei Shirov and Dmitry Jakovenko. Shirov won the only decisive game of the first round, playing a super-theoretical Sveshnikov to beat journeyman Oleg Korneev. (Appearing next at the Waffle House rapid quad in Poughkeepsie. Seriously, the man is everywhere.) Daily Dirt poster mojo must be directed to support our man Shirov. No live games, but PGN is up. Just go to the "Masters A" menu on the left.
Trying to get through piles of work before the holiday rounds begin. Thanks to everyone who has been sending things in; I just haven't had time to post. In no particular order:
Topalov's side is making a move to deny responsibility for the ABC interview in which he accuses Kramnik of cheating and crimes against humanity. This seems to be synchronized with a threatening letter from Kramnik's side that invokes possible bans for violating FIDE's code of ethics. (Hahahah, try to say "FIDE code of ethics" without laughing. You can't.) I suppose everyone could just pretend it never happened, the old "I was misquoted" defense. Happens all the time. At least Topalov didn't call Kramnik a macaca. I wonder if we can get to the interviewer Bellon before Stopwatch dusts off Torquemada's scrotum clamps and gets him to say it never happened.
Speaking of cheating, and it looks like we will be doing a lot of that in the coming years, Jon Jacobs sends a link to a "Town Hall Meeting" on the subject he moderated at the Marshall Chess Club earlier this month. Lawyers and politicians and players, oh my! Some informed opinions worth a read.
Bessel Kok has indeed signed with FIDE to run professional chess events under a new Amsterdam-based company, Global Chess. This isn't as ambitious as originally planned, but good things can happen if the authority is there. It certainly can't be worse than the last time they tried this with FIDE Commerce. Oy. I'll have more on this later and you can post your questions for Bessel Kok here if you like. Not sure I'll reach him before the holidays subside though.
The previewed interview with FIDE prez Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is out and translated at ChessBase. Some more on the May candidates matches as well as mentions of using jamming technology to prevent transmissions and cheating thereby. Barsky's long article (pre-Elista) on Topalov's cheating potential included extensive comments from an espionage specialist on how to cheat-proof an auditorium. But I still say that for top professionals the risk of being caught with a device on you is simply too great; it would mean immediate incontrovertable proof and likely banishment. (Amateurs, who are being caught regularly with such things, have little to lose.) So low-tech signalling and such, impossible to prove 100%, is more of a realistic threat.
On Kramnik and Mexico, this turns out to be the same old weak statement: "Vladimir has never once said that he will not play in the Tournament of Eight in Mexico." True, and as far as I know Vladimir has never said he was not abducted by aliens. That doesn't mean he can tell you where to get good borscht on Neptune. Not saying you're not is not saying you will. Knotty and naughty of Ilyumzhinov, if predictably so.
On the new WCh proposal, none of the many concerns raised by Kamsky, Shirov, and others in these threads are mentioned. It's good that it has been floated in time for feedback; let's hope they actually listen.
[I'm going to start putting up regular short items with links to ongoing events and such. Feel free to ad your links below. Good ones will be promoted to the main item. And/or send me your event link with a brief description.]
• Fred Wilson's guest on Tuesday evening (8pm EST), Dec. 19th, 2006, will be Noah Sheola, author of the well-received new play, "Paul Morphy", currently running at The Players Ring in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. http://www.chess.fm - The show runs from 8:00 to 10:00 PM (EST) every Tuesday evening.
• It's ... the Andrew Martin Radio ChessBase Show. Back at the chessboard we begin this weeks show with a Classical French. The Andrew Martin Radio ChessBase lecture begins on Wednesdays at 21:00h CET (European Central time = server time, which translates to 20:00h London, 3:00 p.m. New York, 05:00 a.m. Sydney (on Thursday).
• Parimarjan Negi is playing a set of matches against Kateryna Lahno in New Dehli. Amity Grandmasters Challenge. When she first popped up many hailed Lahno as the new Judit Polgar, but she has dropped since breaking 2500 a year ago and – she turns 17 in a few weeks – is nearly over the hill for a prodigy. (Even worse for her prospects, I have an even score against her on Playchess.com. (+3 -3 three years ago. Get them while they're still in the cradle.) I think it was her first time ever playing on the internet, but no one will remember that if she becomes world champion.) Negi, at 13, is the current youngest GM in the world and will play the Corus C group next month.
