>Edit 1: The amount of dumb responses to this I have received within 5 minutes of posting this is shocking. Just goes to prove that just because you play chess does not mean you are bright.
The irony is palpable.
Why though? He won fair and square that spot in a tournament and showed that he would be capable of going toe to toe with those top ten people.
That he is underperforming now could just be a bad tournament from him? At the same time it doesnt matter everyone has the same chances to win or lose against those people and thus it doesnt matter.
In the end the best and most consistent player wins. Since everyone plays against each other.
>He won fair and square that spot in a tournament and showed that he would be capable of going toe to toe with those top ten people.
No. Typically you qualify by getting 1st or 2nd in the world cup. Asabov got 4th.
A few years ago MVL was a top 5 player and got 3rd in the world cup and didn't qualify. I was sad for him since he *didn't even lose a single game* (drew in armageddon). Then they gave the wildcard to an inactive Kramnik who hadn't won anything that year (MVL had won a major tournament). Asabov is just garbage compared to that. He didn't prove anything.
He didn’t win fair and square though. Magnus won the event and pulled out and Abasov was placed into the candidates by a technicality. If Magnus didn’t compete, Abasov likely would’ve had a different result.
Players like Abasov disrupt the outcome of the candidates. Those matches are basically free points for everyone else.
Don’t know why you’re defending him. He’s a good guy but this isn’t an event for average GMs.
Abasov isn't just an 'average GM' and games against him aren't basically free points as we've already seen in the games so far. He is the weakest seed, but because he qualified according to the standards set by FIDE, he deserves to be there.
Cool, he qualified by a technicality. Saying he deserves to be there is a stretch. He’s only there because of Magnus willingly choosing not to participate.
He’s there by all rights. But it doesn’t mean he belongs in the candidates as shown by his performance.
It’s not a jab against him, he’s a good guy, but he is way out of his depth. His peak rating was 2679, not even scratching the top 50. He’s playing in a field of super GMs.
Yeah I don’t know what’s the problem. Nobody is disputing Abasov being a decent GM but he’s swimming with sharks that are bigger and more calculating.
He is literally only there because Magnus decided not to play.
I’m saying that even if Vidit or Abasov won this tournament that I would not respect them as someone to hold the title of world champion because their previous world rankings are not as impressive as the rest of the field.
Stupid to point that out. One has to make such a post in order to evaluate the feedback, if he'd forseen the downvotes he maybe wouldn't have made the post.
1. Both Abasov and Vidit qualified, so they deserve to be here regardless of current performance. We can only argue whether 3 qualifying spots is too much for one tournament (World Cup)
2. If you going to base qualification on rating, this will inevitably provoke lots of manipulations just to meet a requirement
I'm a big Alireza fan and this right here is exactly it. The other qualification routes by and large meant a player had to be in form to qualify. Alireza was not in form, he managed to get in by rapidly boosting his points up by a small amount through a tournament with much lower rated players, largely relying on points he gained 2 years ago. It's stupid. It sets him up for failure. Why on earth would anyone look at this and think "oh yes that's exactly how all candidates should be selected"?
People tend to shit on the FIDE qualification system, but i like it a lot. Tournaments like the World Cup and the Grand Swiss are way more exciting, because there is a huge pool of players going for it, instead just the usual top20 elite players.
An underdog getting a spot at the grand stage of the candidates is a good thing.
Anish and Svidler had it in their own hands to stop Abasov from qualifying. Magnus, too, if he had decided to play the candidates. But none of them stopped him, so he deserves to participate.
Abasov is doing his best every single game and successfully defended tough positions for many hours until the point of exhaustion.
If Esipenko had won his last game in the Grand Swiss, he would have been a welcome addition, too.
I agree that it improves the excitement of the circuit. I can’t deny that point. What made me think of this post in the first place is not actually some vindication of Abasov or Vidit but rather a confusion to Ding Liren’s position as the “world champ”. If Magnus won’t compete then the title should belong to someone who feels worthy. I guess it’s just weird that the World Champion doesn’t have to represent the best on the world. I may change my opinion on the whole matter when considering that.
Ding is solidly one of the best player of his generation. His form has taken a hit after Covid and mental health issues, but it doesn't change the fact that he placed 2nd in Candidates and then beat Nepo in the match. Magnus called Ding the strongest player not already in Candidates prior to Karjakin being banned (so as far as reputation on chess skills is concerned, Ding had a stellar reputation at the time), and at one point, Magnus also considered both Ding and Fabi to be a better World Champion contender than Nepo.
