Some opinions about this match:
Quote:GM Jonathan Rowson, British Chess Champion, London, UK
Like most chess players, I have been saddened by the recent turn of events, and hope there is some way out of this position, which now resembles a reciprocal zugzwang. Allowing the clocks to start yesterday was an organisational mistake equivalent to blundering one’s queen without compensation. After Kramnik’s inevitable forfeit, neither side can move from their respective positions without making a big concession.
It would seem therefore that the situation now calls for some sort of compromise, and I notice that the FIDE President highlighted this need in his recent interview on the FIDE website. To call for the two sides to compromise sounds suitably ‘Presidential’ until you realise that compromise is not at all appropriate in the circumstances. I agree with the recent postings of John Nunn and Yasser Seirawan that the match has to be resumed at 3-1 and game five recommenced as soon as possible.
A pertinent analogue helps to highlight why compromise is not always the appropriate way to resolve a conflict: Two brothers, lets call them Vosilin and Vledimir, saw a cake on their kitchen table at the same time, assumed it was for them, and started arguing over it. Vosilin said that he liked the look of the cake and wanted all of it for himself. Vledimir said that he also wanted the cake, but given that his brother also wanted some, they should cut the cake in half and share it.
Their father, lets call him Fido, arrived in the kitchen just in time to stop a fully fledged physical fight. Trying to be wise, Fido advised them that fighting was a childish way to solve a dispute, and that when two grownups can’t agree on something, they should seek a compromise. Fido further explained that they would both have to make a concession in order to solve the problem without fighting.
However, the brothers held on to their respective positions, Vledimir because he felt he was right, and Vosilin because he thought it was the best strategy. Fido explained that if they weren’t willing to change their minds, he would have to resolve the situation by finding a mid-point between their two views.
So what was the outcome? Fido cut the cake, but granted three quarters of the cake to Vosilin and only a quarter to Vledimir.
Let us hope a similar outcome does not transpire in Elista. Compromise is NOT the solution in manifestly unfair situations. Fido’s responsibility was to tell Vosilin that his demand was unreasonable and allow the cake to be cut in half. Fide’s responsibility now is to tell the Topalov camp that their demands have been unreasonable, and restore the match score to 3-1.
Quote:David Levy, London, GB
At the time of writing (around 7am London time on October 1st) it appears that the match in Elista is likely to come to a premature and disastrous end. In my opinion, if this happens it will be the Appeal Committee that is responsible. What should have been a relatively minor crisis has been severely exacerbated by the ruling that both players’ toilets would be closed and that the players would have to share a single toilet. To many outside the world of top class chess this might seem to be an overly strong accusation on my part, but I am convinced that it is justified.
Between moves Kramnik likes to make full use of the physical space at his disposal for walking, which is undeniably his right. It would be his right even if he did not have a medical condition that is, it would seem, eased by walking. There is nothing, in itself, wrong with what Kramnik wants. The problem lies in the fact that there have been a few established cases of computerised cheating during chess games, and Team Topalov has implied that there were insufficient controls instigated by the match organisers to ensure that no-one could justifiably suspect anything untoward during Kramnik’s frequent visits to the toilet.
It would be madness to suggest that either player in this match would attempt to make any use of computers during a game. But that is not the point. The fact is that Kramnik’s frequent use of the toilet appears to have disturbed Topalov, whose team exercised their right to protest, since one of the golden rules of competitive chess is that it is forbidden to disturb or distract the opponent in any way whatsoever. But the right to protest does not carry with it an automatic right for a protest to be upheld, which is, in effect, what the Appeal Committee has done in Elista. It was the committee’s legal right to take any decision they felt appropriate, and they exercised that right as they were entitled to do, but the manner in which they did so was sheer madness.
It is long established that for World Championship matches each player has their own rest area and their own toilet area. In London, in 1986, for the first half of the Kasparov-Karpov match, we even arranged routes for the two players to be able to reach their respective toilets without meeting each other on the way, such was the animosity between them. The arrangements for the Elista match took the standard toilet requirements into consideration, with the agreement of both sides. But when Team Topalov protested about Kramnik’s frequent use of his toilet, the Appeal Committee failed in their duty to ensure the smooth continuation of the match. What they should have done, in my opinion, is to have arranged for both toilets to have been swept for electronic devices a few minutes prior to the start of each game, and to have advised Team Topalov that they regarded this to be a sufficient action in response to the protest. Then the match would have continued normally. There is a precedent for electronic sweeping – the Icelandic organisers examined Spassky’s chair during the 1972 match, after Fischer had suspected the chair of containing something untoward.
But instead the Appeal Committee decided to change the physical conditions of the match, and to do so in a way that contravened what both sides had agreed prior to the start of the match. It is the given right of lawmakers to make an ass of the Law if they see fit, and the Appeal Committee exercised this right, to disastrous effect.
Once the Appeal Committee had made its ruling it is extremely difficult to see how the match could have been kept on the rails. Kramnik, understandably, was unwilling to play under physical conditions that did not conform to those that had been agreed, and he should not be criticised for taking this position. The Chief Arbiter had no choice but to start the clocks and to forfeit Kramnik. Topalov should not be criticised for winning a game by forfeit, any more than Spassky should be criticised for winning the second game in Reykjavik by forfeit. Thus we can see that, following the madness of the Appeal Committee, the variation played out in Elista was forced.
So what now? Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is doing his best to resolve this chess tragedy, but in order to do so he needs, first and foremost, a magnanimous gesture from one of the players regarding the score in the match. Either Topalov gives up the point that he won by forfeit in game 5, which he has no good reason to do, or Kramik accepts that the Appeal Committee’s decision before game 5, mad though it was, had to be obeyed because it was the Law at that time. Again there is a precedent from the Reykjavik match in 1972, when Fischer accepted his forfeit and continued the match from a score of 0-2, winning the championship in brilliant style. And if Kramnik follows Fischer’s example and accepts the forfeit, he will doubtless be able to secure from the match organisers an arrangement for the toilets that also satisfies Team Topalov.
Chess lovers the world over want this match to continue. But magnanimous gestures are not the norm in World Chess Championship matches. Is there any way that might lead to the continuation of the match? Perhaps there is. If President Putin were to send Kramnik a message of good luck, telling him that Russia hopes and expects him to win the match, then perhaps we will see both the magnanimous gesture on Kramnik’s part and more reasoned toilet arrangements than those dictated by the Appeal Committtee.
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Kramnik-Topalov match (Read 88845 times)
