Kasparov-Kramnik match announced

FOR the first time in five years, it's been confirmed that world chess champion Garry Kasparov is set to defend his title against the world no.2, Vladimir Kramnik, in a contest this autumn.

A new entity, Braingames Network PLC (BGN), has raised the $2 million prize fund for the 16-game match through the offices of the London stockbrokers, Williams de Broe. At an official launch of the match in London yesterday with Kasparov and BGN Chairman, the former government minister the Rt. Hon Sir Jeremy Hanley, and Kramnik via a video satellite link from Moscow (which failed!), the new organisation stated that their main aim was to put the world championship back in a proper footing with a regular cycle to determine a future challenger for three title matches over the next 5-years.

Don Morris, Jeremy Hanley and Garry Kasparov at the press conference.

In 2001, the Braingames Network World Chess Championship qualifier will be open through the Internet to anyone in the world - regardless of playing strength! The qualifier will then join 24 of the world's top players in a tournament, the winner of which will play the defending champion in 2002.

Sir Jeremy Hanley announced that the match would be held in London at a venue to be announced shortly, and will be scheduled to start October 9th until November 9th. A clearly ecstatic (and somewhat relieved) Kasparov, who has successfully defended his title twice before in London (Karpov 1986 and Short in 1993) joked that: "It seems that he has a seven-year cycle for London!"

"After beating the best of the older generation when I defeated Karpov," said Kasparov, "now I face by far my toughest opponent and the best of the new generation - Vladimir Kramnik!" Stressing that he realised that it was very important for the world champion to be seen defending his title on a regular basis, Kasparov said that this new 5-year cycle organised through the BGN should at least bring some stability back into the world championship.

"Maybe from a sponsor and a public perspective my potential challengers over the last few year's were not as strong as they would perhaps have liked. With Kramnik, however, this is not the case - he is recognised by everyone as my toughest opponent yet. We now have the opportunity over the next five-year's to bring about some stability that give us the chance to restructure the game. With this new deal, there will now be a proper process of the selection of the challenger for my title that satisfies not just the professionals but also the general public."

The opening statements from the conference finished, the chairman, Sir Jeremy Hanley, now invited question from the floor from the press.

GM Jonathan Levitt (KasparovChess.com) asked Kasparov how he rated his chances for this match?

"I believe I'm the favourite! Of all the potential challengers for my title, Kramnik is the only one with a reasonable score. In fact, he has an excellent personal score: 3-3 in classical chess and a plus one score of 4-3 in rapidplay with many, many draws [In fact, if the latest MegaBase2000 from ChessBase is to be believed, the true overall score including blitz comes out at 16-15 to Kasparov with 44 draws - JBH]. If you look at my two other potential opponents, I have a 9-0 score against Alexei Shirov and 14-3 with Anand. However, due to my superior match-play experience, I think I can lay claims to being the favourite for this match - but it'll be a close-call."

IM Malcolm Pein (Daily Telegraph and TWIC) asked Kasparov how exactly the qualification process would work?

"This is nothing new. We discussed this in great detail last year for my aborted match with Anand. It will not be a long process of Zonals, Interzonals and Candidate matches. Instead, there will be one tournament in 2001 with the top 25 players on the rating list (including one wildcard winner from an online tournament open to anyone in the world). The winner of this tournament will then go forward to meet the world champion in 2002."

IM Malcolm Pein further asked Kasparov which rating system would be used?

"The system we would adopt is the one created for the PCA by one of the greatest programmers in the world - Ken Thompson, the inventor of the Unix operating system. In reality he has developed a better system because he has learned from the mistakes made in the 1960s and 1970s from the old system that FIDE use, which has now become corrupted in the sense that they use it as a political tool. Through the many Internet connections between KasparovChess.com and BGN, we will start by processing 300 tournaments increasing as quickly as possible to 1000 [FIDE process about 1250]. But most important of all, all of the grading should be free. We will be seriously looking at approaching a multinational company with a view to sponsoring the list so that no federation or tournament has to pay for the grading. Another important development here is that we will be looking for the list to be updated monthly. In this day and age, if you have the correct computer system with the financial backing, there's also no reason why we cannot extend this benefit from 2000 to 1500 for the grassroots players. Next month we will be producing our first list with new tournaments on it for all to see."

Daniel Johnstone (Literary Editor for the Daily Telegraph) asked Kasparov that, with many people thinking that this could be a close match with many draws, is it right in this day and age with many tournaments being decided on tiebreak and play-offs, that the tradition of the champion retaining his title in the event of an 8-8 draw is right?