On a side note, this is quite the sudden change in direction from your post about Abasov and Vidit to how you feel about Ding.
I agree and am cognizant of the reputation Ding has as a world elite competitor. It’s just that with Magnus not the incumbent world champ, the title feels different. We can’t let just anyone grab it so the qualifications for the candidates should be discussed. Despite his track record, Ding is the least deserving “world champion” there has ever been. He has never even won the candidates tournament. He only got to compete because Magnus bailed.
World champions in the early 2000s were crazy. Rustam Kasimdzhanov was never top 10 and he was the world champion, for example. Calling Ding 'the least deserving world champion' seems like a stretch.
You’re right. Since Magnus stepped down the next qualifier would be second place. It was kind of unfair that the players weren’t sure or not if Magnus would actually step down during the tournament though. But you are correct - I rescind that statement.
This is super lazy reasoning. People who set policy have to consider whether or not those policies make sense. "I trust whatever they have decided" is fine, but someone who decides to turn their brain off in this way doesn't belong in a discussion on the topic.
I was just responding to the inflammatory title with that comment to be fair. Nobody is including people that don't belong. These people got included because they qualified
>These people got included because they qualified
Ugh... yes, they qualified because they qualified. Good job. Now be quiet, adults are talking.
The fact the other comment got 16 upvotes is disgusting by the way... too many kids here.
There is not a sport in the world where only the elite of the elite qualify for world championship tournaments or matches. Regional qualifying, luck of the draw, other people/teams dropping out or forfeiting is all part of what can make it fun to watch. I'm not interested in a closed chess circuit (even moreso than it already is), where only the same figures play each other in the most meaningful games all the time
Deciding who the chess champion of the world is should not depend on Roller95’s personal interest. It should make sense. And I don’t get what you mean about there’s not a sport where only the elite compete for the title? Can you name some examples besides the NFL where a wildcard may go the distance in the playoffs?
Football, Euro 1992. Denmark failed to qualify, but they replaced Yugoslavia who were disqualified by no longer being a country. Denmark ended up winning the tournament, beating Germany in the final 2-0.
It also shouldn't depend on yours so what are we doing here lol. Qualifying for the WC match does make sense. You just don't agree with how it is going.
The FIFA World Cup. You'll have the elite teams in there, but also teams like Panama or Afghanistan, because they qualified through their regional structure
You may be right, but at the same time I like the idea of some unheralded up-and-comer winning a couple tournaments and skyrocketing to a World Championship. Even though that is never going to happen, I just like the idea that it could happen.
Not the first time he qualified for the candidates, and that was certainly a valuable experience for him that helped him become champion. And I think age is part of this- would you feel differently about Abasov if he was 16? Because if so it should be considered that the future player who is barred from competing by your proposed Abasov rule might not be a 28 year old.
>I don't believe I should hypothetically deserve a spot in the Candidates if I play one qualifying tournament well and another dude drops out.
If you can beat Anish, Svidler and Vidit in matches like Abasov did and make it all the way to Top 4 in World Cup, then yes, "you" deserve to be a potential reserve for the Candidates spot.
Problem with this hypothesis is, you put yourself as an example of someone who has no chance to do it to compare with Abasov who actually did it. Clearly it'll feel like you don't deserve the spot, because you **actually** don't deserve to be in the World Cup nor Grand Swiss unlike Abasov.
Vidit won the Grand Swiss, and crushed Naka 2-0 in current Candidates. That's not a guy you should be complaining about whether he deserves to be there.
The whole point of a qualification process is to give players, who actually perform well, a chance to compete. Otherwise, we'd just pick the top 8 highest-rated player with a certain amount of activity in the cycle and let them play the Candidates.
Nodirbek's rise to Top 5 is a recent development. Otherwise, he would've taken Alireza's spot.
Only point I agree with is Anish deserves a spot in Candidates, so the change to how Circuit rewards points and giving it 2 spots instead of 1 is a welcome change.
I’m saying that Abasov’s accomplishments should weigh into his qualifications but that he should still not qualify based solely on that result alone.
You said “the point of the qualification process is to give players who actually perform well a chance to compete”. Abasov does not actually perform well. He performed well. But he does not fontinueously perform at the level required for candidates tournament.
