Has the World Championship lost its meaning?

The principal difference is that matches favor players who don't lose, tournaments favor players who rack up wins. Drawish players who are hard to beat (but who don't press for wins) are much stronger in match play than in tournament play. For example, I think it's safe to say Tigran Petrosian, a very strong match player, would never have become World Champion had the championship been decided in a tournament format.

This is directly related to the way in a match no competitor can gain any points that are outside of his opponent's control... whereas in a tournament -- the vast majority of the points any individual competitor gains are outside the control of any other individual competitor.  

 I think thats true, of course that leaves open the question which is a better method for deciding the WC.

Isn't it obvious that the more games two people play with eachother, the more likely the stronger one will come out on top? This is an a nearly undisputable fact. Sure, it's true that certain strong players have lopsided results against each other, but long matches are still the best way to determine who is the better player. Tournaments leave too much to chance. In knockout tournaments, I would guess that it is very unlikely that the best player will come out on top, because of the chance that he'll lose to an opponent weaker than him. This chance is there every round he plays. In match play, the chance that the weaker will beat the stronger is gets smaller the longer the match is. I think one thing that almost all chess players can agree on is that chance deserves no part in chess.

Match play allows individuals to focus their preparations to some degree.  In tournament play, one must be ready for anything.

Indeed, I agree completely but why stop at chance? The tournament format allows for results worse than chance -- that involve outright collusion. 

LOL, if Gelfand is the legitimate challenger to the title of "The World Champion" then there's somethign deeply wrong with this world...

 Its been a mess for awhile. And just think if he actually wins....

Many provocative threads? Most of my threads consist of stats jotted down for my own interest before I forget about it, either listing results of players or discussing tournaments. Once in a while I also post something discussing World Championship cycles or player rankings, but for provocative threads you should look for stuff like "Why do Americans like Bobby Fischer?", "Why do you consider Bobby Fischer overrated?", "Did you know that Fischer had no chess talent?" etc.

Many have already said that in this thread, but I don't know how people can be so sure about it. Petrosian won the tournament candidates in 1962 ahead of all the other top players. Absent was only 50+ year old Botvinnik, and many saw the Candidates as close to a World Championship since the winner was expected to beat the aging Botvinnik. I don't understand how it can have become such a "truth" that had Curacao been a World Championship tournament instead of Candidates tournament, Petrosian would suddenly have been out of the running.

Also today I think many (maybe not the top players themselves) see it as if only matches measure who the best player in the world is, but the problem is that when you don't have the top two playing each other the match proves little.

Shirov won against Kramnik in the Candidates match, so he was better than Kramnik? Then Kramnik was given the title match and won, but did it make him better than Shirov? Or better than Anand? Gelfand won "matches" against Mamedyarov, Kamsky and Grischuk. Would he, if he beats Anand, have proved to be better than Aronian, Carlsen, Kramnik etc?

Petrosian is often called a typical match player because he usually finished 2nd-3rd in his tournaments as World Champion after winning Curacao 1962 and Moscow 1964. But Petrosian also won the Soviet (tournament) Championship four times, while he had a small minus in his two matches against Spassky, and lost three of his four matches against Korchnoi. Maybe beating Botvinnik in 1963 was less of an achievement that winning the strong tournaments he won in 1962 and 1964, where he didn't just face a 52-year-old Botvinnik but Keres, Geller, Korchnoi, Fischer, Tal etc.

The current problem we have is that the #1 rated player refused to play in the Candidates...thus all possible deserving Candidates did not participate. This being said...the Candidates was won by #26? who plays the WCC #4 in May.

On the face of it, both Carlsen(#1) and Aronian(#2) would have been a better choice to face Anand(#4) for the WCC...I think most people believe this. But that's just the problem, Tournament play does not guarantee the best player going forward. The recent TATA Tournament really showed-up Gelfand who had a very poor performance...while both Aronian and Carlsen was clearly a class above him.

We need a system whose output provides the best player on the planet.

@Jesterville or at least the person who is playing the best at that time. I have no problem with a shooting star who for a year is playing above everyone else before falling back to earth. But Gelfand wasn't even that. He was a guy for whom the stars aligned and he got the luck he needed to win. That's great for him, and he's definitely a great player, but he is not in the same class as other WC challengers of the past.

A  24-game round robin of the top 3 rated (under a few conditions)

and the current World Champion would be a worthy and difficult format.

I know I don't know much about World Championship chess, but isn't the object to win?  I don't understand what is wrong a system that favors players who win.   Also player A and B play the exact same opponents, the exact same number of times, and A wins all his games and B draws his, doesn't that indicate that player A is better?

you are correct, the best player has to win first.  What is wrong with that?  I don't think any system could 100% guarantee that the best player would win.   There is always the possiblity of an upset.  Take a look at this year's Superbowl.  I don't not think the Giants were the best team from the NFC this year.  I think the Packers were.   But do I blame the way the NFL decides the NFC champion? no. I blame the Packers for letting an inferior team beat them in the playoffs.   Same thing here.    Is the fact that Gelfand is playing for the World Championship the fault of the way FIDE runs the thing or is it the fault of the players who are supposed to be superior to him and yet were defeated by him?  As for Carlsen, it is ashame he dropped out.  As for Aronian, as far as I know, he lost to Grischuk fair and square.   

Warbler the difference is that the tradition of American Football is that a single game decides the outcome of the playoffs, and the short season the fans expect the odd bounce of the ball or the blown call by a ref to decide some games. 

That is part of the tradition of the game.

Other sports are not that way. Basketball, for example, has a brutally long season with many, many games, and playoff series where the best teams do generally advance. Or at least have a significantly higher chance of advancing. 

The tradition of chess (absent the last two decades post-Kasparov's hissy fit) has been about going to extremes to ensure the best players are advancing through the world championship cycle. 

The question is if a knockout really can show that players that are "supposed to be superior" aren't. I.e. was Khalifman better than Kramnik in 1999-2000 since he won the knockout and is Gelfand better than Aronian today since he won the knockout?

I think Aronian won all his Grand Prix tournaments (where Gelfand was below top ten), scored +5 in Wijk (Gelfand -2), shared first in Tal Memorial (Gelfand 8-9th) because he is the much better player. This is hard to prove in a minimatch event where much is decided in rapid/blitz and you only face one opponent in four games.

I don't think it's only the player's fault for not winning and proving they are the best while FIDE can't be blamed. The format is decided by FIDE and the only thing you can do as player is to participate and thereby "support" the rules, or refuse and be heavily criticised for being a coward, like Carlsen.