Talk:World Chess Championship

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[edit] similar article

World Chess Champion and world chess champion currently point to different articles which should probably be merged. -- BenRG 09:43, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I've shuffled things around a bit - it's better now, I think. --Camembert

I agree, its much better, and the reader gets a better feeling for the reality of how the idea of World Chess Champion evolved. I question one thing...the use of the word "official". It suggests a governing body. I would argue that the first official chess champion was Botvinnik, and that before FIDE all champions were simply consensus champions. I feel that the first player to definately gain concensus was Paul Morphy, and that after his retirement no concensus was reached until the 1886 match Steinitz won.

Now, all this said, I admit that the article does explain its use of the word "official" and I don't have a concrete suggestion at this time for any changes.-- ChessPlayer

I think the material on the other championships (Women's, Seniors, etc) should be moved to their own pages, and I volunteer to move them soon. ChessPlayer 21:26, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The opening paragraph had the following:

Some still consider Garry Kasparov to be the world champion, despite having lost to Kramnik, as he remains the highest-ranked player on the ELO list.

I have removed this. I do not think that anybody (apart from the misinformed) believes Kasparov to still be champion. As I've said in my edit (and as should in any case be clear from the article) being number one on the rating list and being world champion are different things. Kasparov has not played in the FIDE championships since the 1993 PCA breakaway, and he lost the title which that breakaway created to Kramnik in their 2000 match, hence he holds no championship title. I certainly don't think Kasparov would claim to be champion himself, and there's no reason for other people to make that claim either. I've taken this out once before, but it was put back in. If somebody wants to put it in again, I'd like to know exactly who believes Kasparov is still champion and why they believe it.

Bobby Fischer, who hasn't played a competitive game of chess since 1992, is the still, theoretically, 'undefeated world champion'.

I have also removed this. Originally, I had edited it to read "is self-styled 'undefeated world champion'", but on reflection, I don't see why Fischer is deserving of such prominent mention in the first paragraph like this. The opening paragraph should give the reader a very quick intro to the subject, which here, I think, means saying what the championship is and who currently holds it. The fact is that virtually nobody (apart perhaps from Fischer himself) considers Fischer to be world champion--hardly surprising given that he's played just 30 games in over 30 years, and those against a player hardly at the top of world chess (Spassky in '92 was far from his peak)--so I don't believe he needs to be mentioned in the opening paragraph (of course, it's fine to explain it all in detail in the body of the article itself). I mean, one could also argue that Alekhine, who won the title back from Euwe in 1937 and then never lost it, is "undefeated world champion", but as he died in 1946, I think such a claim would be a bit silly :)

I've also made a few other changes which I hope don't need explanation (the manner of Alekhine's death and 2004 being FIDE Year of Tigran Petrosian aren't really pertinent to the subject of the world chess championship), but if they do, I'll be happy to provide. --Camembert

ChessPlayer asked in an edit summary: "is Qadhafi the sponsor, or the nation of Libya?" I'm not sure there's a great deal of difference between the two in practice, but according to the FIDE website [1] it is Qaddafi himself. It says "FIDE has a pleasure to announce the dates and venue of the World Chess Championship 2004 - Tripoli, the capital of Libya, from June 18 till July 13, 2004 under the patronage of the Leader of the Libyan Jamahirya, H.E. Moammar Al Gathafi, who also provides the prize fund for the Championship." --Camembert 00:51, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, agree with you about Alekhine's death/year of Petrosian being irrelevant, and that the Fischer/Spassky rematch should perhaps only be mentioned within the actual body of it rather than in the introduction. I've been trying to fill the gap from 1948 to 75, covering Botivinnik's reign and then the "Game of the Century" - which is where I've stopped short so far... The Karpov/Kasparov epic certainly needs to be mentioned too. - Mack

Heavy rewrite, much expansion. --Etaonish 19:36, May 27, 2004 (UTC)

In the the section on the women's world champions, should an aside be added to mention Judit Polgar - as perhaps the strongest women player of all time?

