🚀 go-pugleaf

Although I think the new rules are not *as* rigged as they may look like,
I still feel they are unnecessarily pro-champion, whoever the champion
happens to be.  

Please, notice first that I agree with limiting the number of games to 
reasonable number (24 looks good).  Maybe Kasparov's idea of extending 
the match by 6 more games in the event of a tie at 24 could be considered,
but doesn't seem really necessary.  Also, I agree with the champion 
remaining in the title if the match is a tie.  (I seem to recall that 
Lasker-Schlechter ended up something like +1 =10 -1 for both players,
mainly due to Schlechter's superb play-for-a-draw skill.)

However, I disagree with the "rematch" clause.  For instance:

From article <369@ssc-bee.UUCP> (ditzel@ssc-bee.UUCP (Charles L Ditzel)):
>
>
>+ The champion gets a rematch in the event he loses.  This happened in
>  Botvinnik-Tal World Championship matches (again two Soviet chess
>  players).  First Tal defeated Botvinnik ,  Botvinnik got his rematch
>  a year later and defeated Tal.  First I think the fact that in this
>  case were Botvinnik defeats Tal in the rematch suggests that Tal was
>  not stronger than Botvinnik and Tal didn't deserve the world champion-
>  ship.  So  basically the champion has a second try,  why not!
>  1) it should make for more exciting chess - as it did in both Tal-
>  Botvinnik matches, and 2) the world champion is given a chance to
>  redeem his previous performance.
>

Why not make the challenger have also another chance?   And the champion
yet another ... and another ...  I think it's ridiculously close to the 
"Fights of the Century" we get from the heavyweights every few months.  Either
the match is "decisive" (even a tie is) or is not.  I think that the champion
has enough ways to redeem himself of a bad performance:  for instance, the loser
gets seeded far up in the next round, so he'll get a second chance (not for 
free) in very short order.

>+ Finally the last point made in the previous article about the
>  changes made in Tunisia regarding one large tournament.  I tend to
>  agree that it makes things easier for the Soviet players...however
>  I don't think you will see easy draws between them as this cuts in-
>  to their point totals.  There are some very strong players who will
>  NOT take easy draws and who have good chances and are not Soviet GMs.
>  Yasser Seirawan has defeated Karpov, Spassky, Larsen, Korchnoi...need
>  i say more...? If the soviets draw against each other and fall to
>  Yasser or some of the other strong players their chances are lessened.
>  The idea of a the current tournament is not easy on the players but
>  I tend to like it...I view it as another Interzonal, only among the
>  world championship candidates.
>

Although the collusion theory is more Fischer-derived paranoia than 
substance, I feel that you are missing the point here.  A tournament with
only *3* players is not a "large" tournament.  If players {A, B} 
fix things among themselves to exclude player C, they may go to a more
drastic algorithm than just drawing: B plays to lose his 2 games with A,
then goes for at least half a point on C.  Not that C cannot pass through
if he's better than both of {A, B}, but now is harder: two draws with black
and he may be out.  Think of it as if {A, B} were a single player that
starts with a half point advantage over C, in spite that A, B and C are roughly
equally strong.

Enough for now.
-- 
Cesar Augusto  Quiroz Gonzalez

Department of Computer Science     {allegra|seismo}!rochester!quiroz
University of Rochester            or
Rochester,  NY 14627               quiroz@ROCHESTER