I have given this a lot of thought,
Prague was signed May 6 2002. All we had to do was play two matches, then
a world championship match. All these matches were between 4 of the top
players in the world, we had the current World Champion Vladimir Kramnik,
the ex World Champion and number one rated player Garry Kasparov and two of
chess' promising young stars, Peter Leko and Ruslan Ponomariov. We
should have had a world championship by now. I believe that
FIDE is not interested in reunifying the title at this time. They are
basically running the next cycle. Unfortunately they are doing it without
their best players, the current World Champion Vladimir Kramnik and
current ex Champion and number one rated player Garry Kasparov.
This
is just another FIDE Knockout tournament. I don't see
reunification happening under FIDE control. I can't imagine Kramnik and
Kasparov waiting 2.5 - 3 years to play a World Championship match. You
can't do that to your top talent. I also can't see why chess fans
need to wait that long to see two great players go toe to toe for the
title. Unless
something major breaks, the Prague Chess Unity Plan is dead. It
looks like the World Championship will return to the pre Fide days where
the World Champion owns the title and those who can raise the money can
challenge him, well we have been there since 2000. It's not the best
method, but it's better and it works.
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