Yes, I think that's an excellent idea. The prestige of the title is less than it would be if Judit participated. (In fact, it is also too bad that Susan Polgar doesn't compete.) There is some sentiment that there shouldn't even be a women's world championship, because it implies that open competition is unfair, as if women are apt to be mentally weaker than men just because they are apt to be physically smaller. Judit's scorn for the women's title is in any case worthy of note, whether the controversy gets any play in the article or not. --Fritzlein 06:50, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Just to note that FIDE is currently plagiarising this page on the 2004 championship website at [2] - I've listed the page on Wikipedia:Copies of Wikipedia content (low degree of compliance) and sent FIDE an email to try and get them to comply with the GFDL. --Camembert

Odd...it's using an old version.--Etaonish 23:28, Jun 24, 2004 (UTC)

It's based on a slightly old version, but I think they've also cut a few bits and rearranged some of the sentences slightly (though not enough to make it anything other than a derivative of our version, clearly). --Camembert

[edit] Pictures

How to do it? One thought is to place thumbnails throughout, but then it looks like this:

(removed now)

Suggestions?--Etaonish 18:16, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm, the pictures do dominate rather. I suppose that there are two obvious solutions (and probably a much better one that's not obvious): reduce the number of photos, or reduce the size of the thumbnails (I mean, those are pretty scary thumbs...). Of the two, the latter would presumably be less painful. You must have thought of this, and have decided against it; why? What am I missing? I don't know anything about the mechanics of Wikipedia thumbnails; how easy is it to change their size? Mel Etitis 19:58, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

- Strangely, these *are* thumbnails already. I'm not sure how to make thumbnails smaller either. I believe I saw it somewhere on Wiki but I can't find that part of the site anymore.--Etaonish 23:59, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)
  - ~~Never mind, I found it.--Etaonish 00:26, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)~~

Finally fixed up everything. I might do women's later.--Etaonish 01:38, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Greatest of all time"

Short version: I don't think the "greatest of all time" section should be in this article. Lets split it off to something like greatest chess player of all time. Objections?

Longer version: The question of who was the greatest player (or "strongest player", which may or may not be a different thing) of all time is often discussed; it's something many chess players and fans have ideas about, and, as such, it's probably a subject which is worth us tackling. I don't think we can actually answer the question "who is the greatest player of all time" and be neutral about it (for this reason, I don't like the list currently in the article: such lists will always just be a matter of opinion and it's wrong of us to push one particular list forward), but I do think we can talk about others' efforts to answer the question, and about what sort of things one might consider when trying to answer it.

So I think it's something we can write about. What I don't understand is why we're writing about it in an article on the world chess championship. I don't think there's really much of a relationship between the subjects. Of course, many of the candidates for "greatest ever" will have also been champions, but there's no reason to believe that the greatest ever must have been a champion. We even say ourselves in the first paragraph of the article that the champion is not necessarily the "highest-rated" (one measure of "strongest") in the world.

So I do think this is a subject we can talk about, but I don't think this article is the place to do it. I propose, therefore, that we move it to a new article called greatest chess player of all time or similar. Then we can give the subject the proper treatment it deserves, not limiting ourselves to just a handful of players, and bringing in outside sources like Keene and Divinsky's (rather dopey, but relevant) book, Warriors of the Mind, which ranks players through the ages in order (it's not sensible to mention the book in this article, since it considers players who were never champion). Objections? --Camembert 00:08, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, it's a couple of months later, and no objections are forthcoming, so I'm going to move that section of the article out to greatest chess player of all time and edit it somewhat. --Camembert 16:39, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Women's World Chess Championship

This page is getting too long. I propose creating a separate page, Women's World Chess Championship. Rocksong 01:44, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Done. Rocksong 03:56, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

There is still an external link to 'dozens of positions from Women's WCC games (the wtharvey one). Shouldn't that be relocated? Marvol 16:15, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Current Situation

I've added a "current situation" section. There (if I get time) I will summarise the current situation with the 2005 world cup and the recently announced 8 player World Championship in Mexico. Perhaps this needs a separate article, e.g. "World Championship 2007 Cycle", but with the title still split this gets a bit problematic. I'm open to suggestions on how best to do this. Rocksong 05:05, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I think you're getting carried away with the deal here. You removed large chunks of the text, including important citations, split the article into I don't know how many pieces, got all the priorities badly (the article is about the championship not the whole cyle!) by cutting out such an event as San Luis (which was a revolution in the FIDE championships) and including some two paragraphs on unimportant information about qualifying into the 2007 tournament. As I said, this page is about the championship, and should keep the spirit of pre-1993 championships by focusing entirely on the championship match / tournament. As in the tournament after Alhekine's deaths, there is no need to dedicate more than a sentence, maybe two, to say how players qualified. Each cycle has somewhat different rules, especially with an organization behind it who would trive to keep the fairest situation in place (or indeed favor a nation), politics and keeping the game interesting.

This is a featured article and such changes are too big to be done on personal initiative. Wiki is about building something right as a community, not articles made personal. Citing WP:BOLD - don't be reckless!: "... making large-scale changes to Featured articles, which are recognized as Wikipedia's best articles for their completeness, accuracy, and neutrality, is often a bad idea."

I think the best thing to do with you is leave you get off this editing spree of yours and stick the pieces back in place when you're done. Something good enough should surface out of all this. But make sure you detail your edit summaries. "Tidying up" is not the correct term for deleting a whole section!

