Women's World Chess Championship - Quality??

[Bob Armstrong]

Posted ( slightly edited ) on the Cooperative Chess Coalition Facebook chess discussion page, CCC - Chess Posts of Interest ( http://www.facebook.com/groups/cooperativechesscoalition/ )

CCC Discusses Chess - Posts of Interest - Women's World Chess Championship ( WWCC )

FIDE has given the women of the world a 64-player knockout system for determining the Women's World Champion. The sitting Champion must play, the same as every other player - no special privileges for being champion. The round consists of only a 2-game match, with tie-break at faster time control. Talk about introducing " luck " into chess!!

The tournament is currently in progress, and Rd. 2 has just been completed.

Well, the Knockout lottery system comes up a big winner!!

ELIMINATED:

Hou Yifan ( China ), sitting women's World Champion and # 3 woman in the world,
Humpy Koneru ( India ), # 2 woman in the world, and
Anna Muzychuk ( Slovenia ), # 4 woman in the world

( Judit Polgar( Hungary ), # 1 woman in the world, did not play - she probaly would have been thrown out too!! )

Way to go FIDE! Great system you've given the women! There are just 3 of the top 8 left.

Oh no, there's nothing wrong with this system!! Do you think the women's chess system is " broken "??

Bob Armstrong, CCC member ( Canada )

[Pierre Dénommée]

Have you noticed that Usain Bolt had to qualify for the 100m Olympic final?

Chess want to be in the Olympics and want to be recognised as an amateur sport. In amateur sport everybody must qualify, there is no exception, period! That is a concept that is very hard to grasp for the chess public because, historically, the World Championship has been ran like a professional sport. In professional boxing, one becomes champion by beating the champion one on one but that is not how amateur boxing is ran. In traditional sports, the fact that a great athlete could be eliminated early is regarded as a normal consequence of competing.

FIDE's idea is great, but a two games mini match is not the best way to achieve the intended results. There should be at least 6 games to the matches. The obvious problem is money. The longer the World Championship Cycle is, the greater the cost. Both the cost to the organisers and to the players, who often have a career outside of chess that limits their ability to travel. FIDE could also reduce the number of players at the WWC by running qualification events, the way FIFA does for its World Cup.