Willempie wrote on 10/01/07 at 12:58:43:


I didn't mean it that way. If you take the top 4 or 5 players based on elo at the beginning of the tournament and revise the plus score calculations Anand may come out on top.

And yes. Playing so many matches may be trying on the winner. Lets hope it is a one time aberration.

SF,

Try recalculating on the basis of elo. You might get a different result! Tournament stats could be tweaked to our advantage. They went to the bottom half because Anand helped them to get there!

Anand won the only world championship that was available and Kramnik has the right to give it a chance in 2008. Thats it, really.

My one qualm about the tournament style of determining a champion can be seen by the relative scores of only the top four players against each other.

If you count those scores, 

Kramnik would be first at +1
Anand and Gelfand tied at =
Leko 4th at                      -1

Of course Anand won the tournament, and he did it in Petrosianic style.  He scored all his wins against the lower half of the field without losing any games at all.  (I actually predicted that both Anand and Kramnik would do this, but Vladya went and lost inexplicably to Morozevich.  )

Only a match between the top two players would eliminate the problem of the WC being awarded to the player who is most efficient against weaker players rather than to the best player in a head-to-head competition.

exigentsky wrote on 10/01/07 at 01:37:51:

It is well clear that Anand won the championship due to his better results against the "weaker" participants. He has not been able to beat Kramnik nor Gelfand during the tournament and this is an argument in favour of a matches system: you must show on each stage of the competition that you are better than your opponent.
Now, the participants were supposed to be the best ones in the world and Kramnik nor Gelfand were able to crush them as often as Anand, so there is no reason doubting about the fact that Anand deserves his title. 

exigentsky wrote on 10/01/07 at 01:37:51:


This is just plain silly There is no doubt that Anand is World Champion. While I agree that a match is preferable in deciding the championship and it follows tradition, this does not mean that it is the only way and that any other method is automatically disqualified. Kramnik himself agreed to the terms of the championship.....duh!!!The idea that Annad is now not the true world champion is so proposterous, it is not even worthy of debate. Ssshh

Congratulations to Vishy Anand. He deserves this title and has finally reached what has been expected from him for years.
I'd also like to congratulate Boris Gelfand for his performance this WCC.

Bravo Anand! I think a very tight match will follow now..

Kramnik & Gelfand played also chess of a very high standard.

Best wishes also to Morozevich for providing us (well, me!) with the most entertaining games