_└ ^VodkaJazz/_talk^┐ 12:37, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. I was cleaning up an article which was messy. Wikipedia also says to be bold in doing changes! First, the introduction. Wikipedia guidelines are that the introduction should be brief, 2 or 3 paragraphs at most. So I trimmed it, especially when it contained detail which was deeper in the article anyway. Second, yes I removed 2 citations, but they were redundant - one of them was even in Russian! The chessbase citation covered it all. Third, there is already a detailed article on the San Luis tournament, so the detail you put in (like Topalov's score) does not belong in the main article. Fourth, the women's championship clearly reads like a separate article, and I have no regrets about moving it. In fact a split was suggested more than 2 years ago. Fifth, I think the "Chaos 1993-" section deserved to be split because it was getting too long. I think a "Current Situation" heading is useful.

To summarise, I don't regret any of those changes, and I contend that all 5 changes improved the article.

Also, I'm going to have to undo your last change, because a lot of women chessplayers' pages point to that section and it will take a few days to change them all. So as a temporary measure, the Women's championship section will need to stay.

There is one critcism I partly agree with: I agree that the details on the 2007 cycle look a bit out of place, but I think they deserve to be somewhere and don't know where else. But I'll shorten it (remove all the "dot" points) and leave in the citations. Rocksong 03:04, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Streamline the modern section

The article moves at a good pace, but once we get past 1993 it bogs down in too many details, IMHO. Here are some thoughts on streamlining it: The Prague Agreement was a hot topic when the article was first written, but it is now just a footnote in the history of the world championship. I think it occupies far too much space in the article. I propose removing most of it to a separate article Prague Agreement. In fact the article has too much on recent stuff in general. There are already separate pages for FIDE World Chess Championship 2004 and FIDE World Chess Championship 2005. Probably the same could be done for other recent events, allowing the "Chaos" section to be streamlined (i.e. shortened) considerably. (But since my last big edit caused some angst, I'll pause and wait at least a few days for any feedback). Rocksong 12:53, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree, a good idea. --Ioannes Pragensis 13:11, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Uhm, a bit more than one day later (but I wasn't a member of Wikipedia back then :P), but I wholeheartedly agree with these proposed changes. All these details about Kasparov playing Ponomariov, no, playing Kasimdzanov, no, not playing at all... these are minor footnotes. They are interesting however IMO for a separate (future?) article on the schism and reunification in the chess world.

There are more things I don't particularly like when reading this article; at times it seems to cut corners (to the point of being sunjective) as in the remarks about the style of play of Lasker "He did not play the best move, but..." - I doubt somebody can be WCC for 27 years without at least sometimes playing the best move - or about Capablanca 'Capablanca was the last and greatest of the "natural" players: he prepared little for his games, but won them brilliantly. He possessed an astonishing insight into positions simply by glancing at them.'

Who are these famed "natural" players?
Did he really prepare little for his games? His biography states that he got a job at the Cuban Foreign Office where he had to do little else but play chess.
He 'won his games brilliantly' is about as subjective as it can get.
What is the evidence for his 'astonishing' insight into positions 'simply by glancing at them'? I think every great chessplayer has this ability. See every big simultaneous exhibition.

I would actually prefer to see these descriptions removed altogether - they anyway belong at the players' bios pages, if at all anywhere. It is inconsistent that later great champions like Smyslov, Petrosian and Spassky get no mention whatsover about what styles they played or what Great Gifts they possessed, contributing more to the imbalance in this article.

If I could get some feedback on this I would be grateful, and I might try my hand at my first wiki'ing of Wikipedia. Marvol 17:56, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

What I think happened is that this article began as an overview essay, with lots of colourful description, and often not much detail. This part - up to 1993 - seems to be largely untouched in later edits. My opinion is that, as Wikipedia has evolved into quite a decent resource, that this earlier section needs to be edited to be more "encyclopedic": more detail, less POV language. So yes, I would welcome the edits you suggest. As for the clutter of information on later matches - I've created a page on the 2000 Kasparov-Kramnik match (and added a link today), and plan pages on the other matches in this period. As indicated back in May, I also planned a page on Prague Agreement, but have been kinda busy since then. Rocksong 01:13, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

OK the idea for separate pages on the other matches sounds good. On the other hand, a more detailed overview of what happened during the 'chaos' period might be a good idea... that is where all the little stuff that is now cluttering up the last bit can just move to. I will try to find some time to make some edits, viz, removing the POV (had to look that one up ;-) ) but also adding extra info about the post-WWII champions. For instance, don't you think it should be mentioned that the Soviets dominated that area (briefly interrupted by Fischer)? Also a more neutral description of each champion's style would be nice. There is an interview with Kramnik that I think is highly interesting and relevant in that matter. Marvol 14:50, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chessworld.net World champions page

Hi there

The Chessworld.net world champions page at:-

http://www.chessworld.net/chessclubs/statistics_pgn_worldchamps.asp

Not only has high quality articles on the left in plain html, but also dynamically generated database pages for the Games links - which also link to virtual player homepages detailing interesting player statistics.

