Hangin's take on
Adams Interview from the FIDE Knockout in Libya

 7/23/2004

  Here is Michael Adams interview taken in Libya, on wcclibya2004.com.

 Excerpts:

Question : A number of players were unhappy with Kasparov being given some special rights ?

Adams:

 He has been number one in the chess world for twenty years and it is not possible to ignore this fact. Some people may not be happy but he has earned his position. The format of the competition reflects what players will do. If the players believe in the format and that it is the best for them, then there is an advantage.

I think that Inter-zonals were the worst possible tournament. Pairings were random and also you could end up with one extra black or white. Towards the end players aimed to draw against you and this made it very difficult to qualify.

Hangin's take: 

    Well the inter-zonals that Michael played in were not run properly. They were played back in 1993. Michael played in the 1993 Groningen   PCA Qualifier Tournament where he finished tied for first with Anand with scores of 7.5 out of 11. It was an  eleven round swiss tournament with 54 players.  Adams also played in the FIDE 1993 interzonal tournament in Biel, which was 13 round swiss tournament with 73 players .  Adams finished tied for 2nd thru 9th place with a score of 8.5 out of 13. There was also a dozen or so IMs playing in this tournament. Sometimes more is less. I think we need to be more exclusive at the Interzonal level.

 The swiss system is not good for determining who the best player in the world is. It should not be part of a true world championship process. It's good for a US Championship, because it allows  a lot of players to play. The winner is not always the best player. A lot of the outcome is determined by the luck of the draw (who you play)  and the number of whites or blacks. It's ok for a US Championship, because we want inclusion and we are not searching for the best player in the world. Maybe the thing to do is to have a few Interzonal round robin tournaments.  Past world championship cycles have had as many as three interzonal round robin tournaments. With round robins, each player plays each other. It's good because you know how the players stack up against their contemporaries. We could expand the number of candidates from 8 to 16, and introduce another level of head to head candidate matches.  Swiss systems add to much luck into the standings to be worthy of world championship selection.  If you use a swiss system, then you must take a bigger group of qualifiers. Instead of selecting 8 candidates, maybe you take 12-16 top finishers.