Carlsen drops out of race for World Champion

[Warren Kingston]

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6789

Same old story for the last 100 years, but he is right.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Right about what??

I think it is generally agreed now that FIDE under Kirsan is a pretty useless and corrupt organisation - but nonetheless, a half-decent setup for deciding the World Champion seems to finally have come about. It is a shame to see Carlsen seemingly willing to jeapordise that

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I wonder what effect this has on Malcolm Pein's plans to bring the (potential) 2012 World Championship match to London?

[PeterTurland]

It disgusts me that he has not yet been given a crack at the world title.

I think the problem is caused by FIDE having a president who does not seem to have an ELO rating and believes he was visited by aliens.

What I would like to see is, chess in terms of who is world champion, run like snooker.

Deep down I think the problem is caused by a lack of real democracy in FIDE, I find it ridiculous that India and China are only allowed the same number of delegates, as say Liechtenstein and Andorra.

Regards,

Peter.

http://dollyknot.com/chess.html

[Matt Mackenzie]

It disgusts me that he has not yet been given a crack at the world title.

I think the problem is caused by FIDE having a president who does not seem to have an ELO rating and believes he was visited by aliens.

What I would like to see is, chess in terms of who is world champion, run like snooker.

Deep down I think the problem is caused by a lack of real democracy in FIDE, I find it ridiculous that India and China are only allowed the same number of delegates, as say Liechtenstein and Andorra.

Regards,

Peter.

http://dollyknot.com/chess.html

What a strange post!

He will have a "crack" at the world title when he qualifies for it - just like everybody else

Chess like snooker - how exactly? The snooker WC is anyhow decided on a knockout basis - just like chess. And some of us here may recall a certain larger than life (in every sense) British GM regularly reciting the "chess should be more like snooker" meme.........

(btw snooker is currently going through a popularity crisis in this country - again like chess?)

As to your final point, the old USSR and now Russia were never bothered about only having one vote (whilst the British Isles had 5 and now 6) It is in any case the way that most sporting federations are run (not least the planet's biggest sport of all, football) The flaws in FIDE lie elsewhere, not in this oft-rehashed red herring.

[Michael Jones]

In my opinion privileges should in general be abolished and a future World Championship model should be based on a fair fight between the best players in the World, on equal terms. This should apply also to the winner of the previous World Championship, and especially so when there are several players at approximately the same level in the world elite. (Why should one player have one out of two tickets to the final to the detriment of all remaining players in the world? Imagine that the winner of the 2010 Football World Cup would be directly qualified to the 2014 World Cup final while all the rest of the teams would have to fight for the other spot.)

I definitely disagree with him here. Any major tournament is "a fair fight between the best players in the World, on equal terms", so why pick out one in particular and call it the World Championship? Rather than drawing a parallel with football, as Carlsen does, I would draw it with boxing, or indeed with the way that chess worked for more than a century before FIDE started messing around with it: you become world champion by beating the previous champion (at least chess, unlike boxing, does not have half a dozen different international organisations each running its own 'world championship'). There's plenty of scope for argument about the exact nature of the qualification process, the length of the world championship match etc., but the basic principle should be the same: over a set cycle, say two years, a qualifying process is held to determine a challenger, the challenger plays a match against the reigning world champion, and the winner of that match is the world champion until the next match is held.

The "one federation, one vote" principle is debatable, but I agree with Matt that it's not the main problem with FIDE.

[PeterTurland]

[i]As to your final point, the old USSR and now Russia were never bothered about only having one vote (whilst the British Isles had 5 and now 6) It is in any case the way that most sporting federations are run (not least the planet's biggest sport of all, football) The flaws in FIDE lie elsewhere, not in this oft-rehashed red herring.[/i]

Yeah almost as democratic as the USA where each state elects two senators, including Wyoming, with its 540,000 inhabitants, and California, with a population of 37 million.

