Unclear. This article

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail...

claims that they signed a "memorandum", but it isn't clear exactly what that means.

For all his complaints about being victimized, Topalov has actually been the recipient of some pretty heavy-duty special priviliges, of the kind normally given only to people like Karpov and Fischer. But it seems to be standard procedure for Danailov to try to paint his priviliges as hardships, and complain about them. Before this match, for example, he was talking about what a hardship it was to have to play on one's home turf (!).

LOL, except for the match with Kamsky what other priviliges has Topalov been granted? Do I need to list the gifts Kramnik has received over the last 10 years?

Even if that were the only one, it would be pretty big. But there's also nearly breaking up the 2006 match with improper public charges and getting a slap on the wrist (though it looks like Shak is about to get away with a similar offense without even the slap).

Accusing the FIDE President, in print, of complicity in a cheating scheme, while maybe not that outrageous given Kirsan's (ahem) sterling character, is still not the kind of thing that just anybody could get away with.

Getting to keep the Game 5 forfeit by threatening a walkout was not only a privilige, but a shock to many people. The night beforehand, a lot of his fans were saying that a fighter like Topalov wouldn't even want a free point handed to him.

You ask Nigel Short if Kamsky is a good person. In one interview he says Kamsky is like a "ex gang member who only recently is trying to clear his name off".

1. The next time I care what Nigel Short thinks will be the first.

2. At least Kamsky broke free of his father. When Topalov does the same with his own Svengali, I'll respect him as a person. Until then, I shall continue to dislike him, thank you very much.

<SniperOnG7>

<It was actually a very close match. It was a bit surprising for me that Topalov beat Kamsky basically on confidence. We all expected Topalov, if he were to win, to crush Kamsky in the openings, and I personally felt that if Kamsky survives the opening phase then he is not really such an underdog. I respect him very much as a chess player. He is very tenacious, he can play long games - he doesn’t care about long games - which is important against Topalov, because Topalov likes and can handle long games himself, so in general stamina is important against him. I felt that if somehow openings were removed from the equation, I thought it would be a very even match.

But for whatever reason - and I have seen some snippets of interviews and remarks by Sutovsky who felt that Gata was in terrible shape chesswise - it looked like Kamsky didn't trust himself. He is always in time trouble, but if you get into time troubles like this in a world championship match it probably means that you are triple checking everything. You don’t trust your decisions, you feel you need to check and recheck and recheck everything. In game one when facing this novelty - and I was very surprised that this was a novelty for him, because this is a critical line and he should have checked everything - after running into something unpleasant he spent an hour at the board and he played a move which could possibly be the best move in the position - he even had winning chances - and I thought, this is interesting!

And then game two happened, and game two you really cannot explain. The guy plays a rare line of the Spanish, and for me Topalov's decision to play the Spanish against Kamsky to me looked like madness, because Topalov is a born Sicilian player, and Kamsky isn't. If you have Sicilian as an option, why would you choose not to play the Sicilian against Kamsky? Especially for someone like Topalov, who has years of experience with the Sicilian, and who is now probably one of the best Sicilian players in the world, with both colours, why would he want to play closed positions against Kamsky, who is very good at closed positions, I will never know. But he plays the Spanish, and then instead of taking a break and reconsidering, he takes risks and loses badly. It looks like the match is over, because this is a huge loss. But then he does well in game three and he wins game four - Spanish again.

And then the time troubles return. Even after losing the fifth and drawing the sixth Kamsky was very close to winning the seventh, with black. But time management and - Sutovsky was probably correct in saying - terrible form is what decided the match. I think Topalov deserved to win it because he was the more confident player. Plus two in seven games looks like a rout, like a crushing victory, but it was basically a very even match with two games completely ruined by time trouble. We all thought Topalov was the favourite, but how he won was a bit surprising. I expected him to win most of his white games, which he didn't. The two he did win, one he won in time trouble after two blunders in a row, and game seven he was lost. So he won them not because he was white but because he was more confident, less in time trouble and not the last one to blunder.> (http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail...)