• The 18th Carlos Torre Memorial is underway in Merida, Mexico. A swiss qualifier led to a KO phase (this format is often called a "Wimbledon" in some places if you're confused by the official site. The quarterfinals include Bruzon, Ehlvest, Ivanchuk, and Tiviakov. They seem to have jiggered the seeding to guarantee a local made it to this round, so Milov faced Ehlvest in the eighths while two Mexican IMs were playing at the same time. Sad for Milov, who won the qualifier. Cuban IM Rodney Perez took Ivanchuk to tiebreaks.
• The first ACP rapid world cup tournament will take place in Odessa, Ukraine starting on January 4. It's a 16-player KO made up of the top point-getters on the ACP tour over the past few years. Players include Morozevich (who dropped out of Corus, which starts a few days after this ends), Leko, Radjabov, Shirov, and Ninja Black Belt annotator Hikaru Nakamura. First prize is 40K. Regulations and other details here. An official site is forthcoming, I'm told.
• The East Bay Chess Club (Oaktown in da house) is hosting its second FIDE swiss, a norm tournament with low prizes but good chances for those seeking titles. They are using the BAP scoring system to distribute the prizes, but since such numbers aren't used for rating or norms it's really a parallel scoring system that some of the norm seekers might just ignore, I imagine. I.e. a draw with white might mean zero points for place and prize, but to FIDE it's still a half point.
Evgeny Alekseev won the Russian championship "superfinal," beating Dmitri Jakovenko in rapid tiebreaks after the pair finished tied on +4. Ernesto Inarkiev, pride of Kalmykia, won his last three games to take clear third place. Peter Svidler was the only undefeated player but showed little ambition to achieve his +2 score. El Svid is obviously class and results have been fine, but he's not displaying much fire in the belly these days. Of course when all the youngsters seemed content to offer him draws on move 20 it's hard to blame him for taking them. On the other hand, since there were more wins with black than white (17 to 13 and 38 draws), maybe he should have gone for more. He did have a fun queen sac draw against Najer in round nine. And if you're not a Ninja newsletter subscriber don't miss Khairullin with an instructive loss in a drawn rook and pawn endgame against Inarkiev.
The major Spanish daily ABC has a long interview with Veselin Topalov by Federico Marin Bellon, apparently done after Topalov lost the final blindfold game with Judit Polgar in Bilbao (he had already clinched the match). You can get the gist from the quote in the article's subhead: "The Kremlin won't admit they killed that Russian spy or Kramnik that he cheated." Yikes. Security is going to be really tough if we have to start checking everyone for drugs, electronics, and polonium 210. (Actually something I've been researching how to detect, sadly.) Please toss me and ABC a link if you use the translation.
I'm not 100% sure, but I believe this the first time Topalov has directly accused Kramnik of cheating. Previously he and even Danailov have talked more vaguely. This could be important legally as well as being remarkable. The world #1 accusing the world champion of cheating in their match shouldn't be dismissed as sour grapes. If he can't back it up, and he can't, why shouldn't there be censure or worse? This may end up being a Big Deal. I'm more annoyed about this the more I think about it. Imagine it in another sport. Blatant cheating accusations at the highest level are not at all common. It damages both players and the sport.
Not that it's unique. Of course there was epic paranoia and increasingly bizarre accusations and insinuations in Fischer-Spassky and then, especially, the Karpov-Korchnoi matches. Kasparov accused one of his seconds (Vladimirov) of selling opening analysis to Karpov during the 1985 match and removed him from the team. (That was, I believe, after Kasparov lost three in row and the panic from that combined with the somewhat justifiable paranoia about Karpov's state backing, which is also a factor in Topalov's case. Losses + paranoia = accusations.) And of course Kasparov's allegations about Deep Blue getting human help on at least a move or two in the 1997 rematch are well known. In a way that is the most similar! Still, the loser continuing to blatantly state his opponent cheated without any evidence is no small thing, especially since computer cheating is clearly a serious threat today. Anyway, on with the interview.
I arrived very relaxed and the games were spectacular. The quality was very high.
How were your beginnings in Spain?
It was a very romantic period. Silvio Danailov and I came here because there were more tournaments. [Don't be fooled by the literal "a romantic period," unless you think Morphy and Anderssen were, umm, castling on the opposite side back in that romantic era. -Mig]
Were you already thinking about becoming champion?
