Many chess professionals and fans severely bashed FIDE recently. Let’s break down the situation and let’s see what could or should be done to change things:
1. What is wrong with FIDE?
a. Is it the structure of the organization?
b. Is it the management?
c. Is it the staff?
d. Is it the image?
e. Is it everything?
2. What could and should be done to fix the problems?
3. Are there real and practical solutions?
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Hi, Susan.
I think there’s nothing to do with the actual structure. FIDE must change and must return an association focused on chess and not only on the show.
We saw an important lack of this authority during the Kramnik-Topalov fight. 12 matches (12!), a blitz conclusion with 4 games in 4 hours, various misunderstandings: I don’t think that Ilyumzhinov and his crew made a great gift to our world.
Ciao
I don’t think there is anything wrong with FIDE.
I find a lot of problems with grandmasters. This is my take from the WCC. Most of these guys have never lived in the real world and have no clue of how things work outside the chessboard.
Isn’t Kasparov responsible for creating the schism in the first place?
I do not know enough about Kirsan to make any personal recommendations. I will say this much.
Many of his recommendations are made in the interest of fans and sponsors.
For instance.
– Reducing time controls
– Unifying the title and so on.
Maybe Kirsan should be changed due to personal reasons but Bissel Kok is not the right person for the job.
If Kirsan gets replaced then I want to see someone who sees the interest of fans and sponsors and not players.
But I think we are entering a new era where the playing field is level due to computers. Chess is now truly becoming the worlds game.
Problem:
Credibility and image — cronysm, totalitarian/dictatorship image.
Solution:
Democratic, consensus decision processes. Allow opposing groups’ voice and involvement in decision processes.
Even if I agree that Kirsan is the closest thing to a dictator in chess, people forget that in a sport with so little money as chess he is the ONLY one (Rentero was the other one but his contributions are dwarfed by the first) who has injected tens of millions (dare I say more than a hundred million?) of dollars of his OWN pocket into chess (and certainly much more of his government pocket, just look at the 50 million chess complex he just built). How YOU would feel if after giving so much to chess (remember, of your OWN money) chess players and fans insulted you?. Wouldn’t you be really offended and abandon those ungrateful Sob’s immediately?. Well, he has sticked to chess for decades instead. Do you think he is making money this way? He is losing it by the truckload (just notice how every big sponsor ends up running away from chess and MANY actually go broke! –Braingames, 3DX technologies, etc–). Many people think that without Kirsan chess would be a money paradise full of sponsors, chances are that without him chess would be a pauper (how about tens of thousands of dollars for a World championship match?). GM’s in particular are a nasty bunch of primadonas who first love you and a second later hate you and spit on you. As a group, the elite super GM’s are the worst of all. They are backstabbers, fickle, crybabies, hate each other with a passion, etc. VERY few of them are faithful to the people who help them (just look how easily they change their support, Kasparov himself first loved Kirsan, then hated him, then loved him, etc.). Even apparently lovable GM’s like Korchnoi are incredibly nasty sometimes (even to their fans!). Susan and Tal are 2 of the few really nice GM’s that I can think of right now (Nigel Short is one of the nastiest by the way). The problem here is that intellectuals for all their intelligence are notoriously bad human beings (in almost all areas); less intelligent people tend to get along and do things together much more easily than intellectuals (in general). I much rather have a nice, honest friend than a clever dishonest one (and I consider myself an intellectual!). I have seen this kind of schism over and over again in many intellectual fields (and artistic ones too). Kirsan was elected (at least in this last election) democratically, why didn’t all these GM’s speak during the election and joined forces with the opposition?. Because they were just waiting to see were the winds would go, this is why. Cowardice never goes unpunished. Every sport has the government it deserves.
I had the odd thought that FIDE should focus on creating an endowment to fund the World Championship cycle and matches. Any other sponsors that could be gathered would be the icing on the cake. Joop from the Neatherlands woulg be a great guy to start with. Now that the Title is unified, FIDE must be very careful to improve it’s image. This is a nice start. JK Sci-Tech Chess
Susan,
Something you asked a while ago that I did not have a chance to respond to is this.
“What is the best format for organizing world championship cycles?”
I don’t think this is too complicated from a fan perspective. Look at the NBA, NHL and Football.
There is a regular season and a playoff.
I think chess should have something similar.
A swiss tournament organized under a 4 hour time control to pick the best six players.
These six players should play a playoff match in the classical time control. I like 7-7-7 format i.e. 7 classical, 7 rapid and 7 blitz.
The winner will play the world champion.
I like the idea of rapid and blitz to break ties. But I think there should be more rapid and blitz to eliminate luck as much as possible.
