Occasionally, The Kibitzer (whose brief is deliberately left vague) departs from opening theory and historical topics to write about current issues in the chess scene. Last year's #23 (April 1998 - which you can read in the Chess Café Archives) examined the situation concerning the World Championship(s). Now, after last month's events in Las Vegas, it is time for an update, so expect some controversy!

In April 1998, I wrote that "nobody has the uncontestable right to be regarded as World Chess Champion". Splendid as GM Alexander Khalifman's surprise achievement was, in winning the FIDE Knockout World Championship tournament in Vegas, I don't think that remark is any less true than it was 19 months ago.

In fact, for the first time ever in chess history, we now have a "world champion" who not only is not the world's best player but even accepts publicly that this is the case! To see who is most widely regarded as the world's strongest player, I refer you to FIDE's own July 1999 rating list where one G. Kasparov sits at the top with 2851 compared with Khalifman who is in 45th place with 2628. (Other leading figures whose names have been bandied about in the world championship context include Anand 2771, Kramnik 2760, Karpov 2700, Morozevich 2758 and Shirov 2734.)

Khalifman certainly proved very resourceful in this event. He lost his very first game (to Barua of India) but equalised; then he lost the first quickplay game but still emerged the winner. In round two he lost the first game against the seeded Kamsky but again he won with White and came through the quickplay. In round three he beat the teenager Asrian from Armenia.

The highest-rated player that Khalifman beat was Boris Gelfand (2713) in round four. After two draws, this game was played at the rate of 25 minutes each.

Khalifman - Gelfand Sicilian Defence (B92) FIDE WCh KO Las Vegas, 11.08.1999

1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 a6 6 Be2 e5 7 Nb3 Be7 8 Be3 Be6 9 Nd5 Nbd7 10 Qd3 Bxd5 11 exd5 0-0 12 g4!

In a sharp opposite-side castling position, Khalifman gets his pawns moving. This doesn't seem to be a very common or recommendable variation for Black, but maybe Gelfand had found the following game in his database and planned to improve12 Qd3 e4 13 Qd4 Nc5 14 h4 Nfd7 15 g5 f5 16 Qd2 Nxb3 17 axb3 Ne5 18 h5 Rc8 19 g6 hxg6 20 hxg6 Nxg6 21 Bh5 Nh4? (better 21...Ne5) 22 0-0-0 Ng2 23 Rdg1 f4? 24 Rxg2 fxe3 25 Qxe3 Rc7 26 Bg4 g5 27 Qxe4 1-0 A. Van der Wall-S. Tengely, Kecskemet 1991.

12...Nc5 13 Nxc5 dxc5 14 0-0-0 e4 DIAGRAM

Gelfand tries to get counterplay by giving up two pawns, to get control of e5 and rupture the white king's pawn defences, and when this doesn't succeed he also sacrifices the exchange. However, Khalifman repulses the initiative and wins

15 Qd2 Bd6 16 g5 Nd7 17 h4 Ne5 18 h5 Rc8 19 Rh4 c4 20 Rxe4 c3 21 bxc3 Qa5 22 Kb1 Rxc3 23 Bd4 Rfc8 24 Bxc3 Rxc3 25 Qd4

The white queen is now perfectly placed for attack and defence.

25...f6 26 gxf6 gxf6 27 f4 Bc5 28 Qa4 Qb6+ 29 Ka1 Nf7 30 Qe8+ Kg7 31 h6+ Nxh6 32 Qd7+ Nf7 33 Rb1 Qd8 34 Rxb7 Qxd7 35 Rxd7 Rxc2 36 Bh5 Ba3 37 Re1 Bb4 38 Rxf7+ Kh6 39 Rh1 1-0.

Khalifman then drew the second play-off game to move into round 5 where he comfortably despatched Judit Polgar, another player rated higher than himself. He was proving very efficient with the white pieces.

In the semifinal he met the Romanian L. Nisipeanu, even more of a surprise qualifier than Khalifman himself, and took an early lead. Nisipeanu equalised the match in regular time but once more the quickplay went to the Russian. In the final against V. Akopian (only slightly higher-rated than himself) Khalifman took the lead by winning at last with Black. Then they each won with White before Khalifman held a draw in the crucial game five. Now he only needed a draw with White in the last game and he duly achieved this; in the whole event he never lost when he had the first move. It was a performance that Kasparov himself could have been proud of.

