The very top players naturally know of the chancy nature of the World Cup. They know quite well that an unlucky break, even in the first mini-match, will knock them out without giving them a chance to recover. Any one, including Carlsen, Aronian, and Kramnik can lose an 'unlucky' game; and if this happens say in the first mini-match with the white pieces, all their opponent has to do is to channel the second game into drawish opening variations. In a round robin or Swiss qualifier, they can recover from an early loss.

This reasoning, and past experience with this format, probably led them to skip the World Cup. FIDE, whose governing body is populated by astute politicians, probably would have seen that a Candidates without all of the above three would inevitably result in a Challenger with no credibility in the eyes of most chess fans, and so provided an alternate route by seeding the top rated players directly into the Candidates.

Personally I would like to see everyone earn their berths in the Candidates through OTB battle in a qualifier, but this assumes that the qualifiers are fair and credible. Thus while FIDE insists on the World Cup as a qualifier, I have no problems with directly seeding the top 3 in the rating list into the Candidates.

I must disagree on this one point. I think it's great that the rating system is finally being used for the candidates, and I think its a shame that this wasn't done decades earlier. What fan wanted to see someone like Tal, who was tied for second in the world rankings, excluded from the 1974 candidates because of a bad interzonal tournament, which, incidentally, followed an 86 game unbeaten streak? Meanwhile another player, after a series of relatively mediocre results, finishes *third* in *one* tournament, and suddenly they have a place in the candidates at the expense of someone who is ranked second in the world?

I believe Gelfand was not on board and thus the proposal was never submitted.>

Correct.

Sutovsky talked about it in an interview that was published on chess-news.ru. I have only seen references to the interview, and I don't know if there exists a decent translation in English, but this page evidently has a google-translation:

http://pakchess.org/hot-stories/emi...

On the other hand you do have good points. If Gelfand and a few others are exceptions, then most players' performances mostly stays the same whether in the WC cycle or in 'ordinary' competitive events. In such case, then ratings IMO may justify seeding into the Candidates.

In the latter case, every classical chess event that a chess player competes in, given that it is rated and given that ratings are a criteria for qualifying into the Candidates, becomes to a certain degree a qualifier too.

I recall that Kramnik seemed to have had put in extra effort in London 2011. Before the start of that tournament, his place in the Candidates was not yet certain. However, by putting up a tremendous performance in London, he would be able to raise his rating to such a degree as to ensure qualification. In effect, London 2011 may have been regarded by Kramnik as an event similar to that of an Interzonal. Thus we saw there what a highly motivated Kramnik can do.

Some 'caveats' in using ratings as a criterion for qualification.

1. From my profile: <Chessplayers are naturally arranged in populations partitioned by geopolitical regions & time periods that have infrequent contacts with one another. Within such a population, players get to play each other more frequently, thus forming a quasi-equilibrium group wherein individual ratings would tend to equilibrate quickly; but not with outside groups. With caveats & in the proper context, FIDE/Elo ratings are simply fallible descriptors & predictors of an active player's near-past & near-future performances against other rated players, & only within the same quasi-equilibrium group. As corollaries: the best way to evaluate a player's strength is to analyze his games & not his ratings; one cannot use ratings to accurately compare the quality of play of players from the past and present, or even the same player say a decade ago and today; & care should be taken in the use of ratings as a criterion in choosing which players to seed into the upper levels of the WC cycle. All the above often entail comparisons between players from different quasi-equilibrium groups separated by space and/or time.>

2. As I have mentioned above <some players perform differently when they are in the WC cycle than outside it.>

3. It has not happened yet, but in the future a player might theoretically be able to use the rating system to cheat his way into the Candidates. For example, a strong Eastern European national championship is held just before the rating criterion is used to seed players into the Candidates. A 2700s player who is in 'only' top ten may approach his countrymen and convince them to allow him draws whenever he is losing. The result is that he gains a lot of rating points and thus qualifies into the Candidates.

Perhaps the most politically accommodating way is to do what FIDE just did- allow 4 routes into the Candidates. 1. Three qualify from the World Cup. 2. Three qualify from ratings. 3. Loser of the previous WC match qualifies. 4. Wild card in order to satisfy the sponsors.

No one seems to be complaining about the make-up of the upcoming Candidates- Carlsen, Aronian, Kramnik, Radjabov, Ivanchuk, Grischuk, Svidler, Gelfand. Officials inside FIDE seem to be making the politically right moves after all.

1. The top 20 players in the world have regular contact with each other. They certainly don't play in events based on "geopolitical regions." And given that we're taking about players <at the same time>, I have no idea what time periods have to do with selecting participants in the Candidates.

2. I find this claim debatable. It's not that some players play inherently better chess in the WC cycle, but rather that they put more effort into WC cycle events. Surely, making all tournaments indirectly part of the WC cycle and forcing them to constantly put in that same effort can only be good for chess.

3. Game fixing would be a problem no matter what the format. For example, players could donate half points in an Interzonal instead, with the same effect. We can only trust that there will be sufficient oversight to prevent this from happening.

That said, I agree that the system for the upcoming cycle is not bad at all. In my mind, any method of selecting the Candidates must satisfy two main criteria:

1. It must ensure that players recognized as the best in the world are included. 2. It must be open, such that everyone in the world has a chance to qualify.

Requirement number 1 is satisfied by selecting players by rating, while requirement number 2 is satisfied by also including the top finishers from the World Cup. Personally, I might be inclined to change the balance between the two a little bit (say, top 4 by rating and top 2 World Cup finishers), but I think it's a more or less satisfactory system as is.

Of course, one of the players might have under/overestimated his edge...but certainly one of the players was wrong to play for a tie, if that's indeed what they were both doing.

Oh, and I don't think there's a truly "democratic" means of selecting a challenger. It's unfair to say that ratings don't matter; although they're not the last word, they do reflect results. Effectively, a player ranked in the top 10 has "earned" his/her place via long-term results, as opposed to a victory in one tournament (arguably, the former is more impressive).

1. The qualifier was silly.

2. There are a number of GMs who are stronger than the challenger.

3. Overall, the match games were short, boring, and insipid.

Well after <nearly two decades> there was at least a proper qualifier for WCC with fair chance for everyone. Nobody would claim it was perfect. But, that it was definitely better than handpicking the challenger (a la kaparov-Shirov-Kramnik episode). In any case there is always something to complain about. The next qualifier is a candidates <tournament>. How do people like that for deciding challenger for the world championship <match>.

<2. There are a number of GMs who are stronger than the challenger.>

And that is what we call assuming the quod that has to be demonstrandum'd. Or begging the question, if we prefer to English our Latin.

<But, that it was definitely better than handpicking the challenger (a la kaparov-Shirov-Kramnik episode). >

Not much of a standard of comparison. Even so, Kramnik was a better challenger than Gelfand.

<And the fact that they either failed or ran away from the qualifier?>

And the fact that the qualifier was little better than a coin flip? I'm not going to criticize anyone for losing or running away from a coin flip.

<Why is this so difficult to understand?>