When you win the under-14 world championship you know you've got talent, but I didn't have such aspirations.
You could say you were a champion who came out of the streets.
Yes, I have a street-fighting style. I spent a year playing in opens and we walked all over Spain.
We first met in 1994, in Alcobendas, and success hasn't changed you.
That's the benefit of starting at the bottom.
How was the encounter with Kramnik?
Very tense, although objectively speaking I dominated the majority of it.
What happened before the fifth game?
We got the videos of what Kramnik was doing between every move. He was going to the bathroom many times and his behavior was very suspicious.
They accuse you of trying to disturb him because he was winning.
We never wanted to stop the match. There were clear indications of cheating. You look at that tape and it puts the fear into you. It's not just how many times he went to the bathroom, but how he went. Many times he came out, came to the board and moved instantly.
He alleges health problems.
That's a lie. I drank more than he did and didn't go to the bathroom so often. We protested, but the committee, which had sided with us, was fired.
They say it's inconceivable that the rival team had access to private video.
They also saw my video. They followed my every step and everyone who was with me. And if he's not doing anything wrong, what's the problem?
Illescas said you exaggerated, and lied, about the number of times Kramnik went to the bathroom.
I don't know how many times he went. My team only saw the tapes once and then they disappeared.
Maybe they were based on approximations.
When they inspected the bathrooms they found a network cable hidden in the stucco ceiling.
That never came out.
We kept it quiet for many reasons.
Was it a mistake to keep it quiet?
We couldn't say anything. It was a very tense situation. If we announced it the match would have been cancelled and I wanted to play and to win the money. What's more, there were threats.
Made by whom?
Anonymous at the start, but they closed the airport. It's easy to talk here, but when you're in Russia you think about how you're going to get out. Walking? And forget about the money of course. So we shut up and continued the match.
Did you notice anything at the board?
There you're focused. The problem for Illescas is that he didn't know what was going on either because Kramnik didn't say anything to anyone on his team.
So he got outside help?
Yes. They were Russians, but not from the chess world.
So his team is innocent.
I think so. They aren't involved; that's why they doubt and deny everything.
Did he get help from the KGB?
The trick is that no professional [player] was implicated and those who told him the moves were fans or from the KGB. If you gave Illescas that job they'd crush me.
Have you spoken with Kramnik?
The Kremlin will never admit they poisoned that Russian spy, which seems obvious, or Kramnik that he cheated.
Did you feel in physical danger?
Yes, and I don't think I'll ever go back there.
Let's move on to the rematch. You yourself think it's unlikely to be played.
The problem is that Kramnik wants to keep the title without defending it over the board. He always wants some privilege. I don't even think he will play in Mexico.
In Kalmykia there was anti-doping control, yes?
They gave us one test, but the laboratory was in Moscow.
What do you think of President Ilyumzhinov?
He's a businessman and he simply needed to have a Russian champion. It's nothing personal. He got the order.
Do you believe that Kramnik continued cheating after the scandal was unleashed?
Personally I think yes, and that the new method was better.
Also in the tiebreak games?
There they had a foolproof system. In the fourth game, when he already had me beat, Kramnik made a move that would only occur to a computer. He also had the right to a rest day, but even though he was sick he didn't take it. If you're going to have moves passed to you, best to play as soon as possible. But they did it better than the shoddy job with the cables.
If that's all true, what is going to happen in the future when computers are even stronger?
If things continue this way, with the technology the Russians have, Kramnik will be invincible in a match.
There's no way to stop it?
Before the tiebreak, when a member of my team checked him..
.. for electronics?
Yes, with a scanner. The guy was visibly shaking. I think he had something on his body and he was worried it would be discovered. I know that's my personal opinion, which is just a guess. The definitive proof for me is the cable.
But in the second game you wiped him off the board, although later you failed to finish him off.
It was precisely because he played like a computer. He kept capturing pieces very quickly, with total calm, when my attack was very dangerous. I couldn't believe it. If you look at the position with a computer it loves black, although it's lost, until it's too late. How could he be so confident?
Before the match did you suspect anything like this?
We had it in mind and we thought, well, in the worst case we'll get the money. The problem was that we found out. If you don't discover it you just play chess. But if you find out it wrecks you. You can't sleep and you spin yourself in circles.