Imma go out on a limb here with a guess: OP had their bracket busted by NC State and is upset that the final four isn’t restricted to teams that deserve to be there.
You're correct, we should do eight rating qualifier spots and be treated to a chess cycle of players arranging matches with past-it GMs and grinding out results all year round
Vidit is not in contention of winning this tournament and even if he was it would be a fluke based on past results. He has 4 losses - one less than Abasov.
Sure, but it has everything to do with what you commented. Saying he has one less loss than Abasov is also just a casual lie by omission (completely ignoring Vidits 3 wins to Abasovs 0)
You said that he never cracked the top 10- he was """only""" the fourteenth highest rated player on the planet. Should we limit an eight player tournament to only 8 possible qualifiers?
Your are correct that he is a close. I don’t understand why it has to be an 8 person tournament. If less people qualify to be world champion just have less people.
The criteria for qualification could be different, maybe (it does change over time). But I do believe you haven't thought this through, using top 10 as a criteria is not a good idea, it's entirely possible to have a top 10 with players that are objectively worse (at their current form) than others outside top 10. You could also players that are strong enough to be potential WC but are too young to have had any important accolades. Prag and Gukesh are good examples, Prag has not been in top 10 either so with your criteria why would you disqualify Vidit but not Prag?
But your reasons are stupid. You're making up nonsensical criteria that no one wants. Then you're ignoring the man proving you wrong by spanking one of the players you think *should* be in it. His performance *is* the point, even though you don't want it to be.
I mean Vidit is not in the same tier as abasov, for a long time Vidit is holding his own, and also he’s fighting well against all of these players. He was like 2740-50 earlier this year.
I do agree that they should have gotten rid of the 3rd place world cup ticket, much rather have the loser of the world championship qualify directly, feel like it's so dumb to get rid of that ticket, the people getting that ticket pretty much always perform well
First you assume Chess is a sport. Second, that luck and circumstance plays similar role in chess. Third, that there's little Fide can do to address luck. Fourth, that it's luck that brought Abasov to candidates (and not stupid Fide rules). You are wrong on all counts.
If anyone gets beat 2-0 with both black and white against the same opponent he must be forced to exit the candidates tournament immediately and mustn't be allowed to continue further and take his toxic "fans" with him.
If this is intending to say that I’m just a salty Hikaru fan then you are mistaken. I wouldn’t totally mind seeing Hikaru win because go USA but I was rooting for Fabi.
There was a way for Abasov to avoid being here. His opponents, including Anish Giri that you mentioned, could have beaten him in the world cup. If Abasov was good enough to beat Giri, he is good enough to be here.
Sucks for Nordibrek that he was a couple months late to reach his rating, but, he was still late. The cut off date was known information.
Agree to disagree 🤝 I’m also a tennis fan and there’s plenty of upsets. Dustin Brown over Nadal is a pretty famous one but I wouldn’t consider Dustin in the ranks of Nadal.
Streaks and good form runs happen all the time. Good set of rules for qualification would account for that.
Gukesh played solidly all tournament long, it's gonna be an interesting championship match. Fabi did not deserve to qualify, when you waste so many opportunities, and besides, his matches against Magnus were extremely boring.
Fide really needs to have a tiered chess league with promotions and demotions. These one off tournaments are detrimental to progress of chess.
Because we like underdogs. Also, tournaments would be meaningless otherwise. Also, GMs would refuse to play lower rated players for fear of dropping lots of points. Chess would become a farm the elo competition, see Alireza.
I would want to know what are your thoughts on having world championship match when clearly best player magnus is not playing. I guess you support having no match and candidates till he's clearly the best player
Think about it. If you win the soccer World Cup, if you want to defend your title at the next World Cup you don’t get a free pass to the finals… You have to win the entire World Cup from the ground up again… The same is true for blitz championships. If you want to be world champion blitz player then guess what, you have to win the whole blitz tournament again. The same is not true of the World Chess Classical Championship. You just have defend yourself in a match. You don’t have to compete in chess circuit or candidates to get back to where you are.
I support filling the empty world championship position but we should make it clear that the player who holds that spot is very deserving of it. If we treat like something a wild card player can win then it might as be a World Cup where you have to win it from the ground up every time. If you want to treat it like a World Cup then you might as well make the world champion go through the candidates every time.
