How long before fide realizes we need candidates matches?

Well, that's sport. There's no such thing as a guarantee.

First the 50% is based on when carlsen recieved the same exact score as someone else in the tournament I call the tournament a draw.  Not a loss or a win.

My point is a chess match has long been held as a legitimate way to tell who is better.  Ratings are an alternate way.  But the problem with ratings is they really never lead to any big chess events to popularize chess.  Its just more of the same one tournament after another.  

Matches IMO are an equally valid way to tell who stronger between 2 players.  At the end of the Kramnik Anand match if someone asked me who was playing better chess I wouldn't go look at their ratings.  Anand just proved it over the board.  

And note: I am likely one of Kramnik's best fans.  It was hard medicine for me to take but I took it.  

Well chess is often described as a game where luck has the least to do with the outcome.  As long as people are complacent with a world chess championship that everyone knows is really a farce then chess will never reach its potential.

Everyone knows =/= you think.

Yes, and these "drawn" tournaments are counted among the 50% he didn't win.

One problem with matches is that they usually are short and decided in rapid/blitz tiebreak. Most matches in Kazan were decided in rapid and blitz. Even the latest title match was decided in rapid and didn't really say something conclusive about Anand being better than Gelfand, and even less about who the best player in the world was.

Another problem is that you never get everyone playing everyone, so the luck of the draw is always involved. Maybe Caruana can beat everyone in a match except Svidler, and is drawn against Svidler. Maybe Svidler can only beat Caruana and is drawn against someone else. There is no way of getting some exact outcome, but worst of all is knockouts where blitz blunders decide who wins in most of the cases. The round robin system has given excellent results in Candidates and World Championships considering the long line of worthy winners from Botvinnik to Carlsen.

Look at your own quote where you say I counted them "among the lost tournaments."  Thats not true.  When he finished with an identical score I counted it as a draw not a loss.  If I counted them as losses then he would have less than 50%.

My point is a chess match has long been held as a legitimate way to tell who is better.  Ratings are an alternate way.  But the problem with ratings is they really never lead to any big chess events to popularize chess.  Its just more of the same one tournament after another.  

Matches IMO are an equally valid way to tell who stronger between 2 players.  At the end of the Kramnik Anand match if someone asked me who was playing better chess I wouldn't go look at their ratings.  Anand just proved it over the board.  

And note: I am likely one of Kramnik's best fans.  It was hard medicine for me to take but I took it.  

So how do you decide who plays the matches?

Do they go on forever so they are not decided in rapid games?

What if one player struggles with another's style and gets drawn against him? That doesn't prove who is better if the other has better scores against other players?

Your match format came up with Gelfand as a challenger (no disrespect to Gelfand). The current format came up with Carlsen.

Whats so objectionable about taking the top 8 rated players and letting them play a series of 3 matches 12 games each?  Yeah you can have some other way to decide the 8th spot, whatever.    

Each round would be great for sponsors.  The first round would have all 8 players.  So even though its not the semi or finals for the qualifier it would have the most games and players coming.  The second round would have 4 players.  And the final round to determine the challenger would be the final so it would get allot of attention.  I think sponsors would be interested in all 3 events.    

That's true, Biel is a "loss" even if he had the highest plus score there, but at the same time it's harsh not to count won events like the Grand Slam final as wins when they were won in a quick play tiebreak of the same sort as matches have.

1. Unaffordable. It's far too expensive.

2. People will protect ratings to stay there.

3. What if they finish a draw? Carry on? Or the rapid tiebreaks you don't like.

4. How long would it take?

5. Leaving spots available for qualifying tournaments generates interest and funding throughout the year. Being able to win strong tournaments is in some ways better than a high rating which may be through carefully selecting tournaments.

The players aren't really interested in playing lots of long matches nowadays, Kramnik isn't the only one to have said that his preferred format is a Candidates tournament of the sort that is used now:

"I personally have always preferred the tournament format"

http://en.chessbase.com/home/TabId/211/PostId/4007262

1) Top 8 rated players.  But really we could tweak it.

2)If they are drawn after 12 games, they could play a few more games at classical time control.  Or it could go to rapids/blindfold or a coin toss.  Whatever.  12 games isn't as long as I would like but I am trying to match the time to a current tournament.  