Well, what can you say? It's hardly worth rebutting each item because it's all been done already. It's not even worth poking fun. Sad. I've been ignoring the cable garbage because Danailov has been sending out this stuff since the match, trying to cause more scandal. I bet you could smash your ceiling too and find all sorts of wires. If you can find a way to use them to play chess, let us know. Now, if they'd found an RJ-45 jack behind Kramnik's left ear...
I'll repeat what many may have already forgotten. This guy was one of just about everyone's favorite chessplayers for a decade. Sharp chess, fighting player, solid citizen. Then he conquered the world after Kasparov retired and became a sensation. And now? In the space of a few months - a few days in October really - he's become a circus. Btw, what move in the 4th game would only a computer have played? First I'd heard that one.
Oh it's all a-go-go now, baby. Kirsan's interview preview was likely a reaction to Kramnik's radio interview and now the third shoe has dropped. Just a day later ChessPro publishes a proposal for a Topalov-Kramnik rematch from the Bulgarian's manager, Silvio Danailov. (Glad to know he's taking a break from sending out photos of the wreckage of an Elista bathroom under false names. Because, you know, cables in the ceiling mean, umm, something.) The proposal is for a match in April, or March if FIDE and Kramnik insist on following the rules currently in place that say these special challenge matches can't happen within six months of a world championship (Mexico City on Sept. 12 in this case).
That would mean a rematch just five months after the Elista unification. Topalov is already scheduled to play in Linares/Morelia, which ends March 11. (Both are playing at Corus, which runs till the end of January.) Sofia, Bulgaria, is unsurprisingly given as the host site of the proposed match. Prize fund of 1.5 million, 2/3 to the "champion," meaning Kramnik. A pretty sweet pot, although Kramnik doesn't exactly need the cash these days. Of course FIDE will want to see the numbers on the bills first (some of them unmarked and delivered in a brown bag, at least of Makro and Azmai are still around). That FIDE could pocket 300K might lead them to quickly favor this proposal, although whether or not Kramnik is obligated to play (and so quickly) is the important thing. I.e., if Topalov loses again can he just challenge again, especially if FIDE sets a precedent of ignoring the six-month rule? The rules don't say anything about time between matches one way or another, which is silly. There is a rule about FIDE needing five months to set up a match though. So unless both FIDE and Kramnik are eager for this it ain't gonna happen.
I'm always up for more chess and more matches and I don't see any downsides to this from that perspective. I despair at the thought of the dirty tricks we might see there, but I suppose we have to be optimists. Kramnik rarely shows impatience at the board and is prone to keeping his own counsel on political matters as well. We could go a while before this is clarified no matter how much noise comes from Ilyumzhinov and Stopwatch.
Sez Ilyumzhinov. As posted by kalten in the message boards, Yuri Vasiliev at ChessPro has posted a preview of an interview with FIDE prez Kirsan Ilyumzhinov confirming that world champion Vladimir Kramnik will play in the Mexico 2007 world championship tournament starting on September 12. There were extensive negotiations about this going on behind the scenes, not all of them friendly. There will now likely be a new contract signed, perhaps at a public press conference.
There was really no better way for this all to turn out with the Mexico deal already in place and the new proposal of the next cycle ending with a long match against the winner of Mexico City. Kramnik's newly unified match title will be in play in a tournament, something that upsets the stomach of any traditionalist. But it's also FIDE's title now, and Mexico couldn't be flushed. Plus, apparently Kramnik has things on his mind more important than these negotiations. Year-end wedding bells are reported.
This year's event isn't quite as super without Kramnik, Morozevich, and Grischuk participating. This year's Russian Championship Superfinal is mostly a who's-not-who of young players who finally pushed aside the veterans in this year's championship qualifier. Four-time Russian champ Peter Svidler is in Moscow as the top seed and last year's winner Rublevsky is also playing. But the leader after eight of eleven rounds is Dmitry Jakovenko, who is on +3 despite a loss to the surprise of the event, 16-year-old Ildar Khairullin. He is in the three-way tie for second with Svidler and Alexseev.
There have been more than a few excellent games played so far as well as a few absurd GM draws. That two teens in their first Russian championship would play an 11-mover is tragic. Svidler's pawn poach against Khismatullin gets bonus humor points. That's a seriously well-travelled knight!