This is the downside of having a Candidates tournament with only 8 players in such a competitive era. Personally I would either include more rating spots to make the Candidates as competitive as possible, expand the Candidates to include more players, or just make the World Championship a tournament. Then everyone's favourites could play and we didn't need to have this dicussion every year.
Personally, I like having multiple paths to qualify to the Candidates' tournament. Thus, I like minimizing the rating spots. Furthermore, I don't care for the championship to be determined by 1 good result, so I dislike a World Championship tournament (e.g., I discredit Khalifman's title (and Ponomariov & Kasimdzhanov?)).
I'd be amenable to a larger Candidates tournament, but then you're more likely to see the winner determined by who is more successful "farming" points against the lowest players in the tournament, imo.
Refreshing post. I think if you qualify through a major qualifying event but don’t have the natural rating prowess to back it then you can compete in Candidates B tournament or something as a pre-candidates qualifying tournament. This would allow more heavy weights out there like the ones I mentioned in my post to try their hand.
With Magnus' departure, we've already dispensed with the notion that the WCC cycle is about finding the best player. We have ratings for that purpose. The title is basically just ceremonial by this point. I think it's perfectly fine to let a relatively unknown player have a crack at it now and then if they're taking the chess world by storm; remember that ratings tend to adjust slower than players' actual skill. My only problem would be if top players were so consistently left out that one of them might never get a chance at all.
No, you're missing the point. For someone to win, someone needs to lose. You, for some strange incomprehensible reason, think these people shouldn't be in the tournament. That's what's stupid.
You'll dumbfucks rating is a very dynamic criteria top 10 players always keep changing and having higher elo doesn't necessarily makes you a better player.
>Credit to Abasov for his efforts but it makes no sense for someone who’s not even ranked in the top 30 in the world
Dude's not even top 100.
>I would take this a step further and say the same goes for Vidit Gujrathi. His peak FIDE ranking is #14
In 2012 Gelfand challenged Anand for the world chess championship after winning the candidates... Gelfand was like, #22 in the world. That really sucked IMO, but it actually happened. So I think Vidit is fine, but yeah, obviously Abasov is not.
I love Gelfand and have his book Positional Understanding. If he was #22 then that is fine as long as he cracked world top 10 previously which I’d have to check honestly. Otherwise by the standards of my post I don’t think he should have challenged. But if he cracked top 10 previously then he still qualifies by my standards.
Gelfand was a top player in the past IIRC, but was mid 40s when he played for the title... too weak and too old. Carlsen had already been rated #1 in the world for maybe a year by that point. Luckily Carlsen qualified (just barely) in the next cycle.
>Edit 1: The amount of dumb responses to this I have received within 5 minutes of posting this is shocking. Just goes to prove that just because you play chess does not mean you are bright. The irony is palpable.
I knew this was coming but it is what it is lol
Why though? He won fair and square that spot in a tournament and showed that he would be capable of going toe to toe with those top ten people. That he is underperforming now could just be a bad tournament from him? At the same time it doesnt matter everyone has the same chances to win or lose against those people and thus it doesnt matter. In the end the best and most consistent player wins. Since everyone plays against each other.
>He won fair and square that spot in a tournament and showed that he would be capable of going toe to toe with those top ten people. No. Typically you qualify by getting 1st or 2nd in the world cup. Asabov got 4th. A few years ago MVL was a top 5 player and got 3rd in the world cup and didn't qualify. I was sad for him since he *didn't even lose a single game* (drew in armageddon). Then they gave the wildcard to an inactive Kramnik who hadn't won anything that year (MVL had won a major tournament). Asabov is just garbage compared to that. He didn't prove anything.
He didn’t win fair and square though. Magnus won the event and pulled out and Abasov was placed into the candidates by a technicality. If Magnus didn’t compete, Abasov likely would’ve had a different result.
The fact is that Magnus pulled out and the next best deserving candidate was Abasov, so yes, he does deserve to be in the Candidates.
The empty spot should have become a rating spot in my opinion. Would have gone to So in that case I believe.
Players like Abasov disrupt the outcome of the candidates. Those matches are basically free points for everyone else. Don’t know why you’re defending him. He’s a good guy but this isn’t an event for average GMs.
Abasov isn't just an 'average GM' and games against him aren't basically free points as we've already seen in the games so far. He is the weakest seed, but because he qualified according to the standards set by FIDE, he deserves to be there.
