Shirov slates proposal Ilyumzhinov
20 March 2007 13:00 PM | Last modified: 14:15
On the website of the Association of Chess Professionals, two letters by Alexei Shirov were published recently, in which he slates Kirsan Ilyumzhinov’s recent proposal concerning the world championship cycle. In the first letter he says that ‘anarchy’ will enter chess when Kramnik is given a match whatever his result in Mexico in September will be. Besides, Ilyumzhinov had also stated that by choosing for proposal A, he followed the wish of the top grandmasters, which is refuted by Shirov in a second letter.
Shirov in his first letter:
“Giving Mr. Kramnik a match in 2008 regardless the results in Mexico would only add the anarchy into our sport and therefore both proposals A and B are totally unacceptable. They also contradict your previous public statements and change the rules during the cycle. Finally there can not be two different democracies - one for a particular player and the other for the rest of the chess world.”
Shirov in his second letter:
“Here are some facts:
The ACP Board made the statement that the organization (although not every ACP Board member, well they simply meant me, as I am against either option) clearly supported the option ‘B’.
After your decision was published at least three Candidates approached ACP saying that they definitely didn’t support ‘A’ option but didn’t mind the ‘B’ option.
One more candidate stated that (like yours truly) he considered both ‘A’ and ‘B’ options to be wrong but if he were still to choose, he would have chosen the option ‘B’.
Then while browsing on the internet I found out an interesting quote from Magnus Carlsen’s family blog:
It’s (too) tempting to comment briefly on FIDE’s recent decision on the structure of the future World Championship cycles. They did ask a number of the top players’ advice, and consequently the choice of alternative A (the World Cup winner plays the reigning World Champion, no more World Championship tournaments after Mexico) comes as a surprise. Magnus did not support this, and I don’t think many of the (other) top players did either. It reintroduces the old privileges of the reigning World Champion, and hence creates grand privileges for V. Kramnik.
Henrik Carlsen
March 5, 2007″
It remains a difficult issue. To what extend does a world champion ‘deserve’ it to rest on his laurels until a new candidate has managed to fight himself up onto the highest chess stage? What privileges should the world champion have?
Shirov haalt weer het onderste uit de kan met z’n scherpe analyse van het geval.
Ik vind niet dat Kramnik het idee mag hebben ted enken dat hij niet zonder slag of stoot van zijn troontje kan worden gestoten.
Competatief zijn is de sleutel.
Ik vind dat het best wel OK is dat de wereldkampioen het privilege heeft van te mogen wachten tot zich een uitdager aandient. Zo krijgt de titel van wereldkampioen immers het aanzien terug dat het had voor 1993. Toen betekende wereldkampioen zijn nog iets.
Geheel eens met Ano niem
Shirov is absolutely right.Kramnnik got a match with Kasparov inspite of the fact that he was beaten by Shirov in the candidates match. Probably Kasparov was expecting that Kramnnik and he would play some matches changing the world champion title mutually. This did not happen once Kramnnik won in 2000.Topalov goofed up first two games in
Elista, instead of being +1.5-0.5, it became 0-2 for Topalov. Kramnnik is a lucky world champion. He has also been beaten by Gelfand, Kamsky and Adams in world championship matches of FIDE. I dont think he can beat Anand in a match even now.
“What privileges should the world champion have?”
IMHO, draw odds for the champion is plenty. Rematch if defeated is too much.