Hangin's take :
Democracy in sports?
Democracy in the Chess World Championship? I don’t buy it. With
democracy each person is equal, each has one vote. But with sports
that’s not the case. Athlete’s talents differ greatly, both physically
and mentally. The process should not be democratic, it should be just and
fair. It must allow for the best to prove their strength in battle. It
must produce a title match between the two strongest.
I think chess needs to be more like the animal kingdom. Only the
strongest should rule. The Olympics have their rich traditions, but so
does Chess. Both traditions are worthy of being respected and maintained.
Look at the lion kingdom. The king of the pride is the strongest
male. He became the king by fighting off other male lions of a pride. He
maintains his rule by fighting off other stray young lions that try to
claim his pride. Is it a democracy? NO, is it fair, YES.
All male lions can challenge the leader, but they can only take
over the pride if they can beat the leader. Does the leader of the pride
have any advantages other than strength? NO. The Chess World Championship
is over 120 years old, for the most part the title changed hands when the
champion lost a match of significant duration. When the challenger won the
match, he became the champion. That’s fair. It’s a good way for the
title to change hand. Chess like Boxing has a rich tradition of the man
who beat the man who beat the man. Each champion makes contributions to
the chess world, they lay down their inches. These inches form feet and
eventually yard sticks. This yardstick measures each succeeding champion.
In fact the championship yardstick can measure all players. The question
for all players vying for the chess crown is: how do you measure up
against the champions? The early system was not entirely just, because the
champion could decide whom to play. Moreover the challenger had to raise
enough money to have the match. FIDE fixed this process, so that all
talented players could earn the right to challenge for the title. But only
the best could challenge the champion. The champion was the leader of the
pride. The challenger had to prove his superiority over his
contemporaries. The challenger has to prove he is the best of the rest.
FIDE perfected the process of finding worthy challengers for the champion
in 1966. Since the number of talented players was growing, FIDE made use
of zonal tournaments, where top players from each chess zone would earn
the right to player other top players from different zones. They would
face off against each other in an interzonal tournament. The interzonals
were round robin tournaments, where each player played each other. The top
finishes went on to play candidate matches against other top finishers and
players seeded from the last world championship process, namely the losers
of the last candidate final and world championship match. The winner of
the last candidate match, the candidate final, challenged the champion.
This method proved to be very effective in getting the strongest
challenger. Like the lion kingdom, only the strongest challenger can
dethrone the king of the pride. The system FIDE perfected in 1966 thru to
1993 was a fair, just system. The best got to challenge for the title. The
system was fair and just. The champion had to gain his title the same way
each challenger did. As far as the champion having a 50 meter head start
in the 100 meter race. This simply was no longer the case in 1972. The
champion had to run the same race as the challenger, only the champion ran it in a previous cycle. The cycle was a three-year cycle. Even though the
challengers played a lot of chess, they had time to recover and recharge
for the title match. The champion did not know whom he would face until
the very end, but he knew he would face the strongest player. He would
face the best of the rest. Whereas each challenger has 3 years to prepare
for the champion. To determine the justness of the process, see whom the
champions were. The best FIDE system produced Spassky, Fischer, Karpov,
and Kasparov. Each one of these great players was a challenger, who became
a champion. Each, with the exception of Karpov, had to beat his
predecessor. Each had to go through the same tough candidate process. This
makes it fair and just. In the lion kingdom only the leader of the pride
gets to mate and propagate the species. This is the best way for the
species to survive. So it is with chess. In order for chess to survive, it
must strive to produce the best champion. It is the best that will help
propagate this game to the masses. Look
at the effect that Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky had on chess during the
1972 world championship match; they brought big money and many new fans
into the game. Kasparov and Karpov also had great effect on the world of
chess. The FIDE President has created a near democracy in the FIDE KO
championship; where the top 30 seeded players have a shot at winning. I
think this is an unjust system, because it hurts the strongest players.
The title is decided in a lot of cases in the rapid/blitz portions of the
match ups. If you’re a top player you can be eliminated by a single
loss. In this last KO, several top players were eliminated in the
rapid/blitz portion of the match. Even the title match was decided by a
rapid game. This is not chess at its best. This KO system is interesting,
but it has been proven not to produce the strongest champion. Spassky,
Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov have done more for the game of chess, in terms
of bring new fans into the game, than Khalifman, Anand, Ponomariov, and
Kasimdzhanov ever will. In order for chess to survive as a sport, it must
produce the strongest of champions. The system does not have to be
democratic, but it needs to be fair and just.
Fans respect true world champions because we know they are the best
of their kind. Fans don’t want to see democracy in sports, we want the
see the best challenge the best. The
FIDE KO is too democratic; any one in the 30 top seeds can be a champion.
The KO rapid/blitz games have reduced the strength of many of the top
players. Why should ex World Champion Garry Kasparov or current World
Champion Vladimir Kramnik have to start from the beginning? They have
already proven their strength. Why should they play in a process that
sometimes forces them to play below full strength? That’s what is unfair
about the FIDE KO, the top players forced to play below their strength in
blitz and rapid games. That’s
why a democratic FIDE KO is unfair and unjust.
|
Hangin's take:
Adding another 128 players to the KO will not improve the
events. Sometimes more is less. I think that only dilutes the match
ups. Players play a lot of games already. IF we are going to do anything
lets make the quarterfinals, semifinals, and final matches longer. I don’t see the huge and global publicity of the event. This
last event got little publicity. I saw nothing about it in the local daily
papers. I saw nothing in chess life regarding the FIDE KO. I recall that
the local papers used to cover the chess world championships, when the
match was between the best in the world. In fact ESPN showed the Kasparov
vs. Deep Junior game during the KO. Also all forms of media covered Bobby
Fischer’s arrest in Japan. When
you create an event that your major talent doesn’t play in for various
reasons, you will not get the huge publicity.
The world championship used to be an event where fringe chess fans
and news medias sat up and took notice. Even in Britain, Nigel Short
said
most Brits did not even know the event was in progress and only tuned in
for the final between Michael Adams and Rustam Kasimdzhanov. World
Championship events used to bring new fans into the game. I don’t see
that happening any longer. If we are going to work in true "Gen
Una Summus", we need to schedule events in countries where all people
are welcome.
Well on 2nd thought, why don't we
expand the process to
include any player who wants to play. So I can play for the title also. We can
hold
the event in Cuba. You know have a giant knockout.
|