1/19/2005
Not since the great Roberto Duran’s waved his gloved hand and said
the immortal “no mas, no
mass” to Sugar Ray Leonard, have we seen another great champion give up
on a championship fight. Kasparov
issued similar sentiments in a recent letter he published to FIDE. In his
letter Kasparov symbolically waved his gloved hand at FIDE and said 'no
mas, no mas'. Unlike
Roberto Duran, Kasparov bout with Kasimdzhanov would never hear the first
bell ring. Roberto Duran claimed he gave up on his fight because of a bad
steak he ate just before the fight. With Kasparov it was a bad meal he had
in 2002, it was called the FIDE Prague agreement. This meal just sat in
Kasparov’s stomach for 2.5 years. It just couldn’t be digested.
FIDE was unable to live up to its part of the deal.
It was a tragic comedy of errors. Fide was unable to schedule or
find sponsorship to pull off a match for one of the greatest world
champions in chess history. In fact FIDE simply didn’t care enough to
handle the reunification with the urgency that was needed. Prague was
signed in May of 2002. The FIDE piece called for a match between the FIDE
KO winner and ex World Champion Garry Kasparov. In 2.5 years this match
still has not taken place, and nothing concrete has been scheduled.
The
other problem was that the match up between Kasparov and
Kasimdzhanov was not that exciting. Kasimdzhanov is a excellent top 25
player and he should be proud of winning the FIDE KO in Libya last summer.
However this match was viewed as a tune up for Kasparov, the world's
dominate player for the last 20 years.
It is not the kind of match up that will generate big dollars from
corporate sponsors. Kasparov has been on a holding pattern for 2.5 years.
Kasparov missed out on many opportunities to play. You can’t do that to
your top talent. Not only is Kasparov upset, but so are the millions of
fans who would have loved to seen the Kasparov vs. Kasimdzhanov match and
the the rest of the reunification process. The other disappointment was
not seeing Kasparov, Kramnik, Leko and Anand in the same tournament at
Corus.
FIDE also failed to act swiftly when Ponomariov failed to sign
the contract to play. Good Leadership requires flexibility when plans
don’t go according to plan. They
could have found a better replacement for Ponomariov, possibly Anand, to
step in back in late 2003. Kasparov heard the beautiful music coming from
Wijk aan Zee. He wanted to sing along with the Corus. Fans worldwide
would have loved to hear him sing. Corus is an exciting tournament and one
of the rare times that most of the top players are together. Kasparov
would have been a great addition to the line up. Corus would make a great
interzonal tournament. This tournament is going to show us the pecking
order of the top players. It going to tell us how each player stacks up
against his or her contemporaries.
FIDE made the following errors:
1)
Failure to reunify first. Fide never recognized Kramnik’s great
accomplishment in defeating Kasparov in 2000.
2)
FIDE even failed to mention Kramnik vs. Leko world championship on
its web site
3)
FIDE failed to show the urgency that reunification needed
4)
FIDE failed to act quickly or find quick alternatives when the
reunification went off course
5)
FIDE failed to find a process that would lead to finding an
exciting opponent for Kasparov
6)
FIDE fail to administrate the sponsorship selection process.
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