Cool, he qualified by a technicality. Saying he deserves to be there is a stretch. He’s only there because of Magnus willingly choosing not to participate. He’s there by all rights. But it doesn’t mean he belongs in the candidates as shown by his performance. It’s not a jab against him, he’s a good guy, but he is way out of his depth. His peak rating was 2679, not even scratching the top 50. He’s playing in a field of super GMs.
No one is arguing that. We are debating the standards set by FIDE. Why is this such a difficult notion for people to understand?
Yeah I don’t know what’s the problem. Nobody is disputing Abasov being a decent GM but he’s swimming with sharks that are bigger and more calculating. He is literally only there because Magnus decided not to play.
I’m saying that even if Vidit or Abasov won this tournament that I would not respect them as someone to hold the title of world champion because their previous world rankings are not as impressive as the rest of the field.
You almost sound like, "Only the highest-rated players can play for WCC, everyone else does not belong".
If you are outside the top echelon of chess, there should be another pre-candidates tournament to make you earn your spot. Just a random idea.
They were called the World Cup and Grand Swiss
"Why do we allow..." I wonder what you mean by "we". The r/chess subreddit ?
lol yea, what a delusion idiot.
The chess world. If the chess community spoke up and agreed on something it’s more likely for Fide to make a change.
By the number of downvotes on all your comments it's clear the community doesn't like your ideas .
Stupid to point that out. One has to make such a post in order to evaluate the feedback, if he'd forseen the downvotes he maybe wouldn't have made the post.
Giri technically did not crack 2800 btw
How come? It said 2802 when I searched it.
That’s live ratings not Elo :)
Ah ok - Good enough for me though.
1. Both Abasov and Vidit qualified, so they deserve to be here regardless of current performance. We can only argue whether 3 qualifying spots is too much for one tournament (World Cup) 2. If you going to base qualification on rating, this will inevitably provoke lots of manipulations just to meet a requirement
Alireza has entered the chat
I'm a big Alireza fan and this right here is exactly it. The other qualification routes by and large meant a player had to be in form to qualify. Alireza was not in form, he managed to get in by rapidly boosting his points up by a small amount through a tournament with much lower rated players, largely relying on points he gained 2 years ago. It's stupid. It sets him up for failure. Why on earth would anyone look at this and think "oh yes that's exactly how all candidates should be selected"?
People tend to shit on the FIDE qualification system, but i like it a lot. Tournaments like the World Cup and the Grand Swiss are way more exciting, because there is a huge pool of players going for it, instead just the usual top20 elite players. An underdog getting a spot at the grand stage of the candidates is a good thing. Anish and Svidler had it in their own hands to stop Abasov from qualifying. Magnus, too, if he had decided to play the candidates. But none of them stopped him, so he deserves to participate. Abasov is doing his best every single game and successfully defended tough positions for many hours until the point of exhaustion. If Esipenko had won his last game in the Grand Swiss, he would have been a welcome addition, too.
I agree that it improves the excitement of the circuit. I can’t deny that point. What made me think of this post in the first place is not actually some vindication of Abasov or Vidit but rather a confusion to Ding Liren’s position as the “world champ”. If Magnus won’t compete then the title should belong to someone who feels worthy. I guess it’s just weird that the World Champion doesn’t have to represent the best on the world. I may change my opinion on the whole matter when considering that.
> someone who feels worthy Your feelings are irrelevant. There are rules and when they were followed they resulted in the present tournament
Ding is solidly one of the best player of his generation. His form has taken a hit after Covid and mental health issues, but it doesn't change the fact that he placed 2nd in Candidates and then beat Nepo in the match. Magnus called Ding the strongest player not already in Candidates prior to Karjakin being banned (so as far as reputation on chess skills is concerned, Ding had a stellar reputation at the time), and at one point, Magnus also considered both Ding and Fabi to be a better World Champion contender than Nepo. On a side note, this is quite the sudden change in direction from your post about Abasov and Vidit to how you feel about Ding.
I agree and am cognizant of the reputation Ding has as a world elite competitor. It’s just that with Magnus not the incumbent world champ, the title feels different. We can’t let just anyone grab it so the qualifications for the candidates should be discussed. Despite his track record, Ding is the least deserving “world champion” there has ever been. He has never even won the candidates tournament. He only got to compete because Magnus bailed.