The Chessworld.net database has 1.6 million games and runs on its own seperate server. It has the community backing of hundreds of annotators and several dedicated moderators. Games are being annotated each day. The Chessworld.net community has thousands of members and is one of the largest online chess communities on the Internet.

On the particular World champions page, there is also high quality content articles such as the article on Steinitz. I have personally spent many weeks researching this, and putting in key quality games to demonstrate player career achievements. Also there are even some annotated games with diagrams.

Please can the World champion summary page be reinstated.

Best wishes Tryfon Gavriel Fide 2165

My reasons for the removal were:

The link leads to a mere collection of links to pages about the champs - nothing special about the World Chess Championship as a whole, I think. (I do not judge eg. the mentioned Chessworld.net material about Steinitz, but if it should be linked from Wikipedia, it should be linked from the article about Steinitz, not from here.)
Tryfon Gavriel and other, who add links to Chessworld.net to many Wikipedia articles in recent time, violate WP:EL, because they are admins of the site.

Because of 3RR, I will not revert the link now, but let others think about its appropriatenes.--Ioannes Pragensis 17:11, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the link because it has been spammed by several accounts/IPs. Wikipedia should not be used for promotion, and the link does not provide a unique resource as required by Wikipedia:External links. ―Wmahan . 07:33, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] World Champions According to Number of World Title Reigns

This was added by an anonymous user on 14-Oct-2006. I propose deleting it. I don't think it adds anything to the article, and it places the champions in a subjective order in a way books on the subject don't usually do. (IOW, it looks like Original Research). An argument could be made for moving it in the Greatest chess player of all time article, however. Rocksong 04:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. 24.241.226.16 07:16, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'm removing it for the reasons above. Rocksong 03:00, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it is an interesting table. It certainly isn't OR as it is entirely verifiable (restructuring verifiable data is not OR). Anyway, I can't be bothered with an argument so I have put it in Greatest chess player of all time as suggested. BlueValour 03:18, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I quickly tire or arguments too. It's not so much the WP:OR angle; it's more that it clutters the article (which is already fairly long), and adds a subjective element. As it stands (with the table removed), the article describes the history of the world championship and makes no effort to rank the different champions. That's how I think it should stay. Rocksong 03:32,

17 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello, this table is very good especially in sports which had different organisations and multiple world title reigns.it clarifies any confusion about champions .This idea exists in some other sports in wikipedia [3],there helped me to understand champions status in wrestling in a simple way without drowninng in pages in confusion also one know different organisations and who got higher number of titles and most years (people like that) .this table is very objective and says for example that a champion like lasker which got seven titles and 27 years as champion is more valuable than a guy got the title in a knock-out event for one year . Kramnik after beating Topalov said "Now i am 3 times World Champion" this table illustrates this concept .thus, i strongly recommend it stays in World Chess Championship --Sonbirdo 07:24, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Err, not sure pro wrestling is a good example, but anyway... The information can be gleaned from reading the length of each champion's reign. I'd have less problem if the arrangement was chronological, or even better, being an additional column(s) (number of title defences) on the existing chronological tables of champions; though it gets a bit messy with the title splitting. Rocksong 07:48, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Another thought: make the 4th column read "Championship matches", with one championship match (or tournament) per row. That takes a little work (multi-row table cells), but is not hard in principle. I'll have a go at it if I get the time. Rocksong 07:58, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

moving it in the Greatest chess player of all time article, is also not good solution .we talk about champions not greatest players ,i think champions like kasimdzhanov or khalifman not considered by many as one of the greatest so,i think World Chess Championship is the right place.Concerning the column u suggested it will be some confusion especially about knock-out events ,should we consider knock-out final as a match ,a player like Anand played long matches and knock-out final ,the number will be debated.years of reign is better than championship matches.anyway,thx Rocksong for discussion. --Sonbirdo 08:17, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm for moving it back (length of article is not a problem; it is within the recommended length) so that makes it 2-2; I guess we need a casting vote from someone! :-) BlueValour 23:39, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lots cut from post-1993

As foreshadowed some time ago, I've cut a lot from the post-1993 section, which had grown too much. I've tried to improve the flow so it's more or less one paragraph per championship. Note a lot of the details are duplicated in championship pages, such as FIDE World Chess Championship 2004 in particular. Rocksong 00:42, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

p.s. I still think it's too long, when compared to the rest of the article. But it's a start. Rocksong 00:54, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Undisputed" ?

