I understand that players from the same country may or may not "work together" to have easy draws, and thus potentially skew a tournament result. That would be the same for all tournaments throughout the year, I guess. Do we see evidence of this?

And what if all the top players were from another country, Bulgaria or Hungary for example, do we feel the same way about this?

Next year as I said previuosly, the Olympics will be held. In athletics, the 100m mens final is a major event. It will be of no surprise to me to see Jamaica, and the USA dominate this event. If these respective countries invest in programs that produce the fastest athlete's, then why would those same countries be potentially be penalised by having some rule that limits the number of athletes from any country to just 1 for example. Are we not looking for the best of the best, even if they are from the same country?

In the past, in chess, this has been Russia, and good on them. There has been no rules past that stops other countries from deveolping strong chess players, they just don't do it. In my country, swimming is a major sport, and so next year we will see Australia win medals in swimming - but we have earned it. Long distance runners come from Africa - so be it, England will do well in Cycling - they have put resources to this sport, China will do well in athletics and on it goes.

Do we feel that in Chess, you play for yourself (in most countries) maybe like Tennis. Sure you are proud of your home country, but you play as an individual. Only in the Chess Olymiad do we play for our country. Perhaps the world champion is an individual in the first place, who may or may not be from a country that has produced winners in the tournament before.

Maybe a double round robin tournament of the best 8~12 players would be a better option to produce the champion. But what if they were all from the one country? Is this better or worse that the top 2 players from the same country playing for the tittle in some match play event.

@ rorschach1985

Actually, this rule was first implemented in 1958, when Fischer was just 15 years old and probably didn't have any influence on FIDE. Only three players from one country could advance into the Candidates' from Portoroz Interzonal (though Smyslov and Keres were already personally invited to the tournament), and at the start of the Interzonal, the rule was even stricter - only two players from one country could advance. Tal, Bronstein, Petrosian and Averbakh had to write a joint protest to FIDE to increase this number to three.

@ wujek_dziadek -  Yes this was done because Bobby Fischer believed that the Soviet players would agree to short draws with each other to save their energies to win against non-Soviets players like himself.

Finally FIDE made a good call. Only thing they might have done better is have 10 or 12 players instead of 8.

Maybe the next cycle will be more exciting!

After Fischer, the prize money amounts increased sharply. Perhaps it has something to do with that.

Candidates tournaments were turned into matches in 1969, I think. Wasn't it because people claimed that Russians are doing "teamwork"?

Q: What on earth was wrong with the Interzonal tournament/Candidates matches model?  It produced absolutely amazing and exciting chess.

A: Apparently no one can come up with the cash for this superior system

What on earth was wrong with the Interzonal tournament/Candidates matches model?  It produced absolutely amazing and exciting chess.

The Boxing comparison is not the way to go. It is all about money and little about determining the best in the World.

The Soccer world championship is flawed and is a poor example. Using "pools" of randomly selected teams can lead to skewed outcomes based on the pool composition. Soccer also has an extremely poor solution to a draw (penalty shoot out), and this can be compared to shortening the time controls in Chess. Not the way to go.

The World does use the Olympic Games as the highest award for achievement in competition, and perhaps we could learn from this. In not one event does past success afford any privileges to an individual or a team. The 100m final is as an example. The best 8 line up in this event in the final. I'll health, or any other reason why someone does not compete (ego, politics etc) is replaced by the next best person. At the end of the day, the best 8 available competitors line up. There in no preference to the former champion, or even who has the fastest time coming into the event etc. And there is absolutely no concept of running the same race over and over again AKA match play. It is run and won. And the WORLD is satisfied with this. We will see this again next year to refresh your minds.

I would like to see a World Championship Chess Tournament (details to be determined by FIDE etc). The best available players in the World would compete, and the winner is crowned World Champion in front of all his/hers peers. To dominate in such a tournament is by far better than to have a one-on-one situtaion that gone on in the past.

I will support any reasonable system for determining a challenger, so long as the new world champion is decided by a long match between the current world champion and one challenger (yes, that means privileges, which are a good thing).

@SummerStorm--

" It's highly unlikely more than half a dozen players in the world could even claim they're good enough to win a title match."

I agree.
Yet the GM title is supposed to be indicative of somebody who one could imagine challenging for the title.

All year long players try to become the best by winning tournaments and then they're thrust into matches. Though the old system Fischer qualified from was too long, there is some merit in both tournament qualifiers and matches at the end.

So, I suggest FIDE is coming close to correct by using qualifying tournaments leading to match(es).

But, a long process is highly undesirable for many reasons. They play all year and their ratings reflect a lot of their capabilities. Thus, beginning with several qualifying tournaments may be unnecessary. One good-sized double-round-robin tournament (as is being suggested) of highest-rated players makes good sense. Follow with either one long match between the two highest finishers or perhaps knock-out matches with the top four finishers.

