Kings don’t rule
By ANDY SOLTIS
Last Updated: 4:28 AM, January 10, 2010
Posted: 11:55 PM, January 9, 2010
There are no kings of the chess world anymore, lamented Boris Spassky, “only prime ministers and presidents.
“Everything is decided by ratings, and the title of world champion doesn’t have the significance it used to,” said Spassky, the 10th world champion.
There was more evidence to support Spassky’s claim on Jan. 1, when the new international rating list showed that the top-rated player in the world was Magnus Carlsen of Norway — who has never come close to qualifying for the world championship.
The disconnect between the official — and unofficial — “best player in the world” first became noticeable in the 1960s when Bobby Fischer shot to the top of rating list but boycotted the championship until he beat Spassky in 1972.
In recent years, it’s been regarded as normal for two “prime ministers” — ranked somewhere from No. 2 to No. 8 — to play a championship match.
The last time that the world’s highest-rated player won a world championship match was back in 1995, when Garry Kasparov trounced Viswanathan Anand at the top of the World Trade Center.
Source: http://www.nypost.com
Quite an obvious statement these days, but it doesn’t hurt to hear it directly from a high profile chess individual like Spassky. FIDE should realize this and discontinue the WC cycle as soon as possible in favor of another system that promotes two player matches. I suppose that if the opportunity arises, top players will be interested in challenging each other to chess duels. Perhaps the K-value should be negotiable for these matches
I disagree. The disconnect started after World War II.
Botvinnik was often WC for a long time, but pretty much gave up tournaments and kept his title through the champion’s advantage of retaining the title in drawn matches as well as invoking the rematch rule after losing.
Petrosian was the WC but hardly the best tournament player.
I don’t if they were rated #1 at the time, however.
The farce of the FIDE knockout system WC accelerated the trend.
Kasparov says the same thing. The World Championship Title is meaningless because of the ratings:
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/1731
Start the video at 27:00 minutes.
Well Carlsen is young and has been improving rapidly. He will certainly be a contender for the World Championship soon.