I would dispute that Kramnik is the current World Champion. The computer program Deep Fritz is the better player as has been proven by trial. SmokeyTheCat •TALK• 13:38, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll rephrase what I've already said at Talk:Vladimir Kramnik. Wikipedia does not engage in WP:Original Research. Instead we reflect the consensus view of WP:Reliable Sources. Check any reliable source (googling "world chess champion" is a good start), and you will see that Kramnik, not a computer, is the world chess champion. Peter Ballard 03:15, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ratings list

This section seems very much out of place and, indeed, could well be added to the main Chess article and merged with the info already there. I suggest removing it. BlueValour 15:58, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I created the section because I thought it was preferable to having a mention of ratings in the lead. I'd be happy to delete the section now. Peter Ballard 00:07, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Real World Champion

This article ignores the fact that a significant number of chess fans around the world do not count Anand as having won the classical world championship. Chess history has demonstrably shown that the FIDE title is considerably weaker than the true classical match title, and Anand has certainly never won the classical match title. This can only happen next year when Anand is the challenger in the match against World Champion Kramnik.

It is also sad to see this article lending weight to Khalifman, Ponomariov, Kasimjanov, and Topalov as 'world champions', when the bulk of chess fans do not consider them as such. If you call them champions then why not also list the other FIDE 'champions' from Alekhine's time? History has forgotten them - even the FIDE site doesn't list them. History will do the same with the rest of the FIDE 'champions'.

Ted Cross169.252.4.21 13:22, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

The article is not written to please any "chess fans around the world" you are referring to. It is an encyclopedic article and not a blog. What "bulk of chess fans" think or do not think, doesnot matter to this article. What matters is, neutral information from reliable sources. Thanks, - KNM ^Talk 15:08, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Anand has never been World Champion. This article contains false information. Considering Anand won FIDE's title in a TOURNAMENT automatically negates the possibility of it being the (classical) World Championship, which is MATCH PLAY. Period. The article as it stands is incorrect. Anand will be playing a match for the (classical) World Championship against the current holder, Kramnik. Kramnik lost FIDE's title in this tournament, but the classical title is the match title, which cannot be lost in a tournament, by its very nature. To list Anand as undisputed World Champion is beyond ludicrous: he won a tournament title, not the match title that is the Classical World Championship. No. Match. Was. Played.Smyslov 20:08, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Please keep original research away from Wikipedia. If you have a reliable source which says, "Anand has never been World Champion", please produce that. If you believe this article contains false information, please list them in an objective manner, and provide reasoning supported with sources. For your information, official website of 2007 World Chess Championship says, Vishwanathan Anand is the World Champion. Hope that helps, - KNM ^Talk 22:17, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that does not help. And I'm not conducting original research, since what I'm talking about dates to at least the 1880s. You cite FIDE'S WEBSITE. They always claim the winners of their tournaments are world champions. Should I cite the website of the World Open tournament where they claimed the winner of that was world champion as well? Is that valid? In any case, the source you cite is irrelevant, as it covers the winner of a TOURNAMENT, whereas the chess World Champion wins that title in a MATCH. No match was played, and your counterargument does not even touch on this fact. Smyslov 00:08, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

What FIDE says is only partly relevant. FIDE also declared Khalifman etc champion while there was a rival Classical championship. But back then, there were many WP:Reliable Sources - chess grandmasters and commentators - backing the Classical Championship. The difference this time is that there are few or no reliable sources saying Anand is not champion. (And the reason for this, in turn, is that Kramnik himself acknowledges that Mexico City was a world championship - see World Chess Championship 2007). Yes I know there is a lot of debate about this on discussion boards, but as WP:Reliable Sources, discussion boards don't count. The only RS I've been able to find has been an annoying brief comment in this USCF article http://main.uschess.org/content/view/7916/141/ by GM Ian Rogers. I added it to World Chess Championship 2007 but then later deleted it because I decided it was giving WP:Undue Weight to a minority opinion, though I'm open to being persuaded to re-insert it. Peter Ballard 23:52, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I presume that you are referring to "attention turned to the prospect of an Anand-Kramnik match for the Classical (Match) World Championship, which many believe Kramnik did not forfeit even though he failed to win in Mexico. (Gelfand disagreed - "Anand is clear World Champion and he clearly deserved it.")". Had Rogers named the 'many' then mention could be made but this is altogether too vague. We shouldn't be afraid of including minority viewpoints but they do need reliable sourcing and none have been produced. BlueValour 01:25, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Here is another Ian Rogers article which alludes to disquiet over the title. http://main.uschess.org/content/view/8044/365 Although Rogers calls Anand "undisputed world champion", he says (at the end) that Kramnik is still "classical champion", and "A win by Anand in a head-to-head match over the classical champion, Kramnik, will confirm Anand’s place in the history books as the undisputed 15th classical world champion." I disagree with Rogers here, but it indicates the situation is still murky, at least in some peoples' eyes, until Anand and Kramnik play a match next year. So a brief mention of this controversy may be appropriate after all. Peter Ballard (talk) 02:09, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that's fine provided that we source it as Rogers' personal view. I don't think that we should include his view that many others share this opinion as it is too indirect and 'unsourced'! BlueValour (talk) 02:21, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

