21.01.2007 A.KENTLER. CROSSROADS. FIDE’s MARVELLOUS PROPOSALS

«In the first stage 128 players are divided into 16 groups with 8 players in each group according to a following criterion: group1 - №№ 1, 32, 33, 64, 65, 96, 97, 128, group 2 -№№ 2, 31, 34, 63, 66, 95, 98, 127 etc. »

(An extraction from the formula of a World Cup tournament, by results of which a participant of a World Championship match is to be determined) 

A new system of playing for the World Chess Championship, which is to be approved by the FIDE President Council as early as in the end of this month, leaves a somewhat ambivalent impression.

 On the one hand, it seems great that, in the interests of chessplayers, FIDE, firstly, realizes a project meant for the next several years; the World Champion is to be determined in a match, so is a challenger (and no knockout system!), and after having succeeded in two-stage round-robin World Cup tournaments at that. Secondly, the time limit for determination of a champion is set – a biannual cycle, which puts an end to a complete chaos of the last few years, when the knockout title holders (previous to "Prague agreements") used to spring up practically every year, and the "classic" ones – just whenever you like.

But, having examined the project closely, you can see the other, I would even say, dubious side of a proposed system.

The new project is based on some prerequisites: the World Cup during the next few years will assuredly be held in Khanty-Mansiysk (in other words, it is necessary); the candidate matches are, on the other side, of no use to anybody (and therefore should be built into the World Cup events), a World Championship match is the best way to determine a champion. I think that one can disagree with a second item on the list.

It will be fine, if Far North becomes a home not only for Santa Claus and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, but for chessplayers too. But let's not deceive ourselves: for those, who give money for World Cup events (one and a half million dollars "on the table"), it's by and large all the same whoever the tournament will determine, be it a cup holder, a challenger or a champion. The challengers, who have been selected there in 2005, are still waiting for their turn to play.

The conception of 'cup event" in itself presumes a system, according to which the number of competitors reduces with each subsequent round. That's why LOTS of people play in a cup – and that's wonderful! Let us keep the cup system – whether with a simple or with a double knockout, anyway you like it. (The problem of participants' departure can be solved very easily: they could play for ranks even down to 128^th, all you have to do is announce different prizes for each place). And, finally, let it be exactly the holder of the Cup, who, alongside with the loser World Champion, is entitled (after collecting the funds) to challenge the ruling champion out of turn, unlike now, when 21 players boast the rating over 2700, but only Azerbaijan can show the color of prize money with bank guarantees for a match. But why pin the unnatural tasks of determining an opponent for the world champion on this event? Moreover, different skill levels of the players and a long tournament distance (18 rounds + possible tiebreak) give to the young and sturdy an extra advantage over the wise and seasoned. Take a closer look at the quotation above. Should the results of the games played by No.1 in classification against the participants that have got the Cup rating positions from 32 to 128, influence his road to a World Championship match? (And in FIDE rating list their positions would be still lower.) Who needs this, to borrow a show business word, "warming-up"? For me such a way of determining a challenger looks like a profanation bordering on disrespect for the best chessplayers of the world.

Assuming that the persons wishing to stage the World Cup will always be at hand, this assumption can easily be extended to the candidate matches. In all probability, no one will contest the fact that a challenger for the title should be found among no more than 16 best players in the world. This figure can be reduced, but let us accept it as a maximum. Some people will get there by rating, others from the World Cup, still others by results of the World Championship in Mexico in 2007. Nobody wants to host the event?! And did you make this offer, for example, to organizers of Corus Tournament in Wijk aan Zee, in which14 players, most of them superstars, usually play? Or to the people from Morelia – Linares or Sofia? Maybe, to Dortmund or Odessa, that took under its patronage the ACP? Remember the organizers of Tal Memorial's promise to make it traditional?! Certainly, Mikhail Nehemievich would not mind it, if an opponent of his follower will be revealed on the tournament dedicated to him. If any of such tournaments will acquire a status of a Candidate one, a privilege for organizers to invite personally a couple of players with a rating no less than 2700, and some additional support from FIDE on top of everything, success is guaranteed. And if we lose ourselves in dreams once and for all and attempt to gather the greatest events in a pool, as Danailov has tried to do, then the organizers will fight for the honor to get a Candidate status for their tournament. Or perhaps this status can be awarded to several events with summing up the points scored therein. Let me draw your attention to the fact that all the official FIDE competition are conducted exclusively at the expense of private sponsors, so in this case FIDE will lose neither its own rights nor funds.

There is a great choice of systems for a Candidate tournament. One of them is a round-robin with 15 rounds (if there are 16 players). Another system similar to the one suggested by FIDE now, but less cumbersome, can also be applied: 16 players are divided in two groups of 8 participants according to their ratings. In round-robin tournaments (7 rounds) they determine 4 best players in each group who then designate a challenger in another 7 rounds, all the rest playing for the ranks from 9^th to 16^th. I think that the following modification is also not so bad: after two eights tournaments the participants, who had qualified into a final, play only against the opponents from another group (results of the first stage games between finalists are taken into account). Thus the overall number of rounds is 11. After that two players scoring the most points meet in a match of 6 or 8 games, and the winner gets the right to the match against the world champion.

Assuming that a World Championship match will take place in autumn, as it has been in Elista, it seems quite OK to determine a challenger either in the end of a previous year or in the early months on a current one. Anyway, to find time for World Cup will be no problem.

But suppose that my idea is inappropriate: FIDE has already talked to every organizer, groveling at his feet, and everybody refused to deal with those candidate competitions. Well, "in the interim" it is possible to conduct (just once) a match between a current World Cup holder and a runner-up in the World Championship match. Maybe somebody would hanker after this event (presently, for example, everyone would have looked in the direction of Yerevan and Sofia)?

Admittedly, it is not quite clear, why it should be necessary to stage matches of a World Champion against a challenger exactly biannually. It seems to me, that the reason is purely mechanical: the World Cup is biannual, so why switch on the brains?! But if even during the years when the entire chess world had been DAY-DREAMING of watching World Championship matches, they took place once in three years, then now, when the queue to hold those matches is lacking, the queue of champions looks excessive either. To my mind a triennial cycle seems minimal, and even a quadrennial one does not seem so terribly long. But for all that the World Cups could be held biannually without any trouble – selection for the candidate events could have been carried out either during one of them, or by the results of two events in case both of them get within the limits of a single cycle. There is also a free time for any commercial match, be it, for example, against Kasparov coming home from politics, against a computer bastard, or even a charity event for the benefit of a "Save Polar Bears from Global Warm-Up" Foundation.

Surely I am, as always, a little late with my suggestions. Possibly, as it has already happened in case of "double knockout", I should have delivered them into firm hands of one of the world champions – who will listen to my ravings? To receive proposals to FIDE on behalf of its President is a privilege of loyal functionaries of national federations, who try to go into the root of matter but rarely. This geometry of power is the same all over the world, and our country is no exception. And still the life goes on, and not such a bad life at that! No kidding.