3)Well you just refer to the rating system.  Let me point out that the current rating system used is not the only fair one.  For example they could have used a rating system where draws do not effect either players rating and only wins and losses effect ratings.  I think we might see different people at the top of the rating list then.

4) That wasn't my match qualifier.  And if Gelfand won through my match qualifier - by winning 3 12 game matches against the other top 8 players in the world would you begrudge him a shot at the title? 

I agree. What happened to #4 at the time, Radjabov? See?

Looking at today's system one should compare to the systems that preceded it to see how much better it is now. A double round robin Candidates of the sort Smyslov won a couple of times in his days, and like the World Championship Anand won in 2007.

Before this system there was the minimatch knockout in Kazan, the Candidates in 2002 with Lutz but without Kasparov and Anand, the Candidates in 1998 with two (!) participants and the loser ending up getting the title match. To me this system is much better than anything we have had in a long time.

1.  How much would it cost?  Do you think many top players would refuse to play for this championship because some arbitrary number was not hit?  If so they would be passed up and the next player on the list could be taken.  The thing is a chance to win the world chess championship is too much of a payday and fameday for any of them to pass up.  Especially if it had the credibility this system would have.  

2.  Good point that would need to be addressed.  They have several ways to address this.  They might include a mix of standard and some recent ratings in the 8 chosen.  They also might also include one or 2 based on some other series of recent events.   I don't think many players would avoid playing though as they would become rusty and they would find their ratings just going down every candidates match they play in and lose.  

I would point out some inconsistency in your first and second point.  First you say there would be no money for these matches but second you say players would only want to play in these matches.  I think we have to choose one or the other if the matches don't pay well then players won't want to forgoe all the potential paydays of tournaments in order to be seeded into these matches.

3) Yep I would prefer them to carry on before resorting to other circus acts such as blitz rapid blindfold or a coin toss.  I recognize 12 games is not ideal (I would love more games) but it may be the limit of sponsorship.

4) It would take about as long as a 12 game tournament.   The matches themselves would be over a 18-24 month period.  World champ match every 30 - 36 months.

5) Another tournament is another tournament is another tournament.  They tend to decide nothing.  In every sport there is an event which the fans understand decide something.  In most sports its a game.  After one's team loses a soccer game fans typically will not immediately say we are still better at soccer.  In chess that event is not a game (and it certainly isn't a tournament) it is a match.   Like I said after Kramnik lost he was still my favorite player but I recognized Anand proved he was the better at that time.  I wouldn't say Kramnik is better chess player after that match.    

We really haven't had anything worth much in a long time.  Go back to the candidates matches.  Then you had something.  

Edit1: good point about Biel.  They had the odd scoring system so he lost that one even though by the traditional system he would have won.  I don't care go ahead and give him that.  He is still very close to a coin toss as far as his chances of getting a title shot despite his unusually impressive play.  Thats not really good odds imo.  

Edit2: Yeah I am aware Kramnik and maybe many other chess players are happy with a single tournament.  I don't know.  Its really not something that fide has been willing to do since Kirsan so they haven't really weighed in.  Of course the Kirsan KO tournament was popular amoung the top 120 players since it gave them all some chance to get the title.  But that didn't mean it was good for chess.

Let me ask you and other posters:  Aren't you a bit tired of one meaningless tournament after another?  Would you love to see substantial matches between the top players?

Here they are:

Lets just assume Carlsen wins then the first round of  matches would be:

Kramnik Gelfand

Aronian Topalov

Grischuck Anand

Nakamura Caruana

All playing 12 game matches against eachother for a shot at Carlsen.  If Carlsen loses and therefore plays these matches it might even be a better mix.  

I really don't see how any sort of chess fan would not love such an event.  

If we simply look at the math based on his rating we see that Carlsen was most likely not going to win this tournament.

http://chessbase.com/post/candidates--who-is-going-to-win-270313

So yes a tournament is pretty much a crap shoot.   

Huh ? He was the highest on the rating list.

If you mean it was more likely that someone else win it, rather than Carlsen, it's true, but irrelevant. One of the "XXX wins" event had to happen even if all of them had probabilities under 50%.

I think the format has to changed. The Champion Anand has to play in candidate matches. That way there will be the true Champion.

Let say Anand had participated in candidate matches this year. It could have been Kramnik vs Carlsen in the final.

And Kramnik vs Carlsen would have been much more exciting than Anand vs Carlsen. And the winner should have been Kramnik.