IMO, that's certainly undue to this article, as it is just a personal view of Rogers. If at all it needs a placement, then it goes to Rogers' wiki article. - KNM ^Talk 03:48, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Two points. First, Rogers is a respected chess journalist, writing on the USCF web site. Second, the allegation was substantial enough for Rogers to get a comment from Boris Gelfand on it. (See here: http://main.uschess.org/content/view/7916/141/ ). Simply putting it in the Rogers article is insufficient, IMHO. The dissenting opinions are out there; it's just a question of how much weight to give to them. Hopefully we can find a second WP:Reliable Source, and then write it up in a WP:NPOV way. Peter Ballard (talk) 04:13, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Here's two more sources mentioning dissent. The first, http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/twic673.html , merely predicts it, while in the second http://www.jeremysilman.com/book_reviews_js/Topalov_Kramnik.html , Jeremy Silman says he doesn't think Anand can "fully" claim to be champion but thinks (incorrectly it seems) he's a "lone voice in the wilderness". So I think something should be added. Peter Ballard (talk) 05:49, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kasparov's nationality

To the person who keeps insisting that Garry Kasparov's nationality is Armenian:

1. He is Russian now.

2. When the Soviet Union split, he identified as Russian. At the 1992 Olympaid he played for Russia, not Armenia. I think he also played under the Russian flag in his 1990 World Championship match.

3. His race is irrelevant. What matters is his nationality, not his race.

4. He wasn't even born in Armenia, he was born in Azerbaijan.

Please give evidence that he should be considered an Armenian national (as opposed to being of Armenian decent), or stop doing these edits please. Peter Ballard 02:02, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I've removed France from Spassky and Iceland from Fischer, as it's rather misleading: they became citizens of those countries decades after they were actually World Champion. I think there's a case for removing all the flags from the article as per WP:FLAG: they don't really add anything and just seem to cause trouble, as shown above. Pawnkingthree (talk) 11:41, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree, I think the flags detract. Peter Ballard (talk) 11:28, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I actually like the flags, but it isn't that important to me. we will always get silly vandals here, and the Kasparov Armenia thing is only one of them. We had fairly persistent Indian vandals who kept changing articles to indicate that Anand was World Champ over a year before he actually won the title. I have no idea what was up with that. Removing the flags might decrease the vandalism a little, but I'm sure it would still happen. Quale (talk) 16:23, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Kasparov played for Armenia in the RoW vs Armenia match 2004, and Vallejo-Pons vs Kasparov from that match is currently regarded as the definitive theory in the Najdorf Sicilian Poisoned Pawn variation (see First-move advantage in chess. At Armenian Diaspora Forum Kasparov does his best to clear up the confused question of his nationality ("Yes I am born in Baku and I am half Armenian-half Jewish but my native tongue is Russian, my culture is Russian, my education is Russian.") To make matters worse, in at least one of his many volumes of memoirs Kasparov expresses his gratitude for the support given by Soviet Azerbaijan's boss Heydar Aliyev in the early 1980s, when Soviet chess officials were trying to prevent Kasparov from challenging for Karpov's title. So whatever the current legal situation Kasparov regards himself as having multiple nationality, and aligns himself with different nationalities in different situations. The only sensible course is to allude briefly to this in the text (e.g. "legally Russian, but has ties to other nationalities") and quote the forum piece in a footnote.

