The great thing
about chess championship matches, the thing that distinguishes them from
championships in other sports, such as boxing and football, is that we get to see the best
in the world go toe to toe many times. That’s what makes it special. If
you look at the NFL's Super Bowl, there is only one game that decides
the champion. The same goes
for boxing, only 12 rounds of boxing decides who’s the champ. In some
cases with football and boxing, the best team or fighter does not win. In
boxing the bout can be decided by a lucky punch, a cut, or bad judging. With the
Super Bowl there could be a bad bounce of the ball or a bad call from a
ref that decides the outcome.
With
a chess world championship match that’s not the case.
These matches are usually two months long, and at the end, there is no question as to who
the champion is. In a match of 14+ games,
there will be no questions as to who is best. That’s what distinguishes
chess championships from other sport's championships. If the challenger wins a game, the
champion can say, ok fine lets see if you can do it again. At the end of
the match, we can all feel good about the champion.
To bad Fide is not
taking this opportunity to promote the Kramnik vs. Leko match. As of 9/24/2004 I see nothing on their web site that talks about this match
between two of their top 5 players. I think if FIDE had promoted this
match, they would make the reunification a lot easier to sponsor. To bad
FIDE does not recognize Kramnik’s victory over Kasparov in 2000 as a
significant accomplishment I
believe Kramnik's victory over Kasparov was the greatest match
victory since Alekhine’s defeat of Capablanca in
1927. These world championship matches inspire
the young and old to play the royal game. Young people need heroes. Heroes
are made during world championships matches.
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