From the reports I have so far read, Khalifman is very modest about the whole thing, referring to himself as an "amateur", and I wish him well. Of course the circumstances and rules of play in Las Vegas were not ideal, but the players got well paid. For FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov in particular, and the chess world in general, the Vegas event has one great advantage it spelled the end of Karpov's claims to be World Champion (or almost...). While Karpov was still getting great tournament results and a high rating, FIDE could live with him but his recent decline of form and rating has put him clearly behind many players of the younger generation.

Of course it might have been better for FIDE, and chess in general, if one of the very high-rated players such as Kramnik, Adams or Shirov had won the event but the very structure of the knockout tournament (partly the brevity of the mini-matches but especially the blitz tie-break) was always likely to eliminate some of the main contenders. FIDE played its tournament in the world centre of gambling, with casino rules, and so they cannot complain that a surprise winner scooped the big pot.

Two players apart from Khalifman may have a claim to be regarded as World Champion. Kasparov is one of them, of course; we will come to him later in this article. At the time of writing, it is doubtful whether he will find sponsorship money for his proposed match with Anand but maybe the situation will change during the next few weeks.

Then there is Anatoly Karpov, the only other contender to have actually been crowned world champion. It seems that Karpov does not accept that Vegas was a legitimate championship and is considering legal action against FIDE. This is because they changed the rule that applied in the previous FIDE world knockout event, where he only had to defend his title against the winner of the Groningen tournament, Anand. Karpov won then, by the skin of his teeth, against an exhausted Anand but chose not to participate in Vegas, where he would have had to enter the event in the second knockout round.

Karpov first became World Champion way back in 1975 when Bobby Fischer would not agree FIDE's terms to defend against him. Fischer then went into a prolonged retirement, from which he emerged only once to win a controversial re-match against Spassky in Serbia/Montenegro defiance of U.N. sanctions against that country. Fischer, still regarding himself as undefeated World Champion, now lives in Hungary.

Karpov had won the Candidates Final the previous year, by the margin of 3-2 (with 19 draws) against Viktor Korchnoi. This match was a typical Soviet state-sponsored affair, guaranteed to hold interest over several weeks because of the slower pace of life in those days and the knowledgeable local audience in Moscow. However, it was a war of attrition reminiscent of most of Botvinnik and Petrosian's matches in the 1950s and 1960s fascinating to the experts but unlikely to make headlines in the West.

Karpov's first defence of the title came in 1978 in Baguio City, Philippines, with an open-ended match to be won by the first player to win 6 games; it took 32 games to achieve this result. Once more his opponent was Korchnoi, now a defector from the USSR. The rules, similar to those of the Alekhine-Capablanca match of 1927, were fair as they gave no advantage to the champion Botvinnik had twice retained his title in matches tied 12-12.

This Cold War clash attracted tremendous publicity as Korchnoi, put up a tremendous fight after conceding an early lead. With numerous off-the- board wrangles about parapsychologists influencing the players from the audience, and secret messages allegedly being passed to Karpov in tubs of yogurt, the champion started to feel the strain and the match went to sudden death at 5-5. However, Karpov had the next White and clinched victory by 6-5 with 21 draws.

The same rules applied for the 1981 title match in Merano, Italy. This time Korchnoi, who had fought his way through the qualifiers again, went down tamely and Karpov notched up the required six victories in only 18 games.

You can see why FIDE wanted to change the system, especially in these days when people want quick results. The head-to-head long-match system meant that a contest could either be an anticlimax like Merino or an open-ended endurance test like Baguio. Nobody involved (players, organisers, journalists, sponsors) could estimate what they would be in for, in terms of duration, expenses etc. The pace of play in these matches - three games per week at most (lengthened by time-outs) - was also not guaranteed to hold public interest.

The nadir of the match system was the first Karpov-Kasparov match (1984-85) which was supposed to be for the first to six games, but went to 48 games without result. Karpov was four up after nine games, scored his fifth win in game 28 and twenty games later his lead was down to 5- 3. FIDE President Campomanes stopped the match and people have been arguing ever since whose idea that was, whether it was justified and who benefitted. I don't want to get into that, but many people think the present malaise in the world chess scene dates to that occasion.