I hereby propose a new(?) addendum to Murphy's Law, to be named "Kasparov's Misrule": anything to do with Garry Kasparov is always more complicated than anyone imagines. Philcha (talk) 11:20, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

so that

[edit] "Articles on championship matches" section

With the in-article links to individual matches, and especially with the Template down the bottom, this section seemed redundant, and a waste of space in what is already a fairly long article. So I deleted it. Peter Ballard (talk) 23:20, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The "See also" section is pretty long too, actually-- few of the articles have much to do with the World Championship.Pawnkingthree (talk) 10:35, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. And those that are, are covered in Category:Chess world championships. So I think that section could well be deleted too, but I'll wait for feedback. Peter Ballard (talk) 10:47, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pre-FIDE

The article does not do justice to the confused origins of the title - see the section of Wilhelm Steinitz about dating the start of his reign. I think a large part of the problem is World Chess Championship's attempt to distinguish between "unofficial" and "official" champions:

Steinitz straddles that extremely vague boundary.
Use of the term "official" pre-1948 suggests there was some title-awarding/-recognizing body, but the first tentative sign of that was in FIDE's formative years, in the mid-1920s. Even then FIDE's role was virtually non-existent; the first "constitution" for the Championship was the "London Rules", virtually dictated by Capablanca. Logic suggests all that makes Lasker an "unofficial" champion, although everyone knew he was the boss.
The Kasparov affair shows that official recognition is pretty impotent (impotent, not important) - everyone except FIDE knew who was the real champion 1993-2000.

I think a better set of headings would be:

Informal uses of the title "World champion"
Transition to a universally-recognized champion (would cover the arguments about the start of Steinitz' reign).
Pre-FIDE generally-recognized champions.
FIDE's attempts take control of the title (and the "FIDE World Champions" of the 1930s).
The Interregnum and the 1848 tournament
FIDE champions.
The split in the world title.
Re-unification. Philcha (talk) 19:38, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I've found documents that say the American Chess Congress began in 1888 an attempt to regulate the future conduct of world championship contests, which Steinitz supported: Thulin, A. (August 2007). Steinitz—Chigorin, Havana 1899 - A World Championship Match or Not?. This proposal evolved through many forms (as Steinitz pointed out, such a project had never been undertaken before), and resulted in the New York 1889 "candidates tournament". There's enough material here for a whole new section. To prevent the page from becoming too long I suggest shortening as much as possible the accounts of champions who were not involved in any controversy over the process - the article wouold still need to comment on Steinitz, Lasker (ducked Capa for a long time; may have ducked Rubinstein), Capa (the "London Rules"), Alekhine (in addition to the Inter-regnum, his relative weakness created a power vacuum in the late 1930s), Botvinnik (parallell suggestion of a system similar to FIDE's; the "Botvinnik rule" on re-matches), Fischer, Kasparov and the whole split title period. Then the FIDE aricle will needed to be edited to match (e.g. the early 1920's proposals were not the first). Philcha (talk) 10:57, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't misread the cited paper: NY 1889 was not a 'candidates tournament' even if some people assumed it was. Steinitz seems very clear that the winner would be World Champion, and that he wouldn't even challenge the winner (except perhaps if noone else of the participants did so). This is a rather odd corner of chess history.Athulin (talk) 18:30, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi, are you that A. Thulin? I agree that NY 1889 was not originally intended to be a candidates tournament, but there seems little doubt that it eventually functioned as one (apart from the Chigorin-Weiss business) - unless you are saying that Gunsberg became the champion and Steinitz the challenger, or that the title became vacant between NY 1889 and the Steintz-Gunsberg match? If you can clarify this, it would be much appreciated since it would benefit at least World Chess Championship and Wilhelm Steinitz, and probably Mikhail Chigorin, Max Weiss and Isidore Gunsberg as well. Philcha (talk) 19:09, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

As you say, it wasn't intended to be one, yet several writers assumed that it was -- that the winner would become the challenger for the WCh, contrary to the stated programme and Steinitz own declarations as cited in the paper. That's one side of the thing -- that kind of 'candidates tournament' is a misunderstanding. On the other hand, the top participants got a boost from it, and the pecking order became a bit clearer as to who were next in line to the WCh -- that's another side of it. Neither is quite the same as a FIDE candidates tournament. I'm simply concerned that readers will make the wrong mental connection, and assume it was something else than it was.

