Yesterday, my friend Gata Kamsky forwarded to me and other top players in the world the following letter which he sent to FIDE. He brought up some very good points. What do you think?
This is what Gata wrote:
Dear Sirs,
I’m absolutely aghast at the new proposal that was published on FIDE’s website. Frankly, I’m surprised at how Candidates were being handled. Of course having 16 candidates is a problem, but we cannnot be blamed for lack of sponsorship or interest when FIDE wasn’t doing much in promoting or organizing the event. Every time I spoke with someone from FIDE, I got the response that FIDE right now is WAITING on bids, or it’s WAITING on elections, or its WAITING on re-unification match.
Second, I absolutely PROTEST the tendency to give the world champion a privilege dating back to Karpov era, where champion was waiting for the challenger to go through cycles. The democratic and fair knockouts of the last decade, including the tournament of the 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 determing based only on his own result against his opponent, nothing less, hence the match system that proven and remains strong.
Fourth, I’m surprised as to why the original system which was proposed before Khanty-Mansiisk changes was not implemented. The original system had 6 or 8 candidates and had the challenger and world champion being seeded into Candidates. Then the number of candidates was considerably grown 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 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 declared 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 having old privileges which 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 interested of the world champion should not be taking precedence over the interests of fair play, fair competition and other professional players.
Response from FIDE
Dear Mr. Kamsky,
Thank you for your interest and comments to the proposal.
Regards,
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov
President
Kirsan responds to feedback the same way my Congressman does.
Thank You for the precise detail.
You proposal is excellent.
It eliminates complications.
Shuggy110
It’s good to see GMs corresponding online with their bosses.
Frankly, I couldn’t care less about this issue. Not quialified to comment either. I am more concerned about homeless and wandering chess players, going from one place to another in search of their identities.
I hope a GM in US makes a decent living, at least enough to pay the rent. Do GMs through their employers have pension and retirement schemes, I always wanted to ask, but never did? They probably invested a lot of money in chess during their careers. Never read anything on this topic anywhere.
He seems confused. First he says that the tournament of 8 was a fair way to find a champion and in the next breath he says he’s against mini-tournaments because of the possibility of collusion.
A lot of assertions in search of an argument. Kamsky needs to think this through more carefully.
The democratic and fair knockouts of the last decade, including the tournament of the 8 were fair ways to find a champion
Democracy is nonsense in this context. There are let’s say three or four Super GMs (I definetley do not consider Kamsky to be one of them) who have a real chance to become world champion under the pre 1993 system. These are the real guys. All the others know they will most probably never make it. They of course try to belittle the title and its holder, they babble about too much privileges, unfairness, lack of democracy, etc.
We don’t need innovations, the way it was done before 1993 and now in 2006 finally again, is the only right one. If you want to become world champion you have to beat the reigning champion in a match. Most GMs will never get a chance, because they are not good enough. Who cares? We don’t want to elect the world champion, therefore we don’t need democracy.
Chess also doesn’t need a new exchangeable and mostly unrespected world champion by grace of FIDE on a regular basis just for the sake of “democracy”. A generally accepted and respected world champion is worth much more, both in terms of chess’ public reputation and the ability to attract sponsors. Kramnik for example attracted some real sponsors, FIDE only has his president to pay the bills.
I love the “old system” as well, but to be honest I really do not know much about this whole thing. But i believe that a world champion should not have to play in a tournament against his challengers. I disagree with the main point of Kamsky’s proposal but agree with some of his other points. We have a unified champion now and its up to people like Gata to work hard enough to get that title away from Kramnik. Kramnik worked hard to get the title…..after all where were all these professional players when Kramnik was playing Topalov ??? of course! sitting back drinking a margarita….having nachos…u know name it. The guy worked hard to get what he’s got and we need to quit finding way to bring the world champion down to a “equal level”. He’s on the platform…..if you want a piece of him walk the steps up to the platform. Its that simple.
The champion is only as good as the system that made him one. The fact that Kramnik lost the qualification match to Shirov is the weak link that breaks his entire world championship claim. No other single world champion in history has become a world champion by losing a match to play for the world title with champion. Kramnik drew Leko and he also drew Topalov (beating the latter in rapid games )
To me that doesn’t make him a world champion enough to revert back to old system with full privileges to the champ.