There have been plenty of Sicilians but it's not doing well even though overall black has won more games than white! (9 white wins, 12 for black, 27 draws.) Anyone think of a category 15 or higher with more wins for black? Even the famous "black death" Linares 99 that saw Kasparov score five black wins ended with ten wins for white and ten for black. Meanwhile, Linares 2002 had 14 white wins and just one for black. Dortmund 2001 was a 50-50 split. Ah, the Fujitsu-Siemens Giants Rapid event in 2000 had 6 wins for white and 10 for black, but rapid always has more potential for randomness.
I don't know how many other top players have written to FIDE about their new WCh proposal, but no others have forwarded their letters to me if they have. American GM Gata Kamsky, a candidate in the current 2007 cycle, is not pleased with it for various reasons. (He also posted several comments to that thread.)
Second, I absolutely PROTEST the tendency to give the world champion a privilege dating back to the Karpov era, where the champion was waiting for the challenger to go through cycles. The democratic and fair knockouts of the last decade, including the tournament of 8, were fair ways to find a champion, and as such should not be treated lightly in giving back champion privileges from a time before that.
Third, I’m absolutely against any mini-tournaments. Collusion, despite whatever minimal chance, has no place in fair competition. Every winner has to be determined based only on his own result against his opponent, nothing less, hence the match system that has been proven and remains strong.
Fourth, I’m surprised as to why the original system which was proposed before Khanty-Mansyisk changes was not implemented. The original system had 6 or 8 candidates and had the challenger and world champion being seeded into the Candidates. Then the number of candidates was considerably expanded and Last Chance tournament eliminated.
Hence, the solution speaks for itself. I propose either to reduce the number of players in the knockout or go back to an Interzonal swiss system down to 64 players. reduce the number of Candidates from the Knock-Out down to 6. (Rapid games should eliminate the other 2 in the knockout, or however many others in the Interzonal swiss. I mean if rapid games were good enough to declare the unified world champion in the Topalov-Kramnik match then rapid games should be good enough to declare the winner for the candidates spot.)
In the next step, these 6 candidates play matches of 6 games each so that 3 winners remain. (This means that the FIDE will only have to ACTIVELY look for sponsors for ONLY 3 matches , which should be pretty easy to organize ) The current world champion joins the 3 winners and they play matches of 8-10 games each. The final 2 winners are declared to be playing a match for the world championship title in a 12-16 games series.
The main point that I protest is allowing the world champion to have the old privileges that were revoked ever since the 1993 split between FIDE and Kasparov. The current success or for some shame of the re-unification match hype as well as the interests of the world champion should not take precedence over the interests of fair play, fair competition and other professional players.
I prefer matches to tournaments, but also thought moving the champion into the semis was a fair enough piece of democratization. Seirawan's plan for Prague put the champion into the quarters, which was too much. At least if he's in the semis it's guaranteed one of the players in the final will be the champ or will have beaten the champ. The KO's failed to find sponsorship, though as always with that argument it's worth considering how badly FIDE failed to find sponsorship for anything.
FIDE has been changing plans frequently without any explanation at all of the logic behind these decisions. Tournament, match, KO, tournament, match, etc. Half of them were changed without ever seeing the light of day. FIDE are rudderless and have no way of even measuring what was and was not a success. Basically they consider whatever someone offers to pay for a good thing, so if they can't find sponsorship they just flail around and make stuff up. Floating this proposal to get feedback was a step in the right direction. They also need to establish a rigorous internal and public debate on what makes for a good world championship system and why. Goals, objectives, plans, strategy, implementation... Shouldn't be too hard for a chess federation.
Just catching up on tons of little notes from all over before hitting the big stuff. My internet and VOIP phone have been out of whack since I got back. Whinge. Karpov has been touring Brazil signing books and giving simuls and he also made a few comments about the Kramnik-Deep Fritz match. He gave up two draws in a 24-board simul, including one to a 12-year-old Pan-Am champ, Amanda Marques Pereira. "'He was afraid of me!' she said between giggles, "It was a great feeling. My teachers always talk about him a lot. It was like a dream." Karpov also presided over the opening of a scholastic program in Sao Paulo. The article covers the usual boilerplate – the loss of the 75 Fischer match was a tragedy, "I am not a communist," etc. It also says he travels 270 days a year.
