Idea for Candidates Tournament: random wild card

Alright guys... so I think I've just come up with another brilliant idea. For future Candidates Tournaments, it would be great to have a wild card that, instead of being selected by the organizer,* is picked randomly out of a pool of all eligible players. There are two ways I could see this working:

* I do understand that getting rid of the organizers' pick would remove some of the incentive for sponsoring the Candidates Tournament though, so an alternative option could be for the random wild card to replace the World Cup runner-up slot instead.

1. Completely random

Place the names of all players who have achieved a rating of 2725 or higher on at least one official rating list in the previous year (the current criteria for eligibility to be the organizers nominee) in a hat - or use lottery balls or some other analogous mechanism - and pick one name out of the hat at random.

2. Weighted random

Using the lottery machine as an example, each player gets a number of balls in the machine that corresponds to the number of months in which they met the criteria for eligibility - so each person gets anywhere from 1 to 12 balls. In the end, one ball is picked at random from the machine to determine the wild card. 

The weighting system could even be more complicated - e.g. if a player is above 2800, he gets two balls for that month, and if he is between 2725 and 2800 he gets one ball. Anyhow, the idea is that better players have a higher chance of getting the wild card spot, because they have more balls.

So... thoughts on my idea? Love it? Hate it? Comments? Suggestions? Snarky remarks? Immature jokes? Throw it all at me.

The conspiracy theorists would never believe it was random, i.e. that it was rigged.  And with FIDE, they might be right.  

I think that 2725 is too low.  Maybe 2750.  I also think that players who play more games (not just sitting and letting their rating stay constant) should get some extra benefit.  

While it creates some excitement and randomness, what exactly is the point of this idea?  The candidates ideally should be the best players fighting for a shot at the WC.  Without the need for sponsorship there would be no wild card at all

Not a lot. That's why they deserve more balls.

You just answered your question yourself.

As for the problem of rigging, yes, that is a serious concern. There would need to be a way to make sure that once the balls for the lottery are picked out, there isn't anyone touching the balls or rubbing them. They need to be zipped up and locked away until the day of the lottery, to ensure that the balls are perfect.

I'll tell you one thing. Praggy should be in the next candidates tournament.

I think it would be more fun to let them do what they want with the balls. Like in football: http://www.eurosport.com/football/champions-league/2015-2016/sepp-blatter-claims-european-draws-fixed-with-hot-and-cold-balls_sto5647083/story.shtml

That way, we could complain and rant about it being rigged, adding interest to the candidates tournament to compensate for the intrinsec boredom of the current format of the WC match. And it would also attract more attention, remember that the media only talks  about chess when it's not about chess.

The element of randomness takes away from the prestige of the event.  Someone is getting a free spot for no reason.  Having a wild card now is an unfortunate necessity.  Plus, I don't think it would increase viewership of the candidates.  It would be exciting until the draw happened but once it does I don't think it will lead to increased viewership of the tournament itself

Yes, yes... temperature can have a measurable effect on balls. One ball may feel good one day, and the next it may not, because there are a lot of variables with mother nature and with the balls. But hopefully whoever picks the balls just grabs one - they shouldn't be trying to squeeze the balls, because it's not part of the process.

You shouldn't remove the runner-up to the world cup. Getting 2nd out of a huge 128-grandmaster tournament is already an amazing feat. Not to add that it is single elimination, so  you don't get a second chance.

I wouldn't mind removing the runner up from the world cup.  Once the players reach the final, they just relax and it almost seems like nobody cares who actually wins once the final is set.  I think it would make the world cup a better event

Yes, that's it - you don't get a second chance, so there's already a lot of randomness involved. What I don't like is that you have 2 people who qualify via the Grand Prix, a series of 4 tournaments that stretches on for months, where in every game you go up against the top players in the world... and 2 players that qualify via the World Cup, which goes on for a few days. Putting my idea aside for a second, I think it would be more appropriate to have 3 Grand Prix qualifiers, plus the winner of the World Cup. And if there is going to be a random wild card, the second world cup slot seems like the most appropriate for it to replace (assuming the organizer's wild card isn't an option).

If you really want a random result, instead of chess, maybe they could play Feudal or Risk or something.  That would really level the playing field!

Who said anything about wanting a random result?

I was aiming more to score in the "snarky remarks" or "immature jokes" categories.

Ahh... well, it's not really immature... But hey, as Macer75, any sort of snarky comment or joke is something I have to respect.

While I am not really sure about your idea about the random pick, I totally agree with your point about the Grand Prix and World Cup. 

Why 4 specifically?

Personally, I think that they should remove the runner-up to the world championship. The player needs to earn that spot.