Barden on chess
Leonard Barden
Saturday December 29, 2007
The Guardian
India’s Vishy Anand and Russia’s Vladimir Kramnik have finally signed up for their €1.5m world championship match. The 12-game series will be played in the Art and Exhibition Hall, Bonn, from October 11-30 next year.
Negotiations seem to have gone very much Kramnik’s way. Germany is the homeland of his manager, and the traditional right of the holder, in this case Anand, to keep his title after a drawn series has been abandoned in favour of speed tie-breaks.
Even the prize fund will be split 50-50 whatever the result.
Here is the full article.
Anand got screwed!
why did anand let himself get scrwed?!
I believe the negotiations were fair. I believe the contract is fair. Anand will win.
Remember that Kramnik came up with the money. Anand did not come up with the money. If Anand wants a better deal then he needs to have Indian people finance the match in India.
Same here for Americans. We do not come up with any money to support Kamsky. So we dont win. We must learn that we must support our players.
Susan understands Professional Chess. If Susan were running chess in America it would be so much better.
In my memory Anand has never once come through with a financial proposal for a match. For example if he had found money for a match with Kasparov he probably could have had a match. Matches take money. Lots of money. Without money stop complaining.
Look at Radjabov. He was going to get a shot at Topalov because he was able to get up the money for a title shot. Topalov lost to Kramnik so it never happened. But the point is that if you want to play for high stakes World Championship title then it takes big money. Kramnik has backers willing to put up the money so he gets a good deal on the negotiations.
It has always been this way. Back 100 years ago the challenger big problem was coming up with the money. It has always been the challenger who comes up with the money.
Anand will pick up a million dollars for playing even if he loses. Pretty good pay. He accepted so stop complaining. If Anand liked it then we should go along with his decisioin.
I want to see these two play a match. I want the title decided over the board. I do not want anyone to keep the title in a draw. I want one to win not draw. I am sick of draws. I prefer wins over draws.
How about a negative bonus for draws? A draw = -10% off of the prize money!
There would be less draws and I am sure Ratings would begin to stratify and separate as the really good players no longer collude with the so-so GMs.
Food for thought.