When chess kissed, made up
AMIT KARMARKAR
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Despite Toiletgate, the international chess body managed to salvage its world championship unification process this year. In that regard, the title match between Vladimir Kramnik (the unofficial classical world champion who had dethroned Garry Kasparov in 2000) and Veselin Topalov (official world champion) was a milestone event.
Since Kasparov and Nigel Short broke away from the world governing body and played their world title match in 1993 under the PCA umbrella, the FIDE official champion was always a matter of debate, whether the winner was Anatoly Karpov, Alexander Khalifman, V. Anand, Ruslan Ponomariov or Rustam Kasimdzhaov.
This was because Kasparov was always considered leagues above the rest. However, after the retirement of Kasparov in 2005, it was more important to find one world champion as the gap between the top five players was marginal. In that sense, the Kramnik-Topalov match was a godsend.
But in many ways, it turned into an anti-climax because Kramnik took nature’s call too frequently and Topalov got suspicious and complained without much evidence. But despite all this, their fight on the board was exceptional, underlining the charm of Matchplay.
Outside Elista, the ‘majors’ of this year were won by various contenders, clearly indicating that the cerebral game may not see any single player dominating. Anand took Wijk aan Zee, Aronian claimed Linares, Topalov Mtel Masters and Kramnik the world title.
Even the strong blitz titles were shared (Grischuk won the world title while Anand won the Tal memorial). Outside the creamy layer of GMs, the likes of Morozevich, Bacrot, Carlsen, Radjabov, Mamedyarov, Navara and Karjakin also continued to play creatively and impress.
And yes, the year also saw two inevitables: Russia losing the stranglehold on the Olympiad (Armenia won, China sizzled) and Machine (Fritz) beating Man (Kramnik).
The full article is here. 
Good article!