FIDE Grand Prix host cities and representatives (Source: FIDE)
The six cities for the Grand Prix and the representative nominations by the host cities have now been finalized :
April 20th – May 6th 2008, Baku, Azerbaijan GM Gashimov, Vugar 2665
July 30th – August 15th 2008, Sochi, Russia GM Jakovenko, Dmitry 2720
December 13th – 29th, 2008, Doha, Qatar GM Al-Modiahki, Mohamad 2569
April 14th – 28th, 2009, Montreux, Switzerland GM Pelletier, Yannick 2600
August 1st – 17th, 2009, Elista, Russia GM Inarkiev, Ernesto 2681
December 7th – 23rd, 2009, Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic GM Navara, David 2680
However, according to Morozevich, Anand, Kramnik, Topalov and himself, the top 4 rated players in the world have decided not to take part in the Grand Prix. What will happen now? Will this damage the credibility of the World Championship cycle? What can be done to fix the problems?
This has zero credibility without the superstars. I’m only interested in the Topalov-Kamsky match because I like the way how Topalov plays. I want to see Morozevich and Carlsen in the cycle. Kamsky, Kramnik, Gelfand, Ivanchuk are all over the hill.
They should seed Magnus Carlsen directly into the final qualifying match to ensure a future chess champion that looks like Brad Pitt. Chess needs better visibility and marketability and Carlsen is just the guy to provide it.
You won’t find people like Tigran Petrosian sponsored by Nike or featured in GQ.
Don’t be too surpised when Gata Kamsky beats Topalov!
When did Morozevich became the spokeperson for Kramnik, Anand and Topalov.
Let’s hear it from Danailov.
Good on Morozevich, Anand, Kramnik and Topalov.
This ‘Grand Prix’ system is completely stupid and should be totally scrapped.
They need to go back to the old Zonal-Interzonal-Candidates system in principle, but add much needed improvements to it.
The existing tournaments like Corus, Linares, Sofia, etc. should be converted in to big tournaments with more high ranking (fide ranking can be used) people playing (say 32). The games should take place in one place only (no jet leg problem) and should not take place in very cold (siberia) or very hot locations.
On-line audio commentary should be provided for free!
If it was up to me, I would organize the chess world championship something like this:
Let’s say, start out from 64 spots.
Out of that, make 16 spots the 16 chess players with the highest ELO.
Let the other 48 spots be filled by winners of regional championships around the world. Divide the world, similarly to the soccer regions (not the same, only a similar way) reflecting the likelyhood of excellent players emerging from the given region. This division would be artificial the first time around, but later it can be based on the results of the previous cycle(s). So, finally the 48 spots would be filled by the best chess players (outside of the top 16 by ELO) of the world at any given time (independently from previous glory or ranking).
Then take the 64 players to one city and have the second phase of the world championship. In this phase there could be several different way, such as straight elimination (64-32-16-8-4-2-1) or 8 groups of 8 players, or 16 group of 4 players, the bottom line that they would have to end up with ONE player, who at any given time would be the best of all challengers from around the world.
And in the third phase that player would play a one-on-one with the current world champion and of course the winner would become the next world champion.
20 months is too long. Should be less than 12.