Because of complicated rules about re-match entitlements and the outcome of new Candidates cycles, Karpov and Kasparov contested four further matches. Kasparov won the title 13-11 in 1985 (Moscow, Sept.- Nov.), successfully defended in 1986 (London/Leningrad), dramatically won the last game to tie and retain his title in 1987 (Seville), and beat Karpov again in 1990 (New York/Lyons).

The prospect of a sixth K-K match in 1993 was avoided when Nigel Short broke the mold and earned the right to challenge Kasparov for the world chess championship. At this point, disregarding Fischer's claims, there was still only one World Chess Championship and one universally recognised World Champion.

It was Nigel Short's fateful phone call to Kasparov proposing a breakaway from FIDE which changed all that, and this is why I consider that Short - rather than Campomanes or anyone else except Kasparov (who jumped at Short's idea) - bears much of the responsibility for the mess we have today. I find it amazing that FIDE allowed Short to play in Vegas; it is arguable that he should be banned from all their championship events for life.

Most players in the past who have gone through a qualifying cycle and earned a shot at the world title would have loved the package on offer to Short in 1993. He could have had a huge home-town advantage in Manchester, the nearest large city to the Lancashire town of Bolton where he grew up, which had submitted the highest bid to FIDE for hosting the match. This would have earned him tremendous goodwill in British chess. He could have prepared for the match calmly and maximised his chances of success.

Short himself may say differently, but to the outside observer he seems to have taken the view that he had little chance of victory anyway and moreover that this match (even as a loser) gave him his one chance of a big payday in his lifetime. So he rejected the Manchester deal, telephoned his rival and initiated the split with FIDE that maximised the big bucks and minimised his chances of success. The strain told in the very first game, where (approaching a winning endgame after stout defence) he turned down a draw and lost on time. A few days later Short sacked his trainer, Czech-born US grandmaster Lubosh Kavalek, without whom Short would never have got to play Kasparov in the first place. After these two disastrous mistakes, Short was never in the match, which was as one-sided as Merano 1981.

FIDE's reaction to the crisis was legalistic rather than sensible. Since the World Chess Championship is a competition that pre-dates the foundation of FIDE by four decades, a better effort should have been made to heal the wounds in a way that would have commanded the acceptance of the informed chess world.

It is understandable FIDE chose not to recognise Kasparov as world champion any more, but their best practical continuation would probably to have been to continue with their next qualification cycle, with Karpov seeded into the Candidates matches in place of Short. In two more years this would produce a new challenger (possibly Karpov, possibly Anand) and it would have been hard for Kasparov not to play a reunification match against this person. This would have meant FIDE regarding the world title as officially vacant for 2-3 years, possibly slightly illogical but much preferable in the eyes of the chess world to what they actually did.

FIDE decided they needed their own "world champion" but the ensuing title match had no credibility. This is because it was played between two men (Karpov and Timman) who had recently been defeated in matches by Nigel Short! No wonder Campomanes could not get any serious sponsorship or prize money for this match. I am surprised that Timman played it. Nothing surprises me about Karpov. He is now down to 10^th in the FIDE rankings but still thinks he should be regarded as World Champion.

As a result of beating Timman, Karpov was declared World Champion by FIDE while the Intel-backed PCA recognised Kasparov. So we had two World Champions in 1994. Both organisations proceeded to organise elimination tournaments and a Candidates series to select their next challengers. Some grandmasters even played in both series. So at this stage both organisations followed the old model of qualifying competitions first a tournament, then a series of matches (over about 8 games). Kamsky emerged from the FIDE series, while Anand got to challenge Kasparov.

The two "World Championship" matches of 1995 followed different paths entirely, Karpov-Kamsky was played in Ilyumzhinov's remote home town of Elista; Karpov took an early lead but Kamsky fought creditably and there was some decent chess played. The PCA match in New York got all the glitzy publicity but began slowly and ended in a terrible anti-climax as Anand's match strategy was poor and his nerves went at the crisis.