>>Democracy is nonsense in this context.
>>
Yeah, that too. Does Kamsky mean to vote for World Champions? Wasn’t it King Arthur himself who said “You don’t vote for Kings”?
Or does he mean that we should vote for systems? If he means that, his point falls flat. The systems of the 90’s didn’t come about through democracy, they came out through Kirsan’s executive whim, and largely against the desire of the vast majority of the chess world.
There are let’s say three or four Super GMs (I definetley do not consider Kamsky to be one of them) who have a real chance to become world champion under the pre 1993 system. These are the real guys. All the others know they will most probably never make it. They of course try to belittle the title and its holder, they babble about too much privileges, unfairness, lack of democracy, etc.
>>There are let’s say three or four Super GMs (I definetley do not consider Kamsky to be one of them) who have a real chance to become world champion under the pre 1993 system. These are the real guys. All the others know they will most probably never make it.
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Yeah, that’s true. Kamsky isn’t the best player, and so doesn’t want a system that favors the best player. From his point of view, a system that might produce another accidental champion like Khalifman or Kasimdzhanov is infinitely preferable to one that’s more likely to produce the best player as the winner.
The public wants the best player to win, but the top players don’t necessarily want that. Only the 2 or 3 of them that reasonably think that they might be that top player.
all in all Kramnik and Topalov played for the unified title…..be it right or wrong….this is what happened. comments and thoughts like that is what starts to get everything in an uproar again about who really is the champion. the fact of the matter is Kramnik beat world #1 Kasparov in a match. drew leko beat Topalov (who beat everybody else in South America). he’s the world champion. Instead of whining about it (which is what a lot of professional players are doing) just work hard to get it away from him if they dont think he’s legitimate world champion then PROVE IT! After all, i know i would find it motivation to play for the world championship title if the guy holding it wasnt considered to me to be the strongest player.
exactly……you dont play rapid games or blitz games until you have proven your “equal worth” under normal classical controls in a long match of games. this crap of mini-matches of 2 games with rapid tie-breaks is complete nonsense that often leads to the best player not winning.
its one thing to feel a certain way…..and another to speak this way
Wasn’t it King Arthur himself who said “You don’t vote for Kings”?
Chess World Champions are made by Caissa, the Goddess of Chess, definitely not by FIDE. FIDE’s only job is to find the guy and crown him, nothing else. And how he is found is established practice since Steinitz.
What have we now? A FIDE that suffers from hubris and thinks they themselves make the world champion. A bunch of rather deterrent people that can’t find sponsors for the current cycle. And arrogant commentators who think the rules for becoming the world champion are discretionary and should be changed because they are not “democratic” enough.
On the other hand we finally have a unified Chess World Champion again. Will we now stick to that or mess up again?
Anyway, no democarcy, please!
For those that who think the system in the times of Lasker and Capablanca is still the best, should do well to remember that Champion rarely picked worthy opponents and avoided matches altogether. Lasker held his title for 27 years without playing any challengers that more or less had any winning chances against him. Karl Shlechter came closest. Why do you people think FIDE was formed in the first place? It was so to control the world championship title and allow the system to create a challenger for the Champion. If the system fails, for example when Kramnik lost to Shirov and was invited by Kasparov to play him directly, the world championship match, irrespective of the result was fatally flawed.
>>For those that who think the system in the times of Lasker and Capablanca is still the best, should do well to remember that Champion rarely picked worthy opponents and avoided matches altogether.
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Best or not, it seems unfair for Kamsky to try to blame it on Karpov. Sounds like he’s just trying to trade on Karpov’s unpopularity in some circles to associate him with a system that long pre-dates him.
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Lasker held his title for 27 years without playing any challengers that more or less had any winning chances against him. Karl Shlechter came closest.
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Well, he did play Capablanca, of course. Money was sometimes an issue. Lasker played Marshall for half price because Marshall couldn’t raise the whole purse. Rubinstein, for some reason, was never able to raise any reasonable sums. Tarrasch was dodged for a long time, partly out of personal feelings.
>>If the system fails, for example when Kramnik lost to Shirov and was invited by Kasparov to play him directly, the world championship match, irrespective of the result was fatally flawed.
