Let the fight begin
By Malcolm Pein
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 10/11/2007
The 2008 Tal Memorial starts today in Moscow with a superb field that should produce fighting chess worthy of the memory of the ‘Magician from Riga’. The ten player all play all is comprised of players ranked in the world’s top twenty and includes the 14th and recently deposed world champion Vladimir Kramnik.
Kramnik caused a stir, not least in India with recent comments in an interview with Izvestia. Kramnik stated that he felt he had only loaned the world title to Vishy Anand who outscored him at the WCC tournament in Mexico in September and that he was looking forward to the head to head match later in the year.
Anand denied Kramnik’s claim that the match would take place in Germany this September. Undoubtedly he must be hoping sponsorship can be found in India.
The full line up in order of world ranking is
2 Vassily Ivanchuk Ukraine
3 Vladimir Kramnik Russia
5 Peter Leko Hungary
7 Shakhriyaz Mamedyarov Azerbaijan
10 Alexei Shirov Spain
11 Boris Gelfand Israel
14 Gata KamskyUSA
15 Evgeny Alekseev Russia
17 Magnus Carlsen Norway
19 Dmitry Jakovenko Russia
The full article can be read here.
THE HEAD TO HEAD !!
i agree with Kramnik… why should we loose this tradition ???
THE HEAD TO HEAD
i say YES
hmm, am I the only one who realizes that we are still in 2007?
Kramnik shafted Kasparov, thereby turning a friend into an enemy, has a huge fight with Topalov, and now is picking a fight with Anand.
Hmm, wonder why Kramnik is the common denominator in all this nastiness.
can someone tell me the game start time in EST?
“Kramnik shafted Kasparov, thereby turning a friend into an enemy, has a huge fight with Topalov, and now is picking a fight with Anand.
Hmm, wonder why Kramnik is the common denominator in all this nastiness.”
No, he is not. It is the world chess title that causes the tension. The history is too long to cite… Steinitz vs Lasker, Lasker vs Capablanca, Capablanca vs Alekhine, etc… Karpov vs Kasparov – all illustrate the same trend: decent people having decent relationship become enemies once they fight for the chess title.
I would say, Kramnik is one of better personalities out there. And his “huge fight” with Topalov is 100% due to Topalov.
As for his growing discord with Anand, it has deteriorated because of the difference in their principle views: match or tournament. Anand repeats in each interview that FIDE gave “ridiculous” (his exact word) priviledge to Kramnik. The media does not pay that much attention to this statement, which is quite insulting to both FIDE and Kramnik. Recall that Kramnik had put his title at an unfair tournament risk (1 out of 8) merely to support re-established FIDE’s unity. He could continue to keep his 2000-2006 line of behavior and, at least, half of the world would continue to see him the champion.
“No, he is not. It is the world chess title that causes the tension.”
Quite untrue, generally speaking. Most World Champions have had at least civil, and sometimes good, relations with each other.
Steinitz and Lasker had good relations right through.
Capa and Lasker had some disagreements before World War One, but good relations after.
Alekhine and Euwe got on well until Alekhine wrote his anti-Jewish articles in WW2.
Botvinnik had no huge arguements with Smyslov, Tal or Petrosian, nor did Spassky with Petrosian.
Spassky has been one of the very few people to be able to retain a long-lasting friendship with Fischer.
Fischer and Karpov maintained not unfriendly negotiations even after Fischer resigned his Title.
Karpov’s record with Korchnoi and Kasparov is indeed dubious. This may have been considerably due to Karpov sucking up to the Soviet establishment rather than a personal thing.
Alekhine vs Capablanca is of course well known – and was for the same reason as Kramnik-Kasparov: Alekhine shafted Capablanca.
Anand is absolutely right to call Kramnik’s privilege “ridiculous”. It is.
This upcoming match is completely illegitimate.
There was no provision for the winner of Mexico to have to play Kramnik (or anybody else) when Anand signed up for this tournament.
Nor was this provision in the original Kramnik-Topalov match agreement! Kramnik extorted it afterwards in violation of this agreement. “Ridiculous” is a mild term for Kramnik’s completely unjustified privilege.