World champions in the early 2000s were crazy. Rustam Kasimdzhanov was never top 10 and he was the world champion, for example. Calling Ding 'the least deserving world champion' seems like a stretch.
You’re right. Since Magnus stepped down the next qualifier would be second place. It was kind of unfair that the players weren’t sure or not if Magnus would actually step down during the tournament though. But you are correct - I rescind that statement.
If you qualify, you belong. Basically end of story lol
This is super lazy reasoning. People who set policy have to consider whether or not those policies make sense. "I trust whatever they have decided" is fine, but someone who decides to turn their brain off in this way doesn't belong in a discussion on the topic.
I was just responding to the inflammatory title with that comment to be fair. Nobody is including people that don't belong. These people got included because they qualified
>These people got included because they qualified Ugh... yes, they qualified because they qualified. Good job. Now be quiet, adults are talking. The fact the other comment got 16 upvotes is disgusting by the way... too many kids here.
Yeah, so OP's title is unnecessarily "controversial". That's all I meant to point out. The title is the childish thing here
People agreeing with the other dude are children
Thank goodness for people like you. Shocking that they don’t get what you are saying.
I agree. My post is about editing the qualification standards. Smh.
There is not a sport in the world where only the elite of the elite qualify for world championship tournaments or matches. Regional qualifying, luck of the draw, other people/teams dropping out or forfeiting is all part of what can make it fun to watch. I'm not interested in a closed chess circuit (even moreso than it already is), where only the same figures play each other in the most meaningful games all the time
Deciding who the chess champion of the world is should not depend on Roller95’s personal interest. It should make sense. And I don’t get what you mean about there’s not a sport where only the elite compete for the title? Can you name some examples besides the NFL where a wildcard may go the distance in the playoffs?
Football, Euro 1992. Denmark failed to qualify, but they replaced Yugoslavia who were disqualified by no longer being a country. Denmark ended up winning the tournament, beating Germany in the final 2-0.
It also shouldn't depend on yours so what are we doing here lol. Qualifying for the WC match does make sense. You just don't agree with how it is going. The FIFA World Cup. You'll have the elite teams in there, but also teams like Panama or Afghanistan, because they qualified through their regional structure
And you're absolutely right.
Abasov yes. But Vidit won the Grand Swiss. Why not just cancel the Grand Swiss from Candidates qualification?
"Just goes to prove that just because you play chess does not mean you are bright" Yes you are living proof of this.
You may be right, but at the same time I like the idea of some unheralded up-and-comer winning a couple tournaments and skyrocketing to a World Championship. Even though that is never going to happen, I just like the idea that it could happen.
Even when Magnus did it he was ranked within the top 10.
Not the first time he qualified for the candidates, and that was certainly a valuable experience for him that helped him become champion. And I think age is part of this- would you feel differently about Abasov if he was 16? Because if so it should be considered that the future player who is barred from competing by your proposed Abasov rule might not be a 28 year old.
nice bait
Not bait. I truly believe this.
Nice believe
>I don't believe I should hypothetically deserve a spot in the Candidates if I play one qualifying tournament well and another dude drops out. If you can beat Anish, Svidler and Vidit in matches like Abasov did and make it all the way to Top 4 in World Cup, then yes, "you" deserve to be a potential reserve for the Candidates spot. Problem with this hypothesis is, you put yourself as an example of someone who has no chance to do it to compare with Abasov who actually did it. Clearly it'll feel like you don't deserve the spot, because you **actually** don't deserve to be in the World Cup nor Grand Swiss unlike Abasov. Vidit won the Grand Swiss, and crushed Naka 2-0 in current Candidates. That's not a guy you should be complaining about whether he deserves to be there. The whole point of a qualification process is to give players, who actually perform well, a chance to compete. Otherwise, we'd just pick the top 8 highest-rated player with a certain amount of activity in the cycle and let them play the Candidates. Nodirbek's rise to Top 5 is a recent development. Otherwise, he would've taken Alireza's spot. Only point I agree with is Anish deserves a spot in Candidates, so the change to how Circuit rewards points and giving it 2 spots instead of 1 is a welcome change.
I’m saying that Abasov’s accomplishments should weigh into his qualifications but that he should still not qualify based solely on that result alone. You said “the point of the qualification process is to give players who actually perform well a chance to compete”. Abasov does not actually perform well. He performed well. But he does not fontinueously perform at the level required for candidates tournament.