>>
Shirov got first crack, and failed to raise the money. His shot expired. Exactly the same as Nimzovich, who challenged Capablanca before Alekhine did, but couldn’t raise the money. His rights expired so Alekhine jumped ahead of him. Surely you don’t think that the whole title should still be on hold 8 years later, with the whole world still waiting for Shirov to save up enough.
But this is all beside the point. Champions dodging worthy challengers isn’t the issue, the issue is trying to find the most worthy challenger. Kamsky (who despite his great talent, is, at #19, clearly not the most worthy challenger) has some ideas for how to achieve this, but his ideas sort of step on each other (he’s both for and against mini-tournaments, for example). I don’t think it’s too cynical to suggest that he wants a system that will maximize his own chances rather than a system that will maximize the chances of the strongest challenger.
There are let’s say three or four Super GMs (I definetley [sic] do not consider Kamsky to be one of them) who have a real chance to become world champion under the pre 1993 system. These are the real guys. All the others know they will most probably never make it.
AFAIK, Kamsky is the only player to have won matches against both Anand and Kramnik. I think he would have reasonable chances against either player right now.
“but his ideas sort of step on each other (he’s both for and against mini-tournaments, for example). “
My interpretation of this:
He is for mini-tournaments in the sense that the champion is not directly seeded into the final, but the tournament of eight , so it is more democratic.
He is against mini-tournaments in the sense that there is a possibility of collusion.
I agree with Kamsky. The challenger system is grossly unfair. Both San Luis and the knockouts were immensely fairer.
The challenger system may (or may not) be better at determining who’s really the world’s best player. But hey, if that’s what you really care about, just anoint whoever is at the top of the ratings list.
I agree with Kamsky. The challenger system is grossly unfair. Both San Luis and the knockouts were immensely fairer.
What do you mean by fair? More appealing to mediocrity? More in the sense of “everyone can make it”? Better in removing significance from the title? More politically correct?
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What do you mean by fair? More appealing to mediocrity? More in the sense of “everyone can make it”? Better in removing significance from the title? More politically correct?
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All of the above. How unfair and undemocratic that the deck is stacked in favor of the best player even though everyone is trying their best. We want a system where literally anyone might win.
“One of the many fine things one has to admit is the way that the Army has carried the American democratic ideal to its logical conclusion, in the sense that not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed, and color, but also on the grounds of ability.” — Tom Lehrer
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He is for mini-tournaments in the sense that the champion is not directly seeded into the final, but the tournament of eight , so it is more democratic.
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The Champion was directly seeded into the San Luis final, though he was not directly seeded into the finals of 4 of the 5 FIDE Knockout Lottery tournaments.
Okay, everyone be honest here. You don’t have to give your real name, but how many people here who think it’s unfair to have the champion seeded into the final also think that it’s unfair that Topalov has been eliminated early from Mexico City, and that the championship will be less of a championship without him?
We can’t have it both ways here. Any time you force someone to qualify for something, there’s a chance they might not. If you want to be sure they’re there, you have to seed them.
A champion should be seeded but not in the finals. That’s wrong.
If you feel like writing a caption
go to
http://gettingto2000.blogspot.com
Other than the fact that he absolutely disagrees with almost everything, what is his point exactly? Is there a POINT to this rambling?
Hmmmm…this Gata raises a good question:
“Should the FIDE (world) chess championship be a somewhat open qualifying standard each cycle, much alike other professional sports like professional soccer, baseball, basketball. etc., or should the reigning FIDE (world) champion not need to qualify to defend his or her title (and perhaps even determine whom his or her challenger should be, like in the early 20th century)?”
On one hand, it is easy to see why a champion feels that he or she has reached the crowing achievement in chess, they have reached a pinnacle of excellence that only a handful ever will. On the other hand, this is a professional sport, not some supreme deity-given contest and thus, champions need reminder that the title is currently the FIDE’s property.
Recent results suggests that a middle ground in this individualistic sport is most favorable. In reaching this decision, to the FIDE’s credit, in recent cycles they have experimented with new formats: the knock-out tournaments, the unification match, and the 2007 title match.
>thus, champions need reminder that the title is currently the FIDE’s property. >
It is not. They currently have the right to pick challengers, that’s all. They don’t have the right to, for example, take it and give it to anyone they want, without play.