Note:
The advantages of such a system is that you only watch long games of the best players. Looking back it is great to see games of Fischer against Petrosian, Taimanov and Larsen. The swiss is important because with that you get fighting chess.You try to score with White and Black. In matches players are too cautious.
Like I said none of this is too complicated.
Chess must return to its roots and tradition. Now that the title is united, FIDE has a chance to do this. Tournaments such as that in Mexico, once or twice per year, organized by FIDE, can play the role of seeding for title pretendents. Match between the current champion and the pretendent every 2 years. Current champion allowed to participate in pretendent tournaments. If he wins the tournament, stays a champion without a match, if he doesn’t win, then, sorry, have to go through a match to retain the title. I think this is fair to everybody.
About Kirsan, I agree with most of the things the Guardian article says about him. Dictator, yes. Corrupt, maybe. However, the true fact is, that he has done for chess more than everybody else (but less than you, Susan, with your wonderful blog). There is no real alternative for him as FIDE president. In my view, he proved this in the recent crisis with the match when he averted a catastrophy. I think he can stay until the point when he does more harm than good. This point is still in the future.
please, dear reader, ask yourself following little questions:
1)Why is Bill Gates insulted by millions of Windows user’s world wide? (and Gates was not abducted by alians …)
2)Abhramovitch is a russian billionaire who likes to spend his peanuts for “owning” (didn’t even the US overcome owning people since Abe Lincoln and a horrible war?) a footbal (excuse me – soccer) club in great britain (England).
3)FIDE – and professional chess – depends on the peanuts of an other russian billionaire…
(hum… russians everywhere – might be a conspiracy… hehe)
my conclusions are: an institution, given into the hands – better say MONEY – of ONE man will
1)per se be corrupt,
2)will per se be dubious,
3)will not be acknowledged as a worldwide representation of interests, but as an private enterprise…
by the way – what do you think will happen to FIDE if Kirsan decides tomorrow to pack and fly with the aliens?
a professional chess player under the regime of FIDE nowadays can be characterized as employee of ONE man – and if he / she does not like to be a bondservant, he / she needs to live their professional life as solo entertainer (as our beloved hostess, for example…)
thx god my genes, my education and my environment did not allow me to become a chess professional… (however, i still fancy this Bill-Gates-thing, but this is an other story…^^ lol)
@vvchess – the “classical” time controls were
50/2.5h
20/1h
20/1h
adjourned game – with
20m/1h
after reopening …
^^
If this match showed anything it showed that FIDE for whatever reason is too corrupt and incompetent to control the WC title.
I will be really ticked off if Kramnik puts this title up in a stupid tournament. (mexico 2007) I think he would be crazy to do anything other than say “I have had enough of FIDE.”
Now is the time to see if he can’t work through the acp and get a decent candidates *match* cycle that culminates in a WC *match* going. FIDE has no binding agreements with anyone since they have already breached what they originally set forth.
Kramnik had private sponsorship for his match with Topalov. (more than what they ultimately agreed to) FIDE was not *required* to be involved. Now Kramnik has Topalovs title so there shouldn’t be an issue with moeny. Finally we will get private sponsorship. Now is the time to do this or there will never be another chance to save the title from FIDE’s tournaments championship.
I’m glad the title is unified but I see no reason to continue to associate with Kirsan and company. In fact, I think it would be a terrible mistake to continue down that path!
Vohaul, you made my point exactly. In Bill Gate’s case it is about money (he is a billionaire because of Windows). In Kirsan case is definetely not about money. You can ask ANY Grandmaster if he thinks Kirsan is making money out of chess, he has lost tens of millions on it. If you think there is money to be made out of chess why do you think sponsors run from this sport?. The few that do HOPE to either make a little money or to get publicity (this is the usual case). Probably the only sponsor to make money (hundreds of millions of it in publicity) was IBM. By the way, as awful as Dainalov is, he did (not by plan but indirectly by his thug like behaviour) provide chess with at least a hundred million dollars worth of publicity with all these scandals! (just some food for thought).
IMPORTANT: CHESSDEBASE IS COPYING EVERYTHING SUSAN DOES ON THIS BLOG. FIRST THE COPIED THE CAPTION IDEA NOW THEY COPIED THE URTUBE IDEA. SUSAN WATCH OUT, NOT ONLY CHESSDEBASE DOES NOT MENTION ANYTHING ABOUT YOUR SITE BUT THEY ARE WATHING IT LIKE HAWKS TO STEAL EVERYTHING YOU DO!!!
