Author: KarinsDad
Date: 14:28:32 08/20/99
Go up one level in this thread
On August 20, 1999 at 16:22:19, James Robertson wrote: >You mentioned Alekhine as a WC; he avoided a rematch with Capablance and instead >played a series of matches with the hand-picked opponent Bogolyugubov. If >anything, his title has less wieght than Kasparov's who played 3 rematches with >Karpov. True. But consider the circumstances. Alekhine put up $10,000 to play Capablanca and won. He then stated that Capablanca had to put up $10,000 in order to get the chance to win back the title and Capablanca could not get any backers in 1929 due to the stock market crash. You can hardly consider that unfair since Alekhine only asked for the same conditions that were placed on him. After winning (6 25 3), Alekhine defended his title against Bogoljubov(twice, 11 9 5, 8 15 3), lost it to Euwe (9 13 8), regained it back (10 11 4) and was about to play Botvinnik when he died. He played 5 world championship matches in his life against 3 different players, 2 of whom were world champions at one point or another. He was also about to play against the man who would become the next world champion and hold it on and off for several decades. As can be seen by the scores, his scores against Bogoljubov were no worse than those against Capablanca or Euwe (except when he lost to Euwe). This does not indicate that Bogoljubov was a vastly inferior player. This is probably similar to Kasparov playing Anand, but avoiding Kramnik. Kasparov's claim is identical to Fischer's claim. He was champion, but lost that right when he refused to defend his title. The only difference is that Kasparov quit FIDE and started his own association and claimed that he was still World Champion whereas Fischer basically quit chess. Kasparov is undoubtably the best player in the world. But that does not make him World Champion. Playing the matches and winning would make him the World Champion. > >But you are right, we can argue this until blue in the face. My closing argument >is: I cannot respect a WC format in which luck is a primary factor. Two games >just cannot provide a trustworthy match result beteen two players. If it could, >then how come the finals and semifinals aren't 2 games? The fact that FIDE has >made the 6 and 4 shows just how random this whole thing is. > >James I can respect your view on not respecting that format. However, 100 of the top 105 players respected that format (and/or the money and title offered) enough to show up. And, I personally think it is not that random. A player just cannot have a draw and a loss (or vice versa) back to back, at least not in the first 4 rounds (5 rounds for the weaker players). KarinsDad :)
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.