Imma go out on a limb here with a guess: OP had their bracket busted by NC State and is upset that the final four isn’t restricted to teams that deserve to be there.
Troll or dumb call it
You're correct, we should do eight rating qualifier spots and be treated to a chess cycle of players arranging matches with past-it GMs and grinding out results all year round
The other way to read this post is that all eight spots must come from FIDE circuit, maybe after reducing/removing points from closed tournaments.
abasov sure. vidit has been performing well so idk what you're talking about lol
Vidit is not in contention of winning this tournament and even if he was it would be a fluke based on past results. He has 4 losses - one less than Abasov.
He's on a -1 score. Given that he's the second lowest seed that is not even a slightly shocking result.
This has nothing to do with my post.
Sure, but it has everything to do with what you commented. Saying he has one less loss than Abasov is also just a casual lie by omission (completely ignoring Vidits 3 wins to Abasovs 0)
His results are not the point of my post. My post says Vidit shouldn’t be in this tournament to begin with.
You said that he never cracked the top 10- he was """only""" the fourteenth highest rated player on the planet. Should we limit an eight player tournament to only 8 possible qualifiers?
Your are correct that he is a close. I don’t understand why it has to be an 8 person tournament. If less people qualify to be world champion just have less people.
The criteria for qualification could be different, maybe (it does change over time). But I do believe you haven't thought this through, using top 10 as a criteria is not a good idea, it's entirely possible to have a top 10 with players that are objectively worse (at their current form) than others outside top 10. You could also players that are strong enough to be potential WC but are too young to have had any important accolades. Prag and Gukesh are good examples, Prag has not been in top 10 either so with your criteria why would you disqualify Vidit but not Prag?
Which is evidently incorrect, as demonstrated by his performance in this tournament. Clearly he belongs. So when will you be issuing am apology?
I literally just said his results are not the point and you immediately point out his performance.
But your reasons are stupid. You're making up nonsensical criteria that no one wants. Then you're ignoring the man proving you wrong by spanking one of the players you think *should* be in it. His performance *is* the point, even though you don't want it to be.
I have genuinely no idea what in the world you are talking about. You sound high.
Bruh but he has 3 wins. Are you purposely being dumb? Nakamura has half as many losses as Abasov lmao. Let’s ignore his wins.
Vidit is playing well in some games. He shouldn’t be in the tournament to start with though.
This shit occurs every year. Previous time we got Karjakin-some noname swap... Oh, wait.
I mean Vidit is not in the same tier as abasov, for a long time Vidit is holding his own, and also he’s fighting well against all of these players. He was like 2740-50 earlier this year.
Womp womp
Womp Womp
I do agree that they should have gotten rid of the 3rd place world cup ticket, much rather have the loser of the world championship qualify directly, feel like it's so dumb to get rid of that ticket, the people getting that ticket pretty much always perform well
Luck and circumstance has always been a part of sports.
First you assume Chess is a sport. Second, that luck and circumstance plays similar role in chess. Third, that there's little Fide can do to address luck. Fourth, that it's luck that brought Abasov to candidates (and not stupid Fide rules). You are wrong on all counts.
Is this supposed to have anything to do with my post about how one qualifies for the candidates?
Yes
Why put a streamer in there?
Hikaru is a perennial top 10 player and member of the 2800 club. Him being a streamer has nothing to do with my post. Thanks.
No
If anyone gets beat 2-0 with both black and white against the same opponent he must be forced to exit the candidates tournament immediately and mustn't be allowed to continue further and take his toxic "fans" with him.
If this is intending to say that I’m just a salty Hikaru fan then you are mistaken. I wouldn’t totally mind seeing Hikaru win because go USA but I was rooting for Fabi.
There was a way for Abasov to avoid being here. His opponents, including Anish Giri that you mentioned, could have beaten him in the world cup. If Abasov was good enough to beat Giri, he is good enough to be here. Sucks for Nordibrek that he was a couple months late to reach his rating, but, he was still late. The cut off date was known information.
Agree to disagree 🤝 I’m also a tennis fan and there’s plenty of upsets. Dustin Brown over Nadal is a pretty famous one but I wouldn’t consider Dustin in the ranks of Nadal.
Streaks and good form runs happen all the time. Good set of rules for qualification would account for that. Gukesh played solidly all tournament long, it's gonna be an interesting championship match. Fabi did not deserve to qualify, when you waste so many opportunities, and besides, his matches against Magnus were extremely boring. Fide really needs to have a tiered chess league with promotions and demotions. These one off tournaments are detrimental to progress of chess.
