Thoughts on the old FIDE World Championship format

A while back I was reading one of IM John Watson's book review columns at The Week in Chess. This time Watson was reviewing Andre Schulz's work The Big Book of World Chess Championships; 46 Title Fights – from Steinitz to Carlsen ( 352 pages; New in Chess 2015). It's a typically lengthy review, and worth reading. (The tl;dr version of the review is that Watson found the book very enjoyable, and recommends it highly.)

Among the other bits Watson culls from the book is this "oddity", as he calls it:

“At the FIDE congress of 1955 in Gothenburg, Botvinnik had submitted several suggestions. Thus the World Champion made efforts to be allowed to play in the candidates’ tournament because he was of the opinion that the qualification cycle conferred an advantage on the challenger for the WCh match, since unlike the inactive title defender he (the challenger) was getting tournament practice."

The Patriarch had a point, but not exactly the one he claimed. In Botvinnik's case he wasn't getting much practice because he largely refused to play in anything other than World Championship matches through most of his title reign. That was entirely on him.

But when I was a young player, even before playing in my first rated tournament I noticed an interesting fact: between the time when Botvinnik won the title in 1948 and Anatoly Karpov's first title defense against Korchnoi in 1978, the reigning World Champion had only won a single match for the world title, when Petrosian defeated Spassky in 1966. (In act, when I first learned of all this history, it was Christmas of 1980, and I didn't actually know that Karpov had defended his title successfully in 1978. I learned all of this from Golombeck's Chess: A History.)

The titles & matches went as follows (defending champion listed first):

Botvinnik drew with Bronstein, 1951
Botvinnik drew with Smyslov, 1954
Botvinnik lost to Smyslov, 1957
Smyslov lost to Botvinnik, 1958
Botvinnik lost to Tal, 1960
Tal lost to Botvinnik, 1961
Botvinnik lost to Petrosian, 1963
Petrosian DEFEATED Spassky, 1966
Petrosian lost to Spassky, 1969
Spassky lost to Fischer, 1972
Fischer forfeited the title to Karpov, 1975

So the defending Champion's record in World Championship matches throughout this period was a woeful 1+, 6-, 2=, 1 forfeit. Over ten matches the Champion was as likely to forfeit the title in a fit of pique as he was to actually win a title defense. Of the six champions of this period, four couldn't win more than one match, and a fifth (Botvinnik) could only win rematches.

That led me to the conclusion in my youth, which I still mostly believe to this day, that unless the Champion is an extremely dominant player, he just can't count on winning a match as Champion. So Karpov and Kasparov were both able to win multiple World Championship matches as Champion, but Kramnik couldn't until he met Topalov, when one Champion had to lose. Anand did, which makes him unique in that he wasn't dominant as Champion, and Carlsen has now done so once, which fits the pattern.

Note too that if one looks at all of the "Classical" list of Champions (plus Topalov), almost half of them have not been able to win a match as Champion: Capablanca, Euwe, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal, Spassky, Fischer & Topalov all failed in that quest, while Steinitz, Lasker, Alekhine, Petrosian, Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik, Anand and Carlsen have succeeded.

Or to quote Ric Flair, "To be The Man, you gotta STAY The Man!" And only about half of Champions have had staying power.

Some additional points to make: Steinitz, Lasker and Alekhine all had the benefit of choosing their own opponents, which helped considerably, though Steinitz was willing to play anyone and everyone. (Capablanca and Euwe also had that option, but they failed to choose wisely!) Kramnik sorta kinda had that option, as did Kasparov for a while, but both did win against duly selected challengers at some point in their careers as Champion.

Since FIDE assumed control of the title following Alekhine's death in 1946, six have failed to defend their titles while only five have succeeded. (I'm excluding Kramnik from this list.) What this has told me is that regular practice against the toughest opponents when one NEEDS to win is the best preparation for a World Championship match. Anything less leaves everything to chance.

Anatoly Karpov: A Better World Champion!

Now for an opinion that is guaranteed to be somewhat more controversial amongst chess players: Anatoly Karpov was the best world champion the chess world had prior to the advent of Kasparov.

I'm just going to list a few of Karpov's pluses for now.

First, he played the game as champion, and played often and well! Since Botvinnik had become champion in 1948, it seemed that champions didn't play all that much.* (Anyone that wants to spend time database mining can refute or confirm this, but I'll pass for now.) But Karpov, no doubt in part because of the fact that he was awarded the title simply because Fischer refused to play, took up a busy tournament schedule - and he won most of them during his reign.

Second, he successfully defended his title in matches! This might not seem like such a big deal, but consider the record of previous champions. I'll ignore Steinitz, as he basically invented the title and later tried backdating it. But Lasker mostly managed to duck his most dangerous opponents until he was older. The great Capablanca** failed in his only title defense. Alekhine ducked Capablanca, beat up on Bogoljubov twice before falling to Max Euwe in a massive upset. Euwe failed in a rematch with Alekhine, who then ducked any more matches until he was dead. (True, he got a big assist from WWII....)

Botvinnik never won a match when he was defending his title. The best he managed was two drawn matches against Bronstein and Smyslov. Smyslov & Tal couldn't defend the title against an old Botvinnik. Petrosian, in 1966, did what no champion had done in 32 years when he defended his title against Spassky. But he then fell to Spassky, who failed in his first defense to Fischer. And Fischer lost to his inner demons and couldn't even get back to the board for 20 years.

So Karpov showing up and defending his title twice om 1978 and 1981 was a damned fine showing.

Karpov showed up often, played well, and won much. And, he was part of the two greatest rivalries in the history of the game - his feuds with Korchnoi and Kasparov are legendary. In essence, Karpov played 74 games for the World Championship three times against Korchnoi over a period of seven years, and played Kasparov an incredible 144 times in five matches over six years. The only thing that comes close in the entire history of the game would be the La Bourdonnais – McDonnell  matches, but that series can 85 games in 1834 doesn't truly compare to the modern matches.

Thus a more controversial argument for people to argue with, both with facts & opinions. Have at it!



* Botvinnik didn't play hardly at all after winning the title, but after his close call in his defense against Bronstein in 1951 started playing more. We probably can't blame Smyslov or Tal for not playing much, as they held the title for only about a year each, and were busy preparing for the return match against Botvinnik. Still, the impression remains that world champion sightings at the board were somewhat rare until Karpov's reign.

** Is it possible to write about Capablanca without using the phrasing "the great Capablanca" at least once?

Bobby Fischer: Worst World Champion in the History of the Game

With all the hoopla surrounding the upcoming release of the movie Pawn Sacrifice (starring Tobey Maguire, who looks nothing at all like Fischer), I feel I may as well share my opinion that Bobby Fischer was the worst champion in the history of Chess.

Instead of going into great detail about it, I will restrict myself to two salient points.

First, as champion, he played ZERO games of chess. Fischer even surpassed Botvinnik who barely played at all in the years following his own title win, and at least Botvinnik showed up to play his duly appointed Challenger. Instead, with Fischer, we got years of drama, and no chess at all for 20 years. He then came out of retirement claiming to still be the champion, in order to cash in against Boris Spassky - again.

Second, Fischer's antics away from the board were appalling and couldn't help but taint the rest of us by association. Not completely, of course, but he certainly reinforced the stereotype that chess players are crazy. Thanks, Bobby!

I doubt this is a controversial opinion these days, and that's just sad.