Saturday, March 03, 2007

New World Championship Format (Again)

It's deja vu all over again. Ilyumzhinov has instituted yet another world championship qualification system. In all fairness, this system makes some sense. But we all know it won't stick any more than the last five systems he's suggested, so who cares. It's so sad that professional chess has turned into such a joke.

The proposal is to terminate the World Championship Tournament and keep the World Cup as a Candidates tournament to find a challenger for a World Championship match. So in every odd year there will be only the World Cup (2007, 2009, etc.) and the respective winner will play every next year (2008, 2010, etc.) a match against the World Champion.

2007: World Cup will be held in Khanty-Mansiysk

Early 2008: The winner from WCCT 2007 in Mexico plays a World Championship match against the previous World Champion. If Kramnik does not win the WCCT 2007, then Kramnik [as previous World Champion] can challenge the winner of Mexico in the first part of 2008. If Kramnik wins in Mexico, then the right to challenge goes to the previous World Champion, i.e. Topalov.

Late 2008 or Early 2009: The winner of the 2008 World Championship match plays a World Championship match against the winner of the 2007 World Cup.

A little bit more detail is available on the Chessbase website.

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