There is a lot to justifiably critize from a fan's perspective and, I see that it is being done; however, chess is like boxing. You have to get to the top to make the big money. Any player who can find a strategy to do so within the rules can't be blamed. Blame the rules. Even the loser of the World Championship will make some serious cash and get the chance of a lifetime.

Grischuk strategy is good... safe play and less energy wasted, let just wait how far could he get with that gamestyle. If he beats the record of former champions then it is good but if not, then it is not a best example to play chess especially in tournaments.

I am not sure if idea of tie-breaks played first is the right way to go, even if it sounds interesting. It would always result in one player going for a draw in classical, one player being in must-win situation. And we already saw, that you really want, on that level, you can draw everything. With white is not a problem, with black we will see only Petroffs, Berilns and Slavs. But maybe King's gambit would be a way to go:P

@ Shepaylo.  I think that would be a great idea for tournaments- it wouldn't work for matches for obvious reasons.  The only problem I can think of is that intrinsically- chess is probably a draw, so you are punishing players who play correctly throughout the whole game if their opponents do not make mistakes.  This might mean that tournaments are decided by whose opponents make more mistakes rather than level of play- I'm not sure if the reasoning to my argument is correct- comment please- but apart from that 3-1-0 seems like a good idea, because it encourages fighting chess.

Totally agree with the article.

One solution to encourage offensive, fighting play could be to adopt what some soccer leagues already do: 0 points for a loss, 1 for a draw and 3 for a win, that way players wouldn't settle so much for a boring, quick draw!

What do you guys think?

regards

the wcoc chairman is correct, the players wont go along with Dainalov's ridiculous demands. This is just a knee jerk reaction for political agenda. We all know that Dainalov is not the most reputable manager out there.

   The Fallout from Kazan!!!!

   Here is an article posted on Chessbase that show tension and hostility between FIDE, the ECU, and Kazan.

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Accusations by the ECU and FIDE over Kazan
27.05.2011 – "The current KO system for the Candidates tournament is negative for chess," says the president of the European Chess Union Silvio Danailov, and demands that the World Championship Committee Chairman. Said Chariman, FIDE Deputy President Georgios Makropoulos, sent us his reply, accusing Danailov of electioneering for the 2014 FIDE presidential elections. Hostilities and tension.

Dear All,

I was personally present in Kazan during the Candidates Tournament. These are my conclusions:

The current KO system (short matches) for the Candidates tournament is negative for chess. The reasons are as follows:

1. So far we have 27 draws out of 29 games in classical chess, about 95% (!!). Many of these draws were very short – 12,15,18 etc. moves. Even in rapid games we have draws in 8 (!!!) moves. This is shame and disaster for the image of chess and FIDE. The question is, why didn’t the WCOC introduce the Sofia Rules on time?

2. Some of the players were making short draws on purpose, in order to decide matches in rapid chess or blitz. But the point is that if we have WCC in classical chess, why should we decide the matches in blitz? Knowing very well from the past experience that the KO system leads to and tempts with that, why does the WCOC recommend it?

3. The PR results of Kazan are very poor. With probably small exception of Russia, there doesn’t appear any interest from international Press for this event. This also hurts chess and FIDE.

Conclusion: The WCOC who is responsible for this system failed, and should resign immediately. The FIDE PB should appoint new WCOC on next meeting in Al Ain in order to avoid before mentioned mishaps and to improve the situation in the future.

Best regards,
Silvio Danailov, President of ECU

• Original document in PDF: Opinion and evaluation WCC system

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Friday, May 27, 2011

Official response by FIDE to ECU President

Dear all,

With great surprise we read the announcement of Mr Silvio Danailov on 25 May, accusing the members of the FIDE World Championship Committee as being responsible for the high percentage of ...draws(!) in Kazan. A non-chess reader would really wonder whether the members of the World Championship Committee were the ones playing in the Candidates Matches. Once more Mr Danailov shows no respect to the top players, we hope under his competitive capacity of a player's manager and not that of ECU President.

If it wasn't for Mr Danailov 's dual role as President of ECU and manager of top players, no reply would have been necessary to this incredible announcement, as its content speaks by itself for the poor quality of his arguments. Everybody in professional chess knows very well that if two grandmasters desire during the game to draw it, there is no way to force them not to. FIDE has valuated various ideas in the past (for example the "no draw offer before move 30" or the so called "Sofia rule") but the truth is that applying such regulations to a World Championship Cycle needs further input from the top players and their national federations. Mr. Danailov should understand that chess players cannot be whipped to dance to his tune, especially those fighting for the World Championship title.

FIDE is in the process of conducting discussions for future improvements on the format of the cycle and the announcement of Mr Danailov came immediately after receiving such a questionnaire (in his capacity as Veselin Topalov's manager) from FIDE WCOC member Emil Sutovsky. A couple of weeks ago Mr Danailov also announced his intention to run for FIDE President in 2014. Seeing the opportunity to promote his own political agenda, Mr Danailov abused his position as ECU President and FIDE's desire for feedback from its top players, to attack through his reply whom he views as "political opponents", instead of participating constructively in the on-going dialogue for the future World Championship cycles. Mr Danailov has not understood yet that he has been elected to the position of ECU President, with a monthly salary accompanying it, in order to serve all European chess players and not only his future political ambitions in FIDE.

We therefore ask Mr Danailov to participate in the dialogue initiated by the World Championship Committee in a productive manner as nobody else is sharing his rush to connect everything with the FIDE elections in 2014. We also confirm once more that the interests of all top players are protected by FIDE, of course including those of Veselin Topalov.

