Topalov-Kramnik

Maybe it's for real this time. It's now on Kramnik's official website.

Also, Illumzhinov gave Russia's Sport Express correspodnent a few more details on the match.

The prize fund of one million dollars will be split equally between the participants, regardless of the outcome of the match. This was decided in order to show the equal status of both participants in the unification match.

The match will be held over twelve games, with classical time controls. In case of a draw there will be four games with shorter time control – 25 minutes per side.

(If the match is still tied at this point, there will be a blitz playoff.)

The winner of the Topalov-Kramnik match will play in the next FIDE World Championship in 2007. The loser, even if it is the current FIDE title holder Topalov, will have to start from scratch and play in the World Cup.

(The article doesn't explicitly state this, but the loser would be playing to qualify for the 2009 cycle and would be left out in the cold for the 2007 cycle.)

If true, this is a very exciting development. It would mean the first time that we have a universally recognized world chess champion since Kasparov fubar'ed everything back in 1993. (Yes, people forget or gloss over the fact that this mess is mostly to blame on his split with FIDE over the 1993 world championship match.)