The Chess World Championship Solution

The one thing that chess politics does consistently for me that virtually nothing else can manage is make me thankful that I live in such an enlightened political arena as the United States. The World Chess Federation (FIDE for short, due to some French abbreviation) just held its "Candidates Matches" to determine who gets to contend against Viswanathan Anand for the World Championship someday.... somewhere. Well, the result of these matches was somewhat... cough... unimpressive. Something like 90% of the classical games ended in draws, requiring rapid and often blitz playoffs to determine a winner. Games were drawn in less than 20 moves several times with both players quite content to rush off to rapid games to decide a "classical" world title.

 

For those of you who are unfamiliar with chess time controls. Classical would be a game that can last five, six, seven hours or perhaps even more. Rapid is generally about an hour game--total. Blitz is over in ten minutes. Classical is a genuine struggle of ideas, rapid is quick calculation, blitz is basically instinct. It's sort of like determining an NBA championship with a three-point contest.

The biggest problem was that matches were only four games in the Quarterfinals and Semifinals, meaning that players had two games with each color before going off to tiebreaks. This was particularly stupid when players would play 20 move draws in two of those games and only give half-hearted attempts in the other games. Don't ask me why. These guys have the psychological fragility of fine china at this level, and none of them seem to care about publicity--or the good of the game, generally. (It should be noted that the Candidates Final was a whopping 6 games... and exactly one of those was interesting and decisive--the last one).

Adding to the problem was that the top rated player in the world, Magnus Carlsen, a young Norwegian who virtually everyone concedes should challenge Anand for the World Championship, withdrew prior to the event citing the ridiculous guidelines. Well, at least somebody in chess understands the laughingstock that is FIDE when it comes to championship events. Imagine baseball deciding that this year instead of a 5-7-7 style playoff system, each round will consist of a single game; naturally, the Yankees get upset and say they will withdraw from the playoffs. Then imagine Major League Baseball trying to justify its actions, saying that the system used was a good one for determining the champion (in fact, it was a better one!). This is something like what you have in chess--every cycle, every World Championship.

So here's my solution. Let's start with the World Championship and work backwards. Right now the WC is a ridiculously short 12 games with the current champion retaining the title in the case of a tie. It used to be 24 games, which would be nice to see again, but we'll split the difference and make it 18. It should last less than four weeks, then, with rest days after every three games. Champion should keep his title in the case of a 9-9 tie. No playoffs.

I feel like that's simple enough and very little change compared to what it already looks like. The real problem is with the Candidates. Firstly, Candidates Matches have too many players. The difference between the top 4-5 players in the world is far different from the top 15-20. Instead of 8 players, the Candidates should be 4, which allows for more games among the top players.

The four players should be: 1. The winner of a playoff tournament, say Linares or the London Chess Classic; 2. The winner of another such tournament. 3. The player with the highest FIDE rating at a predetermined time, say, six months before the matches who didn't qualify via one or two; 4. The player with the second-highest FIDE rating at the same time.

These players are assigned by rating (1 plays 4, 2 plays 3) to 8-game semifinal matches, and then the winners play a 12-game Candidates Match for the right to play the current champion. In the event of a tie in the semifinals or finals, the player who drew with white in the fewest moves loses. So if you draw a game in 15 moves early in the match you may just be out the tiebreak.

Or I guess chess could just learn something from college football and decide champions by polls and computers--stuff like that. But for that you should probably check my previous blog post...