London withdraws bid for 2012 World Championship

[Mick Norris]

http://www.chess.co.uk/twic/chessnews/p ... onship-bid

[Roger de Coverly]

In case anyone hasn't seen it, there's a longish thread about this on chessvibes

http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/londo ... mpionship/

It includes some additional background from Malcolm Pein.

[Jonathan Bryant]

Obviously there are so many potential sponsors around FIDE think they can afford to ignore Malc's cash. Shame (to say the least).


I wonder what,

“We’re planning a third edition of the tournament. Besides, we’re still interested in doing a World Championship. Perhaps in rapid, or blitz, who knows. Maybe eventually we’ll do a match anyway.”

(my emphasis)

means exactly. World Champion v World Number One (not currently in the FIDE cycle) anybody?

[Richard Bates]

World Champion v World Number One (not currently in the FIDE cycle) anybody?

Yeah, but Anand vs Anand wouldn't be much of a spectacle.

[Jonathan Rogers]

World Champion v World Number One (not currently in the FIDE cycle) anybody?

Yeah, but Anand vs Anand wouldn't be much of a spectacle.

So you say but have you actually seen a game where one player makes a move then goes to other side and makes a reply, then goes back again? **** hilarious in time trouble, and the spectators can always bet on which colour wins each game.

[James Pratt]

why not Short v Kasparov again? Afterall who needs FIDE?

[Colin Patterson]

Is anyone that bothered? Personally, I think the London Classic and events of that ilk offer a lot more entertainment than a world championship match, which could turn out one-sided, could be dominated by dull opening preparation (anyone fancy a dozen drawn Berlin Defence games?) and could be marred by any one of a number of cheating allegations (frequent toilet visits, parapsychologists in the crowd, spending too little time at the board, chairs impregnated with sleep drugs, coded messages involving flavoured yoghurts etc. etc.)

I'd much rather the money was spent on another first class, elite tournament - somewhere nice, up north, lets say York, with Bilbao and Sofia Rules, in the Springtime. Or how about England's top ten versus the world's top ten women in an all play all match? Just a thought. I guess I never understood the obsession with bringing the world championship here.

[Michael Jones]

Although prior to the LCC top level tournaments were pretty much non-existent in the UK, there are plenty elsewhere in the world. With the way FIDE has been messing around in recent years, matches to determine who will be acknowledged as the undisputed world champion are pretty rare anywhere, which is presumably why Pein is/was so keen on getting one in England. I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up arranging an Anand vs Carlsen match anyway - that match-up would attract plenty of interest with or without the tag of 'world championship' attached.

[Alex Holowczak]

I guess I never understood the obsession with bringing the world championship here.

A match with the title of World Championship attached to it would probably raise far more non-chess publicity than the LCC does. The SuperGM tournaments around the world are not unique enough to be noteworthy to mainstream media. Although, I'm not sure that with the popularity of chess as it currently is, it'd raise more than a flutter in the day or two before the match, and the day there's a winner to the match.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

When I read that report, my first thought was what happened to the money they paid FIDE? Did they get it back?

[matt_ward]

I think bringing the World Chess Championship would be great to be held in London, the last one was 1990 something, don't remember the exact date. I would like to see the American genius Nakamura get a chance at the title.

How do they decide this by candidate matches?

[LozCooper]

I think bringing the World Chess Championship would be great to be held in London, the last one was 1990 something, don't remember the exact date. I would like to see the American genius Nakamura get a chance at the title.

How do they decide this by candidate matches?

http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... ement.html

[Sean Hewitt]

...are not unique enough

I shall resist the temptation to point out that, by definition, you cannot have degrees of uniqueness

[John Upham]

by definition, you cannot have degrees of uniqueness

See http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/writers ... olute.html

[Michael Jones]

I guess I never understood the obsession with bringing the world championship here.

A match with the title of World Championship attached to it would probably raise far more non-chess publicity than the LCC does. The SuperGM tournaments around the world are not unique enough to be noteworthy to mainstream media. Although, I'm not sure that with the popularity of chess as it currently is, it'd raise more than a flutter in the day or two before the match, and the day there's a winner to the match.

The only time I can remember chess making front page news for reasons to do with the actual game was when Kramnik beat Kasparov - stories don't come much bigger than the guy who's been world champion for 15 years finally being dethroned. The only other newsworthy chess stories have been away from the board - two players getting into a punch-up at a post-tournament party, one accusing another of going to the toilet suspiciously often, some nutter who believes he was once abducted by aliens getting re-elected as president of the sport's global governing body, that sort of thing.