Fred Wilson is back, you can catch his monthly show at www.chesscafe.com. In this first show Fred had GM Andy Soltis as his guest. It's always an excellent show when these two get together. They talked about Andy’s new book, “Bobby Fischer rediscovered". Fred recommends this book and based on this show, I will buy it. There was an interesting analysis of Bobby Fischer’s play. Soltis also made an interesting point about the Fischer vs. Spassky match in 1992, he feels it helped cause Kasparov and Short to split from FIDE in 1993. Soltis states that the Fischer vs. Spassky match fetched 5 million dollars. Spassky the loser got more money than Kasparov got for winning his match with Nigel Short. Soltis states that Kasparov thought he was getting a big pay day for the 1993 world championship match, however the huge pay day could not be had. |
Hangin's take :That's a great point, I could definitely see how Kasparov would be angry that Fischer and Spassky could get a 5 million dollar pay day. Kasparov and Short did not do too badly in terms of money for their 1993 match. It had to sting Kasparov that Bobby Fischer, who had not played in 20 years, was still the biggest draw in chess. |
Fred and Andy got on to talking about the best system for a world championship. Andy seems to favor the Knockout format, because the games are more decisive. He says that Ruslan Ponomariov had to win a lot of games to win his title. Ruslan had to face 6 opponents. He states that Vassily Smyslov only won 12 games to become a champion. He won 6 games in the 1956 candidate tournament and then won 6 games to defeat World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik in 1957 world championship match. Tigran Petrosian only won 13 games to become a champion. He won 7 games in the 1962 candidate Tournament and he won 6 games to defeat World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik in the 1963 world championship match. |
Hangin's take:My feeling is that FIDE did not perfect the world championship process until 1964.I also believe that it's not the number of games won that’s so important, it's who you beat that counts most.Look at Spassky road to his title during the 1966 cycle.1) In 1966 Spassky won 13 games in the Amsterdam interzonal, where he tied for first with Larsen, Smyslov.2) In the quarterfinal candidate match, Spassky won three games and defeated Paul Keres by a score of 6-4.3) In the semifinal candidate match Spassky won 4 games to defeat Geller by a score of 5.5-2.5.4) In the final candidate match – Spassky won 4 games to defeat former champion Mikhail Tal by a score of 7-4.5) In the world championship match - Spassky won three games in his loss to Tigran Petrosian the 9th World Champion by a score of 11.5 – 12.5. Since Spassky lost the world championship match in 1966, he was
automatically seeded into the 1969 world championship process.
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Fred Wilson made an interesting point that the challengers in the old system had to play a lot of chess and could get exhausted. This gave the champion an advantage. |
Hangin's take:Well, I do think the champion has some disadvantages as well; all the top players will be studying his games. Who does the champion prepare for? He has to wait to find out who will challenge him. He can take a good guess, but may need to prepare for multiple opponents. Also many champions have lost their titles in their first defense, namely Smyslov, Tal, Capablanca, Euwe, and Spassky. If you look at the true champions from 1966 onward, you can see the best player breaks thru. Karpov defended his title three times. He lost his title because Kasparov was better. Kasparov held his title for 15 years, but he had some close calls. In the 1995 match, Anand took the lead mid way thru, but self-destructed. In 1987, Karpov was within one game and one draw of taking the title back. However Karpov lost the 24th game of the match allowing Kasparov to keep his title. Also in 1984, Karpov was one game away from retaining his title against Kasparov. I don’t feel that being a world champion is an advantage in itself. The champ does get draw odds, but he has to play better chess than the challenger. In the old system the better player has broken thru. The old process was three years long, so challengers had time to rest and recharge before playing the champion. |
Andy Soltis also had an interesting comment, that during the 1970 USSR vs. the world match, all 20 players were asked the following question: Do you like the current world champ system? Only 3 players said they like it. |
Hangin's take:
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Soltis had another interesting point about how the world championship will be decided in the future, he feels that there will be another great player who will, like Capablanca, have a meeting with top players and tell them what is needed to challenge for the title.
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Hangin's take :Andy is talking about the 1922 London Protocol. It was after the 22 London Tournament, Capablanca invited all the top finishers out to dinner and told them what was needed to challenge him. The main point was money, the challenger had to raise 5000 dollars. I think this is very likely to occur if reunification does not happen. I don't think it's the best method, but it's better than the FIDE knockout process. It preserves the man who beat the man tradition. Kramnik says he has a 2 million dollar match against Kasparov any time he wants. If FIDE does not support a good system, then that's what will occur. I think there is also danger, hopefully the champion will challenge someone in the top 5 or 10. Fide was created to organize world championship events that allowed the top players to challenge for the title. FIDE perfected a system in the mid 1960's that allowed the top players to earn the right to challenge for the title through their strength of play against other top players. |