New World Championship Cycle

The FIDE explanation of the new World Championship cycle is not a model of clarity...

Tallinn Presidential Board Maps New World Chess Championship Cycle
http://www.fide.com/news.asp?id=1388

...The portion of the qualification path relevant to the current cycle (culminating in the Mexico 2007 tournament) and the next cycle (culminating in a 2009 match) is shown in the following diagram.

A couple of important points:-

• The winner of Mexico 2007 becomes the next World Champion (the event should have been shown in yellow).
  
  
• The two qualifying events in 2008 for the 2009 match depend on Kramnik's result in Mexico. This is not shown in the diagram and was not explained well in the accompanying text.

If Kramnik loses in Mexico, there will be two qualification matches:-

• Kramnik vs. winner Mexico
  
• Topalov vs. winner World Cup

The winners of the two matches will meet in the 2009 World Championship match.

If Kramnik wins in Mexico, there will be one qualification match:-

• Kramnik vs. Topalov
  
• Winner World Cup is direct seed

The winner of the Kramnik vs. Topalov match will meet the winner of the World Cup in the 2009 World Championship match.

***

This is all, of course, subject to change. If it holds up, the following cycle (culminating in a 2010 match) is a model for subsequent cyles.

2007 Candidate Matches - Update and Logo

I updated my page on the 2007 Candidates Matches to record the match results and PGN game scores. I wanted to add the logo for the matches, but it's not clear what the official logo was. Both of the logos in the following image were used. Neither is particularly interesting.

The logo in the upper image, used on the playing stage and the player's cards, can be seen in many images from the FIDE site, e.g. Rd 2 Game 1. I couldn't find a nice copy of it, so I cropped one of the FIDE photos. Apologies for its low quality; it was the best I could find.

The logo in the lower image was used on the official site, Globalchess.eu, and on the Chessbase.com site starting with their report Arrival in Elista. It's also not clear if the horse head was designed only for the candidate matches, or will be used for future World Championship events.

Chessbase Interview with Kramnik

Interview with Vladimir Kramnik (end-April; video and transcription) by Frederic Friedel:

• Part 1
  
• Part 2
  
• Part 3
  
• Part 4

2007 FIDE Candidate Matches

I'm keeping track of the Candidate Matches in two places.

2007 FIDE Candidate Matches [About Chess; see also link to ChessChrono]
http://chess.about.com/b/a/257430.htm

Candidate Matches 2007 [Forum]
http://forums.about.com/ab-chess/messages?lgnF=y&msg=2997.1

***

I also added a sidebar link to Globalchess.eu. This is the domain of the Amsterdam outfit that is taking responsibilty for World Championship events, as documented on my previous post Global Chess BV. The domain name was registered only a few days before the matches began, and the pairings for round two of the matches haven't been announced on the site, although they start today. Teething problems?