Kramnik did not put “his” unified title on the line at Mexico. It was FIDE’s, and Kramnik agreed that this Title was to go on the line at Mexico BEFORE he had even won it.
If Kramnik did not like this provision, why did he sign up for the Topalov match? No World Champion who really believed in his Title would have signed up to such ridiculous provisions as this, and the one being totally excluded from the next cycle if he lost. The reason was because Kramnik was desperate for the Topalov match, this being because Kramnik (and the world) knew that “his” Title (the one he won from Kasparov) had by that stage little legitimacy due to his avoidance of Kasparov and his refusal to play in San Luis.
Kramnik should be respected by every chess fan and player in the world.
Has everyone forgoton all he whent through with Topalov accusing kramnik of cheating?? And kramnik still played on evan when Korchnoi said that he himself would not have continued,( and Korchnoi has a reputation of fighting through matches)
And what Kramnik said about Anand was totally correct!, Anand did not beat kramnik once and he becomes world champion without beating the current world champion??, Thats stupid!
Anand is a tournament player, its what he is good at. Kramnik is a match player, and hasent a world championship been decided in a match since the days of the first world championship?
Kramnik was not totally faultless at Elista. If he had a genuine bladder problem at Elista (funny we haven’t heard of him having much such trouble since), he should have advised those in charge, so as to avoid a look of suspicious behaviour. Why didn’t he?
Bryce, can’t you read? I’ll spell it out for you again.
KRAMNIK HIMSELF SIGNED UP TO THE PROVISION THAT THE TITLE WAS TO BE DECIDED IN A TOURNAMENT.
So if “that’s stupid”, then it is Kramnik himself who has been stupid.
So please explain why Kramnik signed up to this. And don’t give us this ‘for the sake of reunification’ bs. If Kramnik had genuinely wanted reunification, he could have had it FOUR YEARS EARLIER in 2002 by agreeing to Seirawan’s “A Fresh Start”. It was only Kramnik’s refusal to sign onto this then that prevented reunification then.
The World Championship was decided by a tournament in 1948. There was no reason why it couldn’t have been decided by matches then.
#1. Kramnik did not brake any rules or the contract in Elista, Topalov however, did.
#2. Kramnik sighned the contract for the tornament in mexico for the world championship to take place for the following reasons: 1. He was in a ‘lose-lose’ situation, if he declined the tornament he would be labeled as a bad sport, scared of losing, and many other things.
2.if he sighned the contract , as he did, there would be a 1 to 8 chance of him keeping it,on top of that it was in a tornament, where kramnik is not at his best.
3. Money was involved. When money is involved people…well you know how it is..
Now Kramnik did not have to sighn up for this tornament, but he did, maybe it was a mistake, maybe it wasnt. There was a 1 to 8 chance of him keeping his title but he still did it. You have to understand why kramnik would be upset, he did not lose to anand once in that tornament. It was not kramniks idea to have a world championship decided in a tornament, yes he did sighn the contract but thats becouse he was put into a situation where he losed either way., Now im not bad mouthing Anad, im a fan of him, aswell as kramnik, Anand worked hard to win that tornamet and im not taking that away from him. but untill he beets kramnik one on one in a match will he be , in my eyes and Mr. Kramniks, a paper world champion.
-Bryce
Topalov’s behaviour in Elista was not commendable, but Kramnik did not help the situation by needlessly behaving suspiciously, even if he did not actually break any contract rules.
You give the impression that Kramnik signed onto the Mexico tournament someway through his reign as united World Champion. In fact, as I already said, Kramnik signed up to the Mexico provision as a condition of getting his match with Topalov.
So what was Kramnik’s ‘lose-lose’ situation then? Kramnik was pushing for the Topalov match, not running away from it scared. So it can only be that Kramnik was insecure about the validity of his ‘title’ then.
FIDE was already moving to a match format for the title anyway when Kramnik extorted the upcoming illegitimate match. In other words Kramnik should have had to QUALIFY for a match with Anand.
And talking of paper champions, Kramnik himself is one from 2002 for refusing to offer Kasparov an acceptable means to qualify to become his challenger – the pathetic Dortmund event being as bad as the FIDE KO’s, and nearly identical to them, was quite unsatisfactory for this purpose.