Kramnik v Aronian match - who cares?

We get it.

The only thing that matters to you is the World Championship.  (Whatever that happens to be worth these days.)

And that's fine.

But for the rest of us there's just great chess.  

According to your logic, every game Morphy played, or any other non-WC is meaningless and should be forgotten.

This is excellent publicity for the World Championship match and also

the next cycle.   Especially if marketed right and played right.

 No.no.no. Any MATCH that doesn't have a bearing on the world championship should not be promoted as if it has some major significance other than for the ratings of the two players involved. Thats all I'm saying. I love watching the games at the big tournaments like Wijk, Dortmund, Linares etc and getting a win at one of those on your chess CV (resume for North Americans) IS a big deal, but matches are a different matter.

Morphy WAS World Champion, its just they hadn't invented the title back then!

 I disagree. The World Championship is usually the only chess match that gets any kind of coverage outside of the specialist chess media -Fischer Spassky II notwithstanding. The problem is that Kramnik-Aronian is being marketed as something 'special' because of the ratings and current form of the protagonists. Unfortunately the WC has a champion who hasn't won a Major tournament for 4 years against a challenger who won't be in the top 20 in the rating list when the match is played. Kramnik and Aronian and their managers have seen this as an opportunity to somehow confuse the wider public into believing their match is more of a true championship than the real thing.

GM matches are always worth watching as an improvement exercise, especially if you can watch them live with a strong GM or other player commentating, if they're any good they can point out all the ideas in the moves which will help your own understanding.

imo

Definitely looking forward to this very high level match.

It's a shame they play all those football games all year long. They should just have the coaches and reporters visit training camps, pick the two best teams and go right to the superbowl. 

Ok, I guess I'm the only one who sees this as a shameless money making exercise, if there are 6 hard fought theoretically interesting games played then I will be the first to admit I was wrong..see you in April.

 Except we have had the 'regular season' - the candidates matches. If Kramnik or Aronian had taken care of business there we wouldn't be hearing any talk of this 'training' match.