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.