I predicted a few weeks ago that Chessdebase was going to copy more of Susan’s blog (they even copied the “thank you to X for sending the link or the info, etc.). That Friedel guy is really a cutroat.
Chess should follow how other successful sports are organized.
Answer: E — “everything.”
Solution: Bring prestige and respect back to chess by utilizing Unified Chess Crown to have World Championship match every two years and tournaments to choose challenger based on best ratings in previous year and minimum games played. We need to have a system everybody is aware of so sponsors know what to do in future. Right now there is just chaos. This all started with Kasparov, so he is to a large degree culpable.
Look at the people who voted for Kirsan. Why did they vote for him? Because they think he’ll help them more? Kirsan sees potential for chess in those parts of the world. Is there potential for chess in this part of the world? Yes there is, but Kirsan is now giving them a chance too. Someone who wants to win election to a world-body needs to appeal to the world.
1..THEY ACT WITHOUT GRACE and ORGANISE WITHOUT DIGNITY
2..ACT WITH GRACE and ORGANISE WITH DIGNITY
3.ACT WITH GRACE AND DIGNITY
4..PUT PEOPLE IN OFFICE THAT WILL ACT WITH GRACE AND DIGNITY IN THE NAME OF WORLD WIDE CHESS
Susan – I’m not sure that you’re even asking the correct question. It’s a matter of expectations. FIDE is a federation of national organizations, which by definition means it must attempt to address the diverse needs of its diverse constituents. Therefore by its very nature, it’s leadership will be highly political. Kirsan has spent (not invested) a lot of his own money, to gain support to get elected, and to sponsor chess events. In this regard, FIDE is performing as would be expected.
If the question, however, is “What is wrong with professional chess?”, than the answer involves more than FIDE. The problem is that the world’s top chess players, let’s say the top 150, have not effectively banded together with organizers to create an enduring, well funded, professional circuit, on a worldwide basis. And since the ultimate beneficiaries of such a structure would be the players themselves, most of the blame falls on them. After all, the companies typically mentioned as desirable chess sponsors, have already achieved significant financial success without chess. The GMA seemed to be heading in the right direction, but it fell apart due to internal bickering.
Susan, great topic!
Hope you will comment on the posts, then throw the question open again.
What is wrong with FIDE is its structure, management, the people at the top running it, and its image as a result of what these people do.
What could and should be done to fix the problems?
(1) The dictator Ilyumzhinov and all his cronies and hangers on such as Macro, Azmai, Omuku, Campomanes etc, etc. must be totally and permanently got rid of.
(2) It is absolutely imperative that the idiotic one country one vote system is got rid of. This is the only way to rule out serious vote buying and idiotic decisions. It is ridiculous for countries like Chad or Samoa to have the same voting power as Russia or other major chess countries.
I would suggest the voting system be based roughly on the chess strength of a country. Thus something like:
(a) Each country gets at least one vote.
(b) Countries have additional votes based on the number of players they have that have a rating of, say, over 2200; with the proviso that no one country can have more than, say, 15% of the total vote.
(c) Possibly the top, say, 20 players could also have votes.
So, e.g. you might have:
Russia 1000 votes, Ukraine 400, USA 350, …Spain 200,…Peru 120,…Kramnik 100,…Gelfand 50,…Australia 25,…Chad 1, Samoa 1.
(3) The power of the President to be much reduced; and important policy to be formulated by a proper, open and accountable process, and important decisions to be made by votes of members, not unilaterily.
(4) Having a serious, sane World Championship System. [I have not yet had time to post my thoughts on this under that thread; I hope to do so in a few hours.]
(5) I could suggest considerable, yet practical improvements to the format of Olympiads, so as to produce meaningful placings, rather than the rather random ones we are getting at present, but this would be too involved here.
(6) We need a serious, resourced, indepth look at the rating system to determine the best possible. Also to have a reliable historical series would be nice. [I think Jeff Sonas’ Chessmetrics is flaky.]
Are there real and practical solutions?
This is a real toughie as the Kok election loss has proved.
The only answer that I can see is for the major Chess Federations (and any others who will join them) and top players to band together and demand the above changes, threatening to walk out of FIDE en masse and start a new organisation if the demands are not met. (And doing so if the demands are not met.) Ilyumzhinov’s FIDE would not be able to survive without their dues and participation.
Whether the major Federations, many of whom unfortunately seem to be rent with the same problems, could get their act together on this is the big question.
Perhaps it would help if a major worldwide blog on these very questions could be set up to discuss and VOTE on these issues. Then it would be clear to the Federations and FIDE what the average chessplayer thinks and this could pressurise them to do something about it.