Yes it is. Without the FIDE you have no title, no championship, no world chess organization. They select the method to determine their champion: The Champion of FIDE. Remember?
> It is not. They currently have the right to pick challengers, that’s all. They don’t have the right to, for example, take it and give it to anyone they want, without play. >
>> thus, champions need reminder that the title is currently the FIDE’s property. >>
I do not agree with everything he states but I am glad he is speaking out! As one of the worlds top GM he has a right to be concerned with how the World Championship is handled since he is one of the contenders.
I like the idea of a champion challenger match. I feel the champion owns the title not fide.
The problem we are trying to solve is how to determine the challenger. I like the idea of giving everyone an opportunity but I am also willing to allow the sponsors to determine the challenger.
It seems to me that the sponsors have a good feel for who deserves to challenge the champion. For example they felt that Shirov with his dismal record against Kasparov was not worth the money. They preferred Kramnik who had a good record against Kasparov. And the sponsors were right.
The sponsors will always pick someone who will make an interesting challenger. Let them do the job. If no one wants to sponsor a challenger then there is probably no one worthy of challenging the champion.
Fide has come close to this with the proposal that players over 2700 who can offer a million dollar prize fund will be considered.
I would love to see Anand play against Kramnik and I dont think Anand should have to go through a qualification to play. He has already shown himself to be worth of a match opportunity.
I say let the fans via the sponsors determine the challenger.
This really saves so much time and money and problems.
If Gata wants to play for the championship all he has to do is play well and if the sponsors feel he has a chance to win then he will become a challenger.
It should seem obvious that if fide picks some lower level player again who the world does not feel he has a chance to win then they have wasted time and money picking this person and they will not be able to get sponsors.
Even as a youngster Radjabov has found sponsors. I would hope and expect that sponsors could be found for Anand. I am sure that Magnus Carlsen will have the money available as soon as Magnus is ready to take a shot at the title. The world will love to see that match. With a present system being talked about what if Magnus does not qualify. The world will be deprived of a match that it is so willing to pay for.
The champion will probably be more than willing to play million dollar matches as Topalov has shown. I say go for it. Let the market determine the match players.
In the mean time fide can be ready with its own process if business looks slow from the sponsorships.
>>Yes it is. Without the FIDE you have no title, no championship, no world chess organization. They select the method to determine their champion: The Champion of FIDE. Remember?
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The Steinitz title began before FIDE, and continued without them. FIDE maintained their own title after the split, which was little regarded outside of Elista. When the World Title and the FIDE title were split, people largely saluted the World Title.
FIDE could take the world title and give it to Tal Shaked if they wanted, but nobody would repect it. Or Kirsan himself. It’s not a piece of property.
Dear Mr. Kamsky,
Thank you for your interest and comments to the proposal. An autographed photo of myself is enclosed.
Regards,
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov
President
Kamsky nags too much. There must be a match between two people to decide the world championship. It is a privilidge to play for the top crown and the challenger must prove himself against the rest before taking on the best.
I think it is of general interest that there is not an inflation of World Champions .
What we saw with the many “World Champions” after Kasparov broke away from FIDE did no good for anyone, and who sees Ponomariov, Kasimdhanov, Kalifman etc. as real World Champions???
Becoming World Champion in Chess should always be an extraordinary feat. And being World Champion should always be acompanied with certain priviledges.
I do not care how a candidate for a match with the reigning champion is found, but the last step of becoming World Champion should always be a match of the final candidate with the Champ.
Nonetheless, like it or not, the FIDE world chess title is currently the chess title recognized world wide as the title of “World chess champion”, AND the it is the property of FIDE, NO ONE else. For you kids to better understand this, look at the Kasparov-Short, PCA split from the FIDE in 1993. The PCA held their own contests for world championship, and thus recognized their champion as the world chess champion.
If you have enough influence you can form your own world chess league, as well, with your own “world chess champion”.
The FIDE’s title of “world chess champion” is the property of the FIDE and NO ONE ELSE. No more, and no less ipso facto (by that very fact itself).
http://www.world-mysteries.com/garrykasparov.htm
> FIDE could take the world title and give it to Tal Shaked if they wanted, but nobody would repect it. Or Kirsan himself. It’s not a piece of property.
