Kamsky - Topalov Update

In FIDE Announcements: Grand Prix, Kamsky - Topalov, I neglected to mention that FIDE expressed a desire 'to improve the financial terms and conditions for both [Kamsky and Topalov]'. At the time, it looked to me like window dressing. Following up on that story, I've seen at least two attempts to improve the match conditions.

• USCF Seeks Sponsor for Kamsky-Topalov Match • 'The United States Chess Federation is seeking a sponsor to enable a bid for the World Championship semi-final match between GM Gata Kamsky of Brooklyn, NY and GM and former World Champion Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria.' [3 March 2008; uschess.org]
  
  
• Kamsky - Topalov in Lviv? • 'Alexander Chernenko, Gata Kamsky's manager, claims in an interview with Russian "Sport Express" that match Kamsky-Topalov will take place in Lviv, Ukraine, for a prize fund "several times bigger" than 250.000 USD offered from Bulgarian sponsors.' [Like much of Chessdom.com's 'news', the story is undated. A Google date search places the story on 16 March 2008.]

***

Kamsky's own fund raising site ran an interesting piece by his father: To the American chess fans: The hidden chess war, how KGB influenced the world of chess and politics thru advertising and press by Roustam Kamsky. The article contained opinions from the Kamsky team about past World Championship events.

On the 1989 GMA Qualifier:-

In 1989 Gata, only 15 years old, wins 2-nd place in Palma de Mayorka, competing against 160 grandmasters from around the world. That qualified him to play in world championship qualifier held in Moscow but Kamsky was not invited.

On the 1994 FIDE & PCA parallel cycles:-

1994 PCA, headed by Kasparov, intentionally schedules the PCA semi-final qualifying world championship Kamsky – Anand match held in Spain within a week of finishing FIDE’s semi-final qualifying world championship Kamsky –Salov match, held in India.

On the 1996 FIDE title match:-

In 1995 was the year when the Kamsky-Karpov match was scheduled for but Karpov delayed the match for one year using his powers as the world champion. In the mean time USCF consuming donations from abroad did not react to adequately protect no sponsor Gata Kamsky in his preparations against Karpov.

On the 2006 Unification match:-

In 2006 Russian FIDE president nominates without any selection Russian grandmaster Kramnik as a champion to play a reunification match against Topalov in Russia.

On the 2007 Mexico City title tournament:-

Kramnik was given unexplainable favor against interest of other strongest world chess players when in 2008 Kramnik was allowed to play against Anand after he lost his title in Mexico City in 2007. [...] Then to keep Topalov quiet FIDE allowed him to play against the winner the 2007 World Cup.

If you believe all of this, Russian agents have been at the center of a world chess conspiracy during Kamsky's entire career.

2008-2009 Grand Prix (Details)

For easier reference, I added info from FIDE Grand Prix. Participants, host cities, schedule (dated 2008-03-05) to my World Chess Championship page on the 2008-2009 Grand Prix. Although this is easier to access than opening FIDE's two PDF files, it would be even easier as a text table.

2008-2009 Grand Prix

FIDE announced the players and venues for its first Grand Prix series: FIDE Grand Prix. Participants, host cities, schedule. Five of the world's top-10 players are missing -- no.1/2 Kramnik & Anand, no.3 Topalov, no.4 Morozevich, and no.7 Shirov -- although only Morozevich has explained why: Morozevich drops out of FIDE Grand Prix. One of those first three will emerge from the current cycle (2007-2009) as World Champion, but the other two will be missing from the next cycle unless they choose to play in the 2009 World Cup.

FIDE had offered to seed the losers of both the forthcoming Anand - Kramnik title match and the Topalov - Kamsky challengers' match into the last four Grand Prix events, but only Kamsky picked up the option. The loser of the subsequent title match in early 2009 would have been out of luck in any case, forced to fall back on the 2009 World Cup to stay in the cycle.

For informed commentary on the event, see FIDE Grand Prix Announced, and Morozevich Bails on FIDE Grand Prix on Chessninja.com. I opened a page on my World Chess Championship site, 2008-2009 Grand Prix, but it has only links to the recent FIDE announcements.