[PeterTurland]

[i]The "one federation, one vote" principle is debatable, but I agree with Matt that it's not the main problem with FIDE.[/i]

So you think a one man one vote system would still have elected an alien believing patzer as its president?

[Alex Holowczak]

I think I disagree with Carlsen's act altogether. Having pulled out of the Grand Prix and not played in the World Cup, FIDE basically bent the rules to let the two highest rated players in, specifically him and Kramnik. So given FIDE did this to let him into the Candidates in the first place, I think his arguments are quite poor and ill-directed.

The way we got to the Candidates may not have been ideal, but we had arrived at a recognisable structure; a Candidates series, the winner of which plays Anand for the title. It had reached a fair conclusion.

The matchplay format is one I'm a big fan of. The Champion retaining the bye is again a perfectly sensible way of doing it, and one steeped in history. I certainly wouldn't be in favour of yet another APA; there are enough of those already.

I wonder what Kasparov's role in this complaint was, if he had one.

I don't think it'll do much for Carlsen's popularity.

No one show Peter Turland the ECF voting structure. Given his response to the FIDE equivalents, he might not live to tell the tale upon reading the ECF's...

[Roger de Coverly]

No one show Peter Turland the ECF voting structure. Given his response to the FIDE equivalents, he might not live to tell the tale upon reading the ECF's...

The ECF voting structure weights by number of games played which for a chess organisation is a rough and ready way of denying excess influence to delegates from the smallest organisations. I've never been very happy that organisations who don't have any games played under their auspices should have votes though as usually that gives their proxy holder additional voting rights.

Could someone remind us how world sporting bodies are governed? The Olympic movement and FIFA are of a comparable size to FIDE, but don't they devolve important decisions like the venues of the Olympics and World Cups to smaller decision making boards? Does the same apply to election of their presidents?

[Michael Jones]

The "one federation, one vote" principle is debatable, but I agree with Matt that it's not the main problem with FIDE.

So you think a one man one vote system would still have elected an alien believing patzer as its president?

For a start, I don't think frequent references to an "alien believing patzer" are at all helpful to Ilyumzhinov's opponents. I certainly don't think he's made a good job of running FIDE, but neither his own chess playing ability nor his belief that he met extraterrestrial beings is relevant to that. I don't care whether the president of FIDE believes in aliens, fairies or the Loch Ness Monster for that matter - I just care about how competent he is at running world chess, which in the case of the incumbent is not very.

[Alex Holowczak]

Could someone remind us how world sporting bodies are governed? The Olympic movement and FIFA are of a comparable size to FIDE, but don't they devolve important decisions like the venues of the Olympics and World Cups to smaller decision making boards? Does the same apply to election of their presidents?

Well, I know that the rules of football are not made by FIFA. They're made by the International Foootball Association Board (IFAB). Originally, this was Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales. This changed over time from Ireland to Northern Ireland. FIFA became part of the Board after a time, but each of the five entities had two votes, and with a 4/5 majority required to change the rule, FIFA still had no power. Nowadays, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each get one vote, with FIFA getting 4, and a 3/4 majority required to pass. So FIFA basically have the right of veto over a proposed rule change. IFAB is recognised by FIFA as being the chief rule-makers of the game. There are presumably other subdivisions in FIFA to do various bits of business.

[John Saunders]

I've just blogged on Carlsen's withdrawal from the Candidates' competition...

http://johnchess.blogspot.com/2010/11/c ... prise.html

[James Coleman]

I agree with Alex H as well as other points by Michael, Matt etc.

It's definitely a shame. From a longer term perspective it's also likely that Carlsen would have one day enjoyed the advantages that he's now objecting to.

[David Lettington]

It disgusts me that he has not yet been given a crack at the world title.

Firstly, he is only 19, and, secondly, surely he should earn the right?

I think the idea of a 8-10 player tournament to decide the World Champion is ridiculous. We have plenty of those tournaments.

It's a taken a long time to get back to something that is recognisable as the traditional (and, in my opinion, the best) format. I hope that he changes his mind.