Where I would differ with the existing system most is that like Wimbledon in tennis I prefer there be no reigning champion waiting to take on a tired challenger. It's better that they all compete for the title, even the reigning champion. No advantages for anyone except perhaps the playing site.

I see little reason to extend the size of the group of players eligible to this process to more than a dozen. It's highly unlikely more than half a dozen players in the world could even claim they're good enough to win a title match.

Sounds to me like Carlsen is already making demands...in a subtle way.  If FIDE gives in to his wishes then one may look at it as being given privileges.  And he is not even World Champion yet.

@Traxler, very astute.  I was wondering if anyone would suggest Boxing as an analog.  However, the two differ in one very important respect: Chess's World Championship is decided on a regular basis, every two years, based on the winners of various tournaments, matches, etc.  The ability to challenge the Boxing World Champion essentially comes down to being able to put up enough money.

 rorschach1985 hit most of the relevant points on which I agree.

Looking at Chess History...the AVRO 1938 tournament was supposed to be used to determine a challenger to Alekhine. Keres and Fine tied for 1st. Botvinnik was 3rd.

After the war, Keres had to lose to Botvinnik or esle suffer from the Stalin regime.
Fine refused to play because of the unfair Soviet advantage,and left chess.

Both Fine and Keres were better players than Botvinnik, so in that sense, the AVRO tournament was successful...but still a series of matches seems the most pecise way to eliminate luck and determine who the best player is.

Take the best 10 players (no special rights for the worldchampion) on the ratinglist on a certain moment and let them play a double round-robin tournament. The winner is the worldchampion! Keep it simple!

Chess has become less popular over the years because of all the long and complicated ways to lead to a world-champion. Candidatematches, yes or no taking place, with or without money, players not agreeing where to play, taking very long time, etc. etc..

I think the tournament could be held once every 2 years. The Fide could decide where, maybe choose from bids ?! I think there will be enough willing organisers and enough money.

Points: 1-1/2-0. Time: 120/40, 60/20, 5 sec/move.

Another sort of compromise: the world champion should stay in the world rating top 5 or top 3 all the time to get to play the match with Candidates' winner. Otherwise, he should participate in the Candidates' double round robin with other top players, and the World Championship match is then played between the first and second placed players of the Candidates' (with their two games in the Candidates' taken into account).

Btw, just to repeat my original suggestion, since rorschach1985 was nice enough to second it:

The idea is a compromise between the old zonal/interzonal/candidates matches that many of us now remember with a certain degree of nostalgia.  However, in modern times it might be a bit strange to rely entirely on regional zonal tournaments for seeding into the interzonals.  Therefore:

Interzonal: round robin of the world's top twenty or so, plus several wild cards qualifying from various regional championships and the (losing) finalist from the previous candidates match.

Candidates: the top seven plus the previous WC challenger play matches akin to those from 1966 to 1993.  If a match is tied, whomever had more wins in the Interzonal advances.  If the number of wins is the same (or one or more of the players did not qualify via the most recent interzonal), I have an unorthodox suggestion for the second tiebreaker:

Long ago FIDE used to award prizes for the "best game" of each year.  Sort of like brilliancy prizes at tournaments and such.  Well, perhaps such awards could be extended a bit (say, top fifty games of each year), officially recorded by FIDE, and used as a second tiebreak?  And if neither player has any "best games", perhaps they can both submit a game they consider worthy and a vote can be made (either a public one or among some mutually agreed upon judges) as to which game is better.  In this small way, a player that plays exciting, beautiful chess may be rewarded, but not so much as to seriously skew chess from objective results to subjective interpretation.

There is a lot of talk of preserving "tradition" in chess as opposed to logic/objectivity.  

"Tradition" allowed a champion to duck the next best player for decades if they wanted to, so the rules have been constantly changing.  The game itself has also evolved over the centuries.  

Bottom line is that people seem to be striving for "fairness" in competition, which makes "tradition" of giving a world champ certain privileges a moot point, unless you can prove that all the non-world-champ contenders agree to this unabashedly.

The "World Championship" should decide who is the best player under EQUAL f---ing conditions, not "we are about equal but I need to be significantly better than you to call myself a champion because you get the advantage of time and rest based on your past performance that does not necessarily reflect the present 2-3 years later".  Besides, you must give the new contenders a chance to have a "past performance" to establish their greatness if it is real.    

You could make it like boxing or MMA where FIDE simply decides who the next legitimate contender is and scrap a Candidates tournament altogether in favor of championship matches, but if you are going to have a tournament, EVERYONE INCLUDING THE CHAMP, needs to participate if you want to call it a "World Championship" tournament.  

I thought chess players were supposed to be logical?