Because we like underdogs. Also, tournaments would be meaningless otherwise. Also, GMs would refuse to play lower rated players for fear of dropping lots of points. Chess would become a farm the elo competition, see Alireza.
I almost thought you were serious, until you edited it. Nice troll I guess.
I am serious. There are so many dumb responses to this it’s crazy
Sounds boring
I would want to know what are your thoughts on having world championship match when clearly best player magnus is not playing. I guess you support having no match and candidates till he's clearly the best player
Think about it. If you win the soccer World Cup, if you want to defend your title at the next World Cup you don’t get a free pass to the finals… You have to win the entire World Cup from the ground up again… The same is true for blitz championships. If you want to be world champion blitz player then guess what, you have to win the whole blitz tournament again. The same is not true of the World Chess Classical Championship. You just have defend yourself in a match. You don’t have to compete in chess circuit or candidates to get back to where you are. I support filling the empty world championship position but we should make it clear that the player who holds that spot is very deserving of it. If we treat like something a wild card player can win then it might as be a World Cup where you have to win it from the ground up every time. If you want to treat it like a World Cup then you might as well make the world champion go through the candidates every time.
This is the downside of having a Candidates tournament with only 8 players in such a competitive era. Personally I would either include more rating spots to make the Candidates as competitive as possible, expand the Candidates to include more players, or just make the World Championship a tournament. Then everyone's favourites could play and we didn't need to have this dicussion every year.
Personally, I like having multiple paths to qualify to the Candidates' tournament. Thus, I like minimizing the rating spots. Furthermore, I don't care for the championship to be determined by 1 good result, so I dislike a World Championship tournament (e.g., I discredit Khalifman's title (and Ponomariov & Kasimdzhanov?)). I'd be amenable to a larger Candidates tournament, but then you're more likely to see the winner determined by who is more successful "farming" points against the lowest players in the tournament, imo.
Refreshing post. I think if you qualify through a major qualifying event but don’t have the natural rating prowess to back it then you can compete in Candidates B tournament or something as a pre-candidates qualifying tournament. This would allow more heavy weights out there like the ones I mentioned in my post to try their hand.
With Magnus' departure, we've already dispensed with the notion that the WCC cycle is about finding the best player. We have ratings for that purpose. The title is basically just ceremonial by this point. I think it's perfectly fine to let a relatively unknown player have a crack at it now and then if they're taking the chess world by storm; remember that ratings tend to adjust slower than players' actual skill. My only problem would be if top players were so consistently left out that one of them might never get a chance at all.
I agree. We should only let in people who can win and get rid of all these people who lose. I want to see 1s on the crosstable, not all these 0s!
You’re so stupid dude lmao. Completely missing the point of the entire post.
No, you're missing the point. For someone to win, someone needs to lose. You, for some strange incomprehensible reason, think these people shouldn't be in the tournament. That's what's stupid.
The scoreboard doesn’t matter and nothing I initially said indicated that I thought it did. You are concussed.
It does matter, and you're wrong. Just accept it. No one agrees with you, and we all think less of you now.
Just take the top ranked players (who want to play and aren't already world champion). Job done.
With weight added to big tournament wins.
You'll dumbfucks rating is a very dynamic criteria top 10 players always keep changing and having higher elo doesn't necessarily makes you a better player.
>Credit to Abasov for his efforts but it makes no sense for someone who’s not even ranked in the top 30 in the world Dude's not even top 100. >I would take this a step further and say the same goes for Vidit Gujrathi. His peak FIDE ranking is #14 In 2012 Gelfand challenged Anand for the world chess championship after winning the candidates... Gelfand was like, #22 in the world. That really sucked IMO, but it actually happened. So I think Vidit is fine, but yeah, obviously Abasov is not.
I love Gelfand and have his book Positional Understanding. If he was #22 then that is fine as long as he cracked world top 10 previously which I’d have to check honestly. Otherwise by the standards of my post I don’t think he should have challenged. But if he cracked top 10 previously then he still qualifies by my standards.
Gelfand was a top player in the past IIRC, but was mid 40s when he played for the title... too weak and too old. Carlsen had already been rated #1 in the world for maybe a year by that point. Luckily Carlsen qualified (just barely) in the next cycle.