The match began with several short draws and then Anand won game 9. However, he lost the lead immediately because of bad openings preparation and then he lost again in game 11 to go behind. He soon lost two more games and then started offering short draws to end the match. Short and Kamsky had both fought harder in a hopeless cause than Anand, who was a terrible disappointment to his supporters; maybe he will do better if he gets another chance this year or next. There was almost no interesting chess played in this match at all, and since then Kasparov has not moved a pawn in defence of his claims to be World Champion.

Last year he tried to set up a contest between Kramnik and Anand, the two players with the best claim (on paper) to be his challenger but Anand declined because of contractual obligations to FIDE. Shirov was found to replace Anand and he defeated Kramnik by exposing the favourite's limitations in both openings preparation and endgame technique. However, his subsequent tournament results were unimpressive and the sponsorship that appeared to be in place for a Kasparov-Kramnik match evaporated when a one-sided Kasparov-Shirov clash was in the offing. So this year Kasparov tried again to arrange a match with the one player who would have some chance of being widely regarded as his main rival for the top spot, namely Anand. Both Kasparov and Anand chose to pass on Vegas to avoid being tied by any FIDE contracts preventing them playing for other "championship" titles (and to avoid being the victims of the casino effect) but even this new match is in doubt.

Maybe there will never again be a traditional world championship match, and if not the game will be the poorer for it. Chess is, after all, one of the greatest intellectual challenges devised by Man and its supreme prize should be decided by who can out-think his opponent, not by who can shift wood fastest and punch the clock quickest in a blitz finish.

I cannot regard any event as a true chess world championship that (like Las Vegas) involves rapid-play tie-break. The tradition of the world championship has always been that the best player is decided by a lengthy head-to-head contest under optimum conditions. The 40 moves in 150 minutes time limit (with adjournments for very long games) gives the players time to think and find the best moves they can at all stages and (hopefully) give the world an exhibition of how chess at its very best can be played. The duration of the match should be a minimum of 12 games to give the players a chance to test their opponents' opening repertoires and to give time to recover from an early defeat.

The Las Vegas format is potentially attractive to spectators and sponsors (though in fact FIDE seemed to find both in short supply) and it has one major advantage. It is democratic, in that a much wider range of masters and grandmasters get the opportunity to show what they can do on a big stage with big prizes. It poses a welcome threat to the golden circle of highly rated players to get invitations to all-play-all events and keep their high ratings by averaging 50% in those events. It may in future lead to those players who did surprisingly well at Vegas (e.g. Khalifman and Nisipeanu) gaining invitations so they can show whether they really can match the Kramniks, Kasparovs and Anands. That cannot be bad.

With every year that goes by, Kasparov's claims to be World Champion becomes more tenuous. However, he has kept it alive with a string of excellent tournament wins in 1999 while nobody else can match his consistency.

When Petrosian was World Champion from 1963-69 he did not win one tournament outright. There was talk that a "tournament world championship" should be instituted but nobody questioned he was a great player very strong in tactics (especially defensively) with positional sense and endgame technique that had been able to surpass Botvinnik. His problem was partly a lack of ambition once he became champion, and partly that his style led to a lot of draws. He was a player more suited to match-play than tournaments, especially ones which (unlike today's high-category events) were not uniformly populated by grandmasters of the highest calibre.

So Khalifman might be regarded as the "tournament world champion", but not the true world champion. The list of world champions stemming from Steinitz is a kind of apostolic succession, broken only by the death of Alekhine before he could defend his title that was not his fault but was due to World War Two. On this champions' roll of honour, where only the names of eternal greats should be inscribed, I see no place (yet) for Alexander Khalifman; to earn it, he must beat Kasparov (or a true successor to Kasparov) in a traditional style match. Maybe he can do it. Perhaps the best comparison of all is with professional cycling. Events are ridden over all kinds of distances and different conditions. The toughest event of all is the multi-stage Tour de France which last 3 weeks with flat stages suiting sprinters and high mountain finishes suiting a different type of rider altogether. The winner gets to wear the coveted yellow jersey on the podium in Paris.

However, professional cycling also has its "world champion" who is the winner of a long road race on one single day. By that analogy, you can regard Khalifman as world champion if you wish but I still think Kasparov wears the yellow jersey of chess.

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