What does it all mean? For what it's worth, my personal opinion is that Alexander Khalifman is,
indeed, the 14^th World Chess Champion, and the other would-be claimants to the title are nothing
more than pretenders. Now, darlings, Tradition is a very fine thing, indeed. But Traditions die and
are buried every day, with barely a moment's notice. While it might at one time have been a good
enough system for the "two best" chess players in the world to take several months to sit down and
play leisurely games opposite each other, the world that such events took place in no longer exist.
Today we have the internet; we have - what hundreds? - thousands? of chess players qualified as
IMs and GMs; we have computer-aided chess analysis that is every second growing more and more
sophisticated; we have teams of chess professionals who aid and abet the highest-ranked players,
whose jobs consist of nothing but chess analysis; we have a cache of permanent chess professionals
who manage to make enough to keep body and soul together by playing a circuit of tournaments every
year!

Therefore, to envision such a thing happening today as the matches that took place in the 19^th century
up to and including the mid-20^th century (when the Soviet hegemony was still intact and enough of a
world power to "insist" upon events happening along a certain line) is to totally subvert present reality.
Of course, there are those who would attempt to do so. But they are candles blowing in the wind. History
proves that tradition is only observed so long as it continues to serve and fulfill a fundamental and
archetypalpurpose. When a paradigm shifts, old traditions fall by the wayside, and new traditions emerge.

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All rights reserved. Janet Newton and Goddesschess copyright, 2003.