By this time, Topalov had accepted Radja's challenge in principle.

FIDE which was the facilitator for both matches gave preference to the unification match for obvious reasons and decided to put Radja's challenge on hold.

I think you're right that no iron clad deal had been made with Radjabov. They had signed some kind of non-comittal Articles of Interest, or some such, but hadn't finalized a match. But FIDE had accepted his challenge, so something really should have come of it. He certainly should have been in line ahead of Topalov for match consideration, since Topalov had switched places with Kramnik, who had had no place in the cycle whatseover.

My feelings on Radjabov are sort of the inverse of your own on the Topalov-Anand match: the rule was in place and so the match "should have been" played, but I'm glad that it wasn't.

The whole "2700 challenger" rule was a potentially huge step in the wrong direction.

Chess is a mysterious game....>

The confusion would be complete if Topalov beats Anand.

"The transitivity law does not hold for chess. That is, if player A usually beats player B, and player B usually beats player C, it does not imply that player A usually beats player C. In fact, sometimes it’s quite the opposite." Natalia Pogonina.

Chess is a mysterious game....>

Not that mysterious, if you remember that it IS a game, rather than a scientific experiment. The difference being that you don't always get the same results. If you did, it would be impossible for Smyslov to beat Botvinnik by 3 points then lose by 2 a year later.

The idea of treating it as a scientific experiment seems to have originated with Fischer demanding that a challenger win by 2 points because a 1 point victory wasn't decisive enough (granted, Fischer wasn't the inventer of the concept, he's just the one who made it controversial, by forfeiting the world title over it).

Not that mysterious, if you remember that it IS a game, rather than a scientific experiment. The difference being that you don't always get the same results. If you did, it would be impossible for Smyslov to beat Botvinnik by 3 points then lose by 2 a year later.>

Of course I remember that it is a game, that's why I said "chess is a mysterious game" and not "chess is a mysterious scientific experiment."

The gist of your reply seems to be <The difference being that you don't always get the same results.> which is why I said what I said in the first place!

The problem is that it should be "Anand did not beat Kasparov... Kasparov did not beat Kramnik..." etc.>