Best regards,
Georgios Makropoulos
FIDE Deputy President & WCOC Chairman

The problem is that if a game is a draw (through perpetual check or something) then the players have held ground and have not allowed a win to their opponent.

The philosophical problem is like this ... how can you select a challenger from two completely equally matched players? 

Even if the match had each player winning as white and losing as black there would still be a problem.

I think perhaps there should be more games, the early matches only had 4 games to decide before the tie breaks.

I think that the final shows how Gelfland can win convincingly if Grishnuk plays for a win - Grishnuk spent too much time thinking, and that was his main problem in the match, perhaps Gelfland was too subtle. I also suspect Grishnuk did not want to play the tie break since Gelfland had produced some very confusing and original theoretical novelty's in the standard games.

I like Scotty's suggestion of 'Black wins' as a tie-breaker. There might be something in that.

Another idea I've heard, from a player in my club, is that they should play the fast stuff at the start, rather than at the end. Then, they play the long games. If the long games produce a decisive result, then that result stands. Otherwise, the result from the blitz comes into play and is used as a tie-breaker. This could stop people 'settling for the tie-break'.

Also, I suppose the two ideas above are not mutually exclusive, and could be used together.

WCC matches require preperation. Its a long cycle.

I think they played them a year early i.e. if the playoffs are in 2011 then the championship should be in 2011.

I think Gelfland and Anand might meet in some of 2011-2012's tournaments, what is the point ?

as a casual chess player and a casual chess observer i believe the playoff system should be changed. after watching the candidate matches, and seeing all those draws, most of them seem to make no sense to me, it is boring and not good for the game. maybe FIDE should look at  playoff systems of professional soccer leagues in europe,central and south america, NFL football, major league baseball, national basketball asociation etc etc. they should adopt ideas that will make it more exciting for the fan, and put players where easy draws are not options...maybe eliminate such early draws. just a small opinion.

The good old days of going through the various rigourous levels of qualification should be re-instated. Totally agree with bkj123

The system in place has degenerated into a very short blitz tournament. Most GMs can force a draw out of the opening if that is their objective, so ultimately if nothing changes we will end up with nothing but strong blitz players holding the title without ever having to win a long TC game. Might as well dispense with the board and pieces and just play the championship in the ICC blitz channel.

I think that this whole system is rather unfair.  I think- the tiebreaks, for a start, are horrible- blitz and rapid have their own world championships already, they shouldn't factor into classical play.  This format has the possibility of Grischuk becoming the challenger without winning a classical game- which is absolutely ridiculous.  In addition- the matches are way to short- for example, Topalov played 2 good novelties against Kamsky, and I'd say he was the better prepared player, yet he got elminated because of a bad game.  Its just not fair.  So I think either the matches must become longer- 8 to 10 games, with 14 game final maybe- and 24 game WCH- and that the tiebreaks must be replaced- possibly 2 game classical minimatch if tied, or play to first win.  If you can't lengthen the match- then what is wrong with a tournament?  That will encourage playing for a win, because tournaments don't allow players to just make draws and not have their opponents build leads.  The whole reason why candidates tournaments became matchplay was because they thought the tournaments encouraged collusion and therefore were unfair- but this current system is unfair anyways- and the situation nowadays is much different to Fischer's time.

With "candidates matches" this short, who cares what happens? These matches are the equivalent of a 1-game World Series in MLB...

Remember that the last WCC match did have a rapid/blitz/armegaddon tie breaking format. We were very fortunate the match wasn't decided in this manner.

Elimination should be on the basis of win in long match only . I f draws are there match should be prolonged till one can secure a win inlonger version. No blitz please for candidates match.

anand will crush either of these guys

Well again, they are doing whatever they feel will help them win in the long run. It would be unethical to, say, force them into playing moves they may not have to, and may not want to, play -- this is an inevitable consequence if we are to propose anti-draw rules. They should play whatever they feel like -- they will be rewarded or punished by their ultimate result. Anyway, it's selfish to complain -- we aren't the ones on this delicate road to the world title.

Now, none of us are 2700 players, but we should at least try to understand their point of view; perhaps the moves we consider exciting they may consider dubious. Perhaps dynamic moves are less likely to work against really good players and consequently aren't very prudent for someone trying to win a match?

Nevertheless, I do get the feeling they could put a bit more fight into it; but "morale" (again they may call "exciting play," what the spectators want, unwise and risky) is not something you can or should force into a person; don't force someone to do something that isn't true to them. If two guys don't want to fight a certain day, it's just something you have to accept in competitive chess: the play is purely based on both guys trying hard, or not so hard, to beat the other.

You say it's bad for chess, but that's a pretty broad thing to say don't you think? When you say "chess" are you referring to everything about chess? It doesn't make chess any less enjoyable for me! At the same time, I can't criticize a player for trying to win a match, and sometimes that can mean trying to get away with not fighting your hardest for a game.

Of course, I'd prefer hard-fought games, but perhaps those games are less common because super grandmasters don't get into trouble as much as other players, and thus can often easily at least muster a half point without too much drama.

Take the 16 move draw with Grischuk and Kramnik, for example. It's possible that their draw agreement could almost be interpreted as a recognition of pointlessness for further play, by no means unlike people making peace in some "clearly drawn" endgame. For many, it's pointless to play out, say, king and rook vs king and rook. Well, by Kramnik and Grischuk's standards, maybe there is a similar effect occurring in their game.

On the other hand, games like Gelfand-Grischuk clearly aren't like that! So, this hypothesis is unlikely to be completely correct. I agree positions like that should be played out, but if they don't want to play it out, they shouldn't have to; it's up to them, not us!