The ACP on FIDE's (Iljumzhinov's) New World Championship Plan
In this recent post I presented the highlights of FIDE's new plans for conducting the world championship cycles. Overall, the plan looks pretty good, except for a few oddities about the first cycle or so, and the Association of Chess Professionals has picked up on this as well. Their response is largely positive, and you can read their constructive suggestions here.
Posted by Dennis Monokroussos on
Wednesday March 7, 2007 at 8:39pm
I'd offer as a suggestion to both FIDE and ACP that they approach the whole issue somewhat differently and offer the public what they wish to accomplish with their technical sollutions.
Meaning,
1. There is a World Chess Champion.
2. He plays a match every ... years to defend his title against the strongest player in the world not being the World Champion.
3. The challenger for the title will be the winner of event ... that is held every ... years.
4. To certifiy that the challenger is the strongest player available, the best ... players are invited to the event mentioned in 3.
Something like that. But I suppose it would be too much to ask for.
It's not really that bad. The basic idea is to have the champion defend his title every two years, with the qualifying event taking place in the intervening year. The complications only involve the first cycle or two, because (a) the Mexico event doesn't really fit the plan, (b) Kramnik is playing in Mexico and is thus losing out on the champion's prerogatives as outlined in the plan, and (c) they want to throw Topalov a bone - it's at least arguably unfair that he goes from (FIDE) world champion to excluded from the current cycle.
The simplest solution, I think, is to exempt Kramnik from the Mexico event, seed Topalov, and have the winner play Kramnik next year. Then no epicycles are required, the champion gets his perks, and the plan is up and running at the first go.
But we'll see.
If I recall, Aronian won the World Chess Cup 2005 (Khanty-Mansiysk). Topalov wins the World Chess Tournament 2005 (San Luis). Then, Topalov gets to play Kramnik. Kramnik wins the World Chess Championship Match.
(Making the Cup irrelevant to the title and the Tournament its qualifying event).
Then there will be Mexico 2007, another Tournament, which is going to be used as qualifying event of a sort, but Kramnik is in messing up that idea. Originally, I suppose FIDE just wanted to name the winner of the Mexico Tournament champion.
Well, it's maybe not all that confusing, but it's a mess! Though I must admit I never cared much for the tournament systems. They tell me to play there and there at a given time and I'll play. :)