Elsewhere on the Web : Where's Topalov?

Sunday August 19, 2007

The starting lineup for the 2007 World Chess Championship next month in Mexico City includes three of the world's top 5 players : world no.1 Viswanathan Anand, no.3 Vladimir Kramnik, and no.5 Alexander Morozevich. No.4 Vassily Ivanchuk was eliminated from the current cycle when he was knocked out by lower ranked Ivan Cheparinov in the second round of the 2005 World Cup qualifier, Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. But where is world no.2 Veselin Topalov?

FIDE World Champion Topalov

In October 2005, at San Luis, Argentina, Topalov won the 2005 FIDE World Championship, 1.5 points ahead of the runners-up, and was crowned FIDE World Champion. He and the next three players -- Anand, Morozevich, and Peter Svidler -- were seeded directly into the next eight player World Championship final scheduled for some time in 2007.

Not long after Topalov won the FIDE title, speculation began about a unification match between the Bulgarian and Kramnik, the non-FIDE World Champion. The match would heal a World Championship wound that had festered for more than a decade; for background, see The Schism: Two World Champions 1993-1996, and The Saga of Chess Unification 1994-2006.

Kramnik's backers soon issued a $1.4 million challenge from Kramnik, but Topalov turned it down. Insiders explained that Topalov could play 'only under the auspices of FIDE'.

A few months later FIDE published its terms for a match 'between the World Champion V. Topalov and a challenger who is either an ex-World champion or has a minimum FIDE rating of 2700'. A key clause in the regulations specified what would happen if the challenger won the match:

If the challenger wins the World Championship Match and becomes the new World Champion, then his previous status in the World Championship Cycle 2005-2007 passes to the loser of the World Championship Match. This would not be a replacement but a switch of status between the challenger and the World Champion. The winner of the World Championship Match shall be obliged to defend his title in the World Chess Championship Tournament 2007.

For more on the twists and turns of the story to this point, see Elsewhere on the Web, World Championship Unification, 14 January 2006.

The Unification Match

In April 2006, FIDE announced that the Topalov - Kramnik match would be held in September. Kramnik won the rancorous match, which saw allegations of cheating and made headlines around the world as 'Toiletgate'. Along with the unified title, Kramnik took Topalov's spot in the World Championship Tournament, Mexico. This meant that Topalov was now excluded from the FIDE championship cycle and would have to start the new cycle with 127 other players at the 2007 World Cup in December.

Invoking the same rule that FIDE had established to allow the challenge from Kramnik, Topalov issued his own challenge to Kramnik. FIDE rejected the challenge with the excuse that Topalov's bank guarantee was not acceptable to FIDE's Swiss bank. Topalov issued another challenge with a new guarantee.

This time FIDE rejected the challenge, because 'a challenge match must be concluded no later than six months before the start of the next World Championship Tournament in Mexico City' and the challenger 'would need to deposit the required sum of money involved into the FIDE bank account within 45 days before the commencement of the match'. Topalov had run out of time. Had he also run out of luck?

For the full story, see Elsewhere on the Web, World Championship News, 28 January 2007.

Topalov Saved

FIDE's official motto might be 'Gens Una Sumus', but its unofficial motto is 'keep them guessing'. In June, FIDE announced that Topalov would be given a special parachute into the 2007-2009 World Championship cycle.

If Kramnik retains his title in Mexico City, Topalov will play a match with Kramnik. The winner of that match will go on to play a title match in 2009 against the winner of the 2007 World Cup. • If Kramnik loses his title in Mexico City, he will play a match against the winner of Mexico. Topalov will play a match with the winner of the 2007 World Cup. The winners of those two matches will play for the title in 2009.

Clear? If not, see our report, FIDE - Topalov, Kramnik, World Cup, Grand Prix, 29 June 2007. The bottom line is that Topalov finally gets another crack at the title he lost to Kramnik.

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