I haven't seen any complete record of Karpov's comments in the Brazilian papers, but the quote making the rounds is "These man-machine matches are unfair. The human player should have access to the same database as the computer. But the programmers would never accept that." But he did go on to say that "today we have a number of very strong players aged 13 and 14 because they train with computers." Karpov also beat Brazilian GM Giovanni Vescovi +2 -1 =1 in a match of what I believe were blitz games. [ed in the comments says rapid and posts this link to the games.]
FIDE has published a proposal for a new WCh cycle concept, a two-year cycle finished with a long match. (It's in a PDF at FIDE, the entire thing is below.) The most striking thing about this is the delivery. A proposal? A proposal "made by Mr. Berik Balgabaev, Assistant to the FIDE President"? This is like "Genghis Khan would like to negotiate." Balgabaev's boss, FIDE prez Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, is the alpha and the omega of FIDE. He can simply declare this the new shining path and have the presidential board rubber stamp it next week. (This is also where the possibility of Bessel Kok coming aboard to run a professional chess wing of FIDE based in the Netherlands will live or die. Kok is not terribly optimistik.) Since FIDE is supposed to be run by the federations, I much prefer "proposal" to the usual "decree." A pity it wasn't used when they suddenly changed away from a long-match last time.
The proposal itself is a reasonable one. It's an accelerated "tournament ko" qualifier with 16 groups of eight and then all the winners form two more groups of eight. Then there is a short final candidates match, which I assume is between the two final group winners. The match winner faces the world champion in a match of "12-16 games" the next year. This brings back the long-match finish FIDE added, then banished from the 2007 cycle when San Luis turned out to be a hit. This is of course great news, and not just for reasons of tradition. Long matches have the potential to be far more successful in every aspect if supported appropriately. I was never a fan of the KO's and certainly won't miss them. Moving to a two-year cycle also feels like an appropriate step toward modernization. Overall, a huzzah.
Since I left my cheerleader outfit at home, let's go to the negatives. The main problem, and this is not to say it's worse than the problems of other formats, is how small groups often lead to ultra-conservative play until the do-or-die final round. The strong players pick a likely victim or two and are happy with short draws with the rest. I'd guess +1 would win a few of the groups and most would go to a +2 player. A majority of the decisive games could be the under-2450 outsiders getting smacked around. The proposal document leaves a lot of holes, but it seems there aren't any tiebreak games until the final, meaning the group winners are going to be decided on formula tiebreaks much of the time. That's even more of an unsatisfying lottery than rapid tiebreaks. Players usually hate them, at least when they find out at the last minute that somebody else's result in the final round just cost them a major prize. Plus, half of the games ending in short draws would suck.
The use of tournaments instead of matches and the format of the tournaments would also raise the specter of cheating since there's only one real prize and an extra half-point will be enough in most cases. E.g., someone with -1 meeting one of the leaders on +1 in the final round would have little or nothing to play for. In the second stage this could mean the difference between a few thousand bucks for one and a shot at a few hundred thousand, or more, for the other. This sort of thing is why FIDE went to matches at Fischer's insistence, although back then throwing a key game was less a concern than general collusion among the Soviet players. (Later revelations proved the old saw that even paranoids have enemies.)
We'll have to put in some time to consider solutions to these and other problems you might suggest. Making sure there is more of a margin at the top is one way, although it only reduces those issues instead of solving them. And of course the main reason the groups are so small is to make for a quicker event, so simply saying few groups of more players won't be received favorably by FIDE. That said, having 10 groups of 12 and also taking the top, say, four second-place finishers and having a single 16-player final would cut down on the conservatism, the accidents and the cheating potential. I know speedy smaller groups are popular with organizers but they open up all sorts of issues. Having four whites instead of three is another one. More as I come out of my Goombay Smash-induced haze.
The main circumstances of the current cycle which make it “bulky” are its complicity [a Freudian slip for "complexity" no doubt -ed]. It is a complicated formula (for example, Candidates’ matches) that is difficult to be presented and advertised for potential sponsors. This is also one of the reasons for the top Grandmasters’ unwillingness to participate in the World Cup due to its formula.
1. The following simple scheme is proposed: in odd years (November- December) to organize World Cup with 128 players, the winner of which will play a match of 12-16 games with the World Champion in even years.
Advantages:
- Every year FIDE will be organizing one of the most important events (which is significant for potential sponsors and for FIDE PR activities).
