Does anyone find this really weird for a chess tournament??  I understand that it's an easy way to work with 128 people, but at the same time, it's chess, not basketball!

Just my two cents.  Any other opinions on this?

The better player will advance.  That seems reasonable to me.  The only problem I would have with it is that, since I'm a fairly weak player, I'd only get to play one round.  Honestly, I just wouldn't enter that tournament.

I think it's a sensible choice. There are 128 players; how else would you do it? A massive swiss competition? Then one loss or draw would mean goodbye to first place. Now at least people can get back from mistakes and only get knocked out when they're really worse than their opponent (not just incidentally losing one game, but also not winning the other game to compensate for it).

 

And of course it's more fair since everyone gets to play the other guy with white and with black. No excuses like "He was white"

How about not have 128 players?  Atleast give them full time controls...

I don't remember what the time controls are, but I'm pretty sure they are short compared to standard play.

 

I think it is an interesting dymanic, and I have no problem with it as just that... a knockout tournament.

I do have my issues with it when the tournament means more than just the tournament.. say.. a World Championship tournament.

Knockout then does not make much sense... at least a knockout with only 2 games per round. I think the FIDE World Champions that won in knockout tournaments are not esteemed as the same type of World Champions as those who beat other World Champions in matches... or at least in a round robin tournament setting.

@oginschile:

This also isn't a World Championship tournament. Anand is still World Champion, and Anand and Kramnik will play a World Championship match somewhere next year. Then there's this World Cup. The winner of this World Cup will play Topalov in a match, and the winner of that match will get to challenge the World Champion at that time, so either Anand or Kramnik, if he beat Anand.

So it's a four player knockout, where one of the players is a 128 player knockout:

 

Players

- Anand

- Kramnik 

- Topalov

- World Cup winner

 

Semi-finals 

(1) Anand vs. Kramnik

(2) Topalov vs. World Cup winner

 

Finals 

Winner (1) vs. Winner (2)

 

If I'm wrong, please correct me

You are right, this is also my understanding. But in the past FIDE has hung their World Championship title around the neck of a knockout tourney winner, and while those tournaments were interesting and fun, they were hardly worthy of a World Championship title in my opinion.

I'm a bit partial to swiss with a top 8 single elimination.

Yes, I am a recovering magic player.