Nonetheless, like it or not, the FIDE world chess title is currently the chess title recognized world wide as the title of “World chess champion”,
Since October this year. Before, especially before San Luis 2005, many considered the FIDE champion a casual twerp. Can easily happen again.
AND it is the property of FIDE, NO ONE else
Have they registered “Chess World Champion” as a trademark? Anyway, the title belongs to the current holder. FIDE acts merely as a custodian for the title. Unfortunately, the FIDE of today badly needs a custodian themselves.
>>Have they registered “Chess World Champion” as a trademark?
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Not that I’ve ever heard. Kirsan and Topalov (when he held it) referred to FIDE’s title as “the only legal title”, but as they never made the slightest reference to what legal decision they were basing that on, it sounds like smoke and mirrors.
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Anyway, the title belongs to the current holder. FIDE acts merely as a custodian for the title. Unfortunately, the FIDE of today badly needs a custodian themselves.
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As far as I know, FIDE has no legal claim on the title of world champion, though presumably they would automatically have legal title to any title with their name in it “FIDE World Champion”, for instance.
The World Title though was neither created by FIDE, nor belongs to them. They made it clear when they began administering it, that they were continuing the pre-existing title, not forming a new one. That’s why Botvinnik was considered the 6th World Champion, rather than the 1st.
On the other hand, though FIDE doesn’t own the title, the people who do own it agreed when they first competed for it, that FIDE had the right to name their challengers, and require them to defend at regular intervals. What happens when those two things don’t come together is still problematic.
The problem was avoided during the Fischer crisis. He still claims to hold the title, but the fact that he resigned it in writing in 1974 prevents that claim from being taken seriously.
Kasparov did the same thing in 1993, but didn’t resign the title, and did play FIDE’s duly picked challenger. The result was that the chess world overwhelmeingly sided with the champion and refused to recognize FIDE’s champions.
But the chess world has not been absolutely consistent on this. They did recognize FIDE’s stripping of the Women’s title from Susan Polgar. Not sure if that’s due to less interest in that title, or to the fact that FIDE created the women’s title from Day 1 (and even the tournaments won by Vera Menchik were FIDE-run).
Only from 1993-1998 were there genuinely two competing World Champions as we’ve always understood the term. The World Championship title instituted by Steinitz is a King-of-the-Hill style, match based title. The “World Championship” title administered by FIDE from 1998-2006 was a tournament based title, which is a completely different beast. One of the main differences between the two is that a match title, except in exceptional circumstances, only changes hands with the defeat of the title-holder. Tournament titles, on the other hand, routinely change hands even in the defending champion’s absence. tournament titles, by their very nature have a built-in expiration date.
There’s only one World Champion now, but is his title a tournament title or a match one? The current plan calls for it to be a tournament title, to be defended next in Mexico City. If that’s followed through, then the World Championship title begun by Steinitz in 1886 will have effectively ceased to exist. There will be a new title with the same name, but will actually be a completely different title, dating back only to 1998.
But the issue may be murky for some time. Though FIDE’s title is a tournament title, tournament titles are occasionally defended in matches (Reshevsky-Horowitz, Denker-Steiner, Evans-Steiner, for instance, in the case of the US Tournament Title). FIDE currently has rules in place to allow match challenges for their tournament title, making it kind of a hybrid. If Kramnik loses in Mexico City, challenges the winner under the 2700 Rule, and wins the match, will the Steinitz title still exist? Who knows? We might actually have been better off the last few years, when we had a World Match Champion and a World Tournament Champion, and kept the two separate.
The world champion Vladimir Kramnik agreed to play in Mexico-2007:
http://www.chesspro.ru/
I have no issue with pictures on each post but come on. Can’t we at least get pictures of people like Kamsky on their own without Susan?
What happened to the “I’m promoting chess, not myself”?
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I have no issue with pictures on each post but come on. Can’t we at least get pictures of people like Kamsky on their own without Susan?
What happened to the “I’m promoting chess, not myself”?
>>
Pretty unimportant thing to quibble about. This is her personal blog, you should expect her to figure prominently, since Blogs are usually told in the First Person.
This time Gata is full of it. Sorry.