- The FIDE shares from the prize funds of these events shall become more regular in timing.
- A more harmonious calendar (now: The World Cup and World Championship are organized the same year during the period September-December).
- The leadership and FIDE employees can concentrate on the most important event and will not be “distracted” during the preparation and organization.
2. It is proposed to change the formula for the World Cup: Initial stage 128 players are divided into 16 groups with 8 players each on the following principle: group 1 (numbers 1, 32, 33, 64, 65, 96, 97, 128), group 2 – (2, 31, 34, 63, 66, 95, 98, 127) etc. Free days – after 4th and 7th games.
Then 16 winners are divided into 2 groups with 8 players based on their rating: 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, 13, 16 and 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14, 15. Free days – after 4th and 7th games. In the final, there is a match of 4 games and possible tiebreak.
Advantages:
- We shall not have criticisms from the participants and mass media in respect of first round: “knockout is roulette”, “lucky – unlucky”, “did not sleep well”, “one blunder and you are out” etc.
- The number of accidental results will fall – a total of 7 games in the first two stages is enough for the top Grandmasters to prove that they are the best. Among the 16 group winners, there will not be weaker chess players.
- All the games will be played with the same time control.
- The tie break might be necessary only in one case – if there is a tie in the final.
- There will be no necessity to have a large number of additional local arbiters for the tiebreaks during initial stages.
- Weaker participants have opportunities to meet with 7 different players from various continents, get substantial experience, and not leave after the 1st round as under the current format.
- The top Grandmasters will have difficulties in explaining the reason for their non-participation.
- No more confusion with the hotels and air-tickets, there will be a firm plan for the departures of those who are knocked out.
- Organisers will have more chances for the media coverage of the World Cup participants.
- It is easier to negotiate good prices with the hotels, as the number of the nights spent in the hotels will drastically increase.
These reasons will promote the increase of the status of the event with mass media, possible organizers and sponsors and therefore, encourage the participation of all leading Grandmasters.
Well, the sun is finally setting on my Bahamas vacation. We're back at my sister's after a few days on the pinkish sands of beautiful Harbour Island and tomorrow we'll be heading from "79°F - Feels Like 81°F" to "23°F - Feels Like 6°F". Ouch. At least the weekend looks better than that.
Really crushed to hear about the death of my all-time favorite chessplayer, David Bronstein. We'll have much more on him and a permanent tribute as well.
Kramnik is down to his last chance to equalize the match Tuesday after another draw. This was another early endgame, in fact one that was reached in Geller-Spassky back when Geller-Spassky was a big deal, 1965. I have to say I favor Geller's 17.Bxf6 over Kramnik's allowing the knight to live and be an octopus on e4. Fritz had no trouble at all after the strong 19..b5. This isn't the only game of the match to illustrate the downside of Kramnik's strategy of simplification. It's always a half-step away from liquidating into a position where Kramnik wouldn't be able to beat a 1500 human, let alone a 2800 computer. Trying to win without risk often means a lot of not winning. On the other hand, it beats being smashed 5.5-0.5.
So what are we going to get in the fateful sixth game on Tuesday? You'd hope Kramnik woudl go for it a little with nothing at all to lose. Playing something offbeat, a positional gambit the computer might misevaluate, anything. Kramnik was willing to play the harrowing Botvinnik variation against Fritz in the last game of their 2002 match, but it turned out to be a ploy by the Fritz team to avoid traps and reach an easily drawn position.
Andreas in the comments has been visiting the match and posting his fine photos to flickr. Thanks!
I'll try to update now and then, but chess is not exactly tops on my list right now. Here the divine Ms. Tyrious illustrates the attractions of my sister's front yard, more or less. Welcome to the island of Spanish Wells, which is off the beaten track even by Bahamian standards.
Any vacation plans out there? Chess vacations? You can always check out, or add to, our "places to play chess" item.
Today is game four of this six-game match between the world champ and the silicon kid. Deep Fritz leads 2-1, although Kramnik controlled play in the first two games and wasn't in any real danger in the third. The difference, as usual, and in extremis here, is human blunders. Kramnik has black today and in the final sixth game. The live game will be here on the official site, and with commentary at the ICC and Playchess. Start time is 1500 local, 9am EST, 6am PST.
That's also 9am in the Bahamas, where I'll be headed by the time this game starts. I tilt my Kalik in your general direction.