Kramnik must defeat Kasparov "if he is to prove anything"

"You're absolutely right - it is our tradition! It's a value that shouldn't change. The challenger must defeat the world champion if he is to prove anything. Like me, I had to beat Anatoly Karpov - and quite a few times too!

GM Jon Speelman (The Independent) asked that, just now, there are quite a few world championships knocking around, THE World Championship, the Ultimate World Championship, what are you going to call this one?

"Brain Games World Chess Championship! I've played the Times World Championship, the Intel World Championship and even the FIDE World Championship! For my prospective, it's just a change of organisation running the event. If you look in the past, there have been many world championships organised in Argentina, Havana, in other places, but, at the end of the day, its about deciding the strongest player in the world - so, there will be a Brain Games World Championship and that will stay for the next 5 years. I'm comfortable with that, we will be playing for the title that has been on the table for over 100 years. We will be defending the title I won from Karpov in 1985. For me, that is important because it is a tradition has been intact since 1886 and we are playing for the title of the strongest player in the world. And, for those not familiar with the history of chess, that first match in 1886 between Steinitz and Zukertort could not be played as long as Paul Morphy was alive because no one could accept the winner to be world champion so long as the greatest genius of the 19th century was alive. When Morphy died in 1884, it paved the way for such a match to take place - and this tradition is still there.

What about Shirov?

John Henderson (The Scotsman and TWIC) asked Kasparov how he responded to Alexei Shirov's recent statement in the Spanish newspaper, El Pais, that, now that Anand has declined to play in this match, Kasparov has a moral obligation to play him instead of Kramnik?

"Alexei Shirov is partially right that he had the right to play me in a match - in 1998! We experienced great difficulties and I tried to save the match. We had an offer - not a very attractive one I hasten to add - to play the match in California for just over $1 million. He was ill advised to turn it down. He went for a bigger prize fund in Catalonia in Spain and failed. So, I don't believe that I, or any new organisation, have any obligation to Shirov. He had his chance; he didn't like the conditions and turned down the California match. At the end of the day, if I play Shirov, I presume I'd win the match easily - I don't think it would be that difficult. Who then would give me credit for playing this match? Everyone would say that 'Kasparov picked an easy opponent'. In 1998, Shirov had the right to play me. It was different because he earned his this right. In 2000, it's a different situation with a new organisation in control."

IM Malcolm Pein (Daily Telegraph and TWIC) asked that, since the underlying theme of this world championship and new organisation would be greater exposure to the game through the Internet, we asked the readers of TWIC to submit questions to ask here at this press conference. Many of the replies were to ask of the Shirov situation that you just answered, but most asked if you would consider putting your title on the line against a computer. Do you have any plans to, or does the BGN have any possible plans in that direction?

Kasparov might end up playing a computer.

"That's less clear because the rules for such an event have yet to be established and obviously this matter will be at the top of the agenda. The biggest problem you have you have more difficulties determining a potential challenger from the computer world than the human field. In the human field, you have Kramnik, Anand and Shirov. In the computer world, it could be anything and you could attract adverse publicity by choosing the wrong opponent."

On behalf of BGN, their chairman, Sir Jeremy Hanley, commented "that, as an organisation, we would like to discuss this possibility at a later date."

John Henderson (The Scotsman and TWIC) on the same theme, asked that since there is an Internet wildcard entry to go through with the top 25 players in the world in a tournament to determine the challenger for the title in 2002, is it feasible for a computer program to win through to play for the world championship?

Sir Jeremy Hanley: "Rules are to be established for this. It's certainly a good debating question but nothing has been determined, and nothing has yet been decided."

Kasparov: "I think we have to work very hard to establish the proper rules and conditions for such an eventuality. Look at the problems we had during the Mickey Adams vs Deep Junior match in the recent KasparovChess Grand Prix. There are many problems to be addressed before we can seriously talk about this. However, a Man vs. Machine match will be established one way or another. And, inevitably, Machine will challenge the for the world championship. Right now, it's a matter of proper organisation and a way to determine a proper silicon challenger."

GM Jon Levitt (KasparovChess.com) asked Kasparov if he had any regrets in having Kramnik as his second for his title match against Anand in New York in 1995?

"In 1995, I had a new, and very inexperienced team around me. You have to remember that Anand had a very powerful back-up team - second only to Karpov's - consisting of many good Russians. The reason I asked Kramnik to join for a short period was to have a sparring partner to play private games and look at positions to give me some extra confidence. However, it seemed to be more useful for Kramnik as for the next two years he was winning practically everything! Sure, he probably gained the greater insight and experience from it, which I suppose is one of the reasons why he's one of my toughest opponents around today."