Tuesday, September 11, 2007

The things Garry says

My New In Chess arrived this morning and naturally I turned straight to Garry Kasparov's column to see how he would get on my nerves. It took him a while but he got there in the end, complaining about the controversial* acceptance of Veselin Topalov into the forthcoming world championship tournament in Mexico, to which acceptance the objection can be raised that it was specifically written into the contracts of the Topalov-Kramnik match that the loser should not take part in Mexico. So far, so reasonable, but he then goes on to strike a moral pose about this sort of thing:
Such flagrant favouritism has long been the hallmark of FIDE
Well, maybe, maybe not. But can anybody remind me: during the decade when qualification for world championship matches was in the personal gift of the champion, who was it who invited Vladimir Kramnik to play a match for the World Championship seven years ago when that gentleman had already lost an eliminator to Alexei Shirov?

[* (late edit some days after) and apparently non-existent. I admit to becoming throughly confused as to what's going on. Was he let back in or not? He's not playing, but in that case what's Kasparov on about?]

6 comments:

Tom Chivers said...

Max Euwe?

ejh said...

(Shall I write "recent decade"? I thought. No, I thought, they'll take it as read....)

Anonymous said...

Di Euwe ever lose a match agaist Shirov? I thought he died when Shirov was about 10!

Another good question would be:
Who defaulted a Candidates match against Korchnoi but was reinstated by FIDE?

Carsten

ejh said...

Ha, I'd forgotten that one. Mind you Kasparov might say he was obliged to default by the authorities, a fair point.

Incidentally, I believe Kasparov has now accepted he should not have broken from FIDE. "There is more joy in heaven at one sinner who repenteth...."

Anonymous said...

Mind you Kasparov might say he was obliged to default by the authorities, a fair point.

I didn't mean to imply that Kasparov was responsible. However, it still amounted to preferential treatment (also extended to Smyslov), although it was obviously the right decision. In my opinion the same argument applies to Topalov.


Incidentally, I believe Kasparov has now accepted he should not have broken from FIDE

I didn't know that, has Nigel Short had the same insight?

Incidentally, the thing I've never understood is why Kasparov went ahead with the match once Short had removed his claim to it?

IIRC Kasparov said at the time that a match with Anand would be much more interesting, and since Short's only claim to a match was his qualification throught the FIDE system he'd just renounced, why didn't Kasparov just have a match with Anand or whomever he felt like playing?

ejh said...

Because the match was going to be Short?