Let’s focus! Let’s think logically now!
What is your attitude to sudden change of the world championship formula?
These changes directly hit those players who haven’t qualified yet, as they will compete for only four spots instead of eight. And there is a huge difference between these numbers!
Do you think the new system is better of worse than the previous one in principle?
“The system”, as far as I understand, is not proposed yet. A round-robin format has a disadvantage – limiting number of the title contenders to eight is too harsh. I have always thought that the optimal number is sixteen.
Will the championship unification match Topalov-Kramnik, if organized in 2006 under FIDE aegis, benefit chess?
And why not Topalov-Anand? I guess, such a match would surely benefit chess a lot.
Does Kramnik, in your opinion, have moral or juridical rights to challenge Topalov?
Not a bit. It is sufficient to recall the year 1998.
Source: ACP http://chess-players.org/eng/news/viewarticle.html?id=449
what hap 1998? shirov-kaspy?
Shirov destroyed Kramnik in the candidate’s match to earn the right to play Kasparov. Kramnik then screwed Shirov by passing him to play Kasparov. Kramnik has not won a single candidate’s match. He lost to Kamsky, Anand and Shirov.
I’m sure we’ll see tons of arguments in these comments, but before that begins I was wondering if you could clarify something. I thought that the championships were done in a round robin tournament until Bobby Fischer complained that this allowed countries with a large number of participants to agree to short draws amongst themselves to keep him out of winning and thus the candidates matches were made. Now they are back to tournaments for the championship. Either way, I’d love to see more interest in chess in countries where it is not as popular as it could be. Here’s an interesting thought though: is it possible to make a championship system where everyone is happy and only a single man or woman will call themselves the world champion? Maybe we’ll never know.
The whole kramnik thing is pretty understandable. If I were in topolav’s shoes, I probably wouldn’t put my title on the line against kramnik either. All that aside, the comment made by shirov about the number of participants is very valid. I was thinking myself about all the great players i would have loved to see in the field that were not included b/c of the number. (esp radjabov) but greats like ivanchuk, shirov, bacrot, gelfand, grischuk and aronian also got skipped