As to the state of the WCh after NY1889 ... well, the table was set for the possibility of co-championship, and I sometimes think it would have been the right way to go in this particular case. But as the organizers admitted to failure on this particular issue, I see no very strong reason for disputing that the title went back to Steinitz. The only players who had a reasonable claim on the title would be Weiss and Chigorin. But as it was the purpose of the championship match to establish the new WCh, and as that match was not held, such claims surely lapsed when the congress finished. After that, it was business as usual.Athulin (talk) 16:16, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Before the 1851 London tournament 2 commentator explicitly said the winner should be regarded as "the World’s Chess Champion"; and in the mid-1840s Ludwig Bledow proposed a tournament for the same purpose - see Spinrad, J.P. (2006). Early World Rankings. chesscafe.com. World Chess Championship really does need a rewrite. Philcha (talk) 17:36, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't argue with your central point here; clearly a lot has been written about those early 'world champions' and there are various discussions on the context and validity of unofficial, official or even 'universally recognised' titles, so it therefore does no harm to improve the content of the article, if we feel it provides a better understanding of this transition period. I see this more as an expansion, rather than a re-write, the latter suggesting that the current version is incorrect in some way. Prior to FIDE taking control of the competition, the title was ipso facto the personal property of the holder and again, I would agree that the terms "official/unofficial" give rise to a mistaken belief that the title was endorsed by some organisation - the dictionary definition implies properly authorized. Consequently, a change in the various headings to move away from this notion is probably okay as a shift in emphasis, or to help avert misunderstanding. If, on the other hand, we are talking about writing the body text to give a more 'modern interpretation' of these titles, then there is a danger that we stray into original research. Historical accounts do, whether we like it or not, report the titles in terms of 'official' or 'unofficial'. That said, I havn't read the Kasparov books, so if he, or others, have a more modern interpretation, then I'd certainly support a clearer, less ambiguous description throughout. Brittle heaven (talk) 13:38, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not even sure that "historical accounts" report the titles in terms of "official" or "unofficial". BCM (1894) and Lasker (1908) say Steinitz' reign started 1866 ; NY Times 1894 got its arithmetic wrong and said "for 26 years" but it's obvious what they meant (or perhaps Lasker first challenged in 1892 and they used that as a base, then sub-edited that out to fit the article in the available space; either way they meant for a lot longer than the 8 years 1886 - 1894). These 3 sources regarded Steinitz as champion since he beat Anderssen in 1866, despite the absence of "world championship" or similar worlds in the contract for the 1866 match. IMO the most reasonable response to these facts is that the situation was unclear for a long time (late 1870s and early 1880s). Lasker, BCM and NY Times apparently thought the 1886 Zukertort match retrospectively confirmed that Steinitz was champion from 1886. Fine in "World's Great Chess Games" apparently follows their example. If anything is "revisionist" it is later accounts that insist on 1886.

The "official / unofficial" distinction is meaningless: (a) anyone can set up a "governing body", look at Kasparov 1993-2000 and the state of boxing; (b) if the sanction of a governing body is required, Botvinnik was the first official champion(!!!); (c) if the existence of agreed rules is the criterion, Alekhine is the first, as he beat Capa under the "London Rules" while Capa beat Em. Lasker under no pre-defined rules; (d) wait a minute, perhaps Steinitz is the last legitimate champion (!!!!!), as he defended against Gunsberg (1890) under the American Chess Congress' rules of 1888-89 while Steinitz-Lasker 1894 was merely a privately-arranged match between 2 people who happened to be great players.

I admit that simply writing this analysis into the article would be WP:OR, but I see no obligation to give prominence to writings that violate all facts and logic, no matter how prestigious their sources might be; Wikipedia routinely omits e.g. creationist arguments in article about evolution, even if these arguments are advanced by scientists who are also creationists. To look at it another way, FIDE recognised Khalifman and Ponomariov as world champions, and most commentators laughed (and most of the rest wept). The current article is guilty of undue weight in giving pre-eminence to the views of FIDE and its supporters, as they are not disinterested commentators and appear to have been in a minority for most of 1993 to the present. Philcha (talk) 17:08, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Apologies, my term 'historical accounts' was misleading - I actually meant the more popular accounts written in books of thirty/forty years ago. It's undoubtedly a fertile area for discussion. I do support your aims, but it would be hugely beneficial to have a writer of 'Darwinian' proportions backing you up. What of Kasparov's My Great Predecessors Vol. 1? Does he have a modern perspective on all this? Anyone? Brittle heaven (talk) 18:17, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean Em. Lasker was too brief to qualify as "Darwinian" :-) Philcha (talk) 15:47, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Henry Edward Bird's long, rambling Chess History and Reminiscences retrospectively awards Howard Staunton the title of "the admitted world's champion in chess, until the title was wrested from him by Professor Anderssen in ...1851." (I'll find a date for Bird's reminiscences one of these years) Philcha (talk) 12:17, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I too agree that official/nonofficial is a bad distinction. It's not WP:OR to speak of difficulties in dating Steinitz's reign as Edward Winter (cited above) has written about it. Peter Ballard (talk) 09:27, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The next question is what we put in place of "official / unofficial". I don't think "undisputed" would help: the title was disputed after 1993 but everyone knew Kasparov was easily the top player; and if we found clear evdence that everyone was happy for Steinitz to be called "World Champion" at some time between 1866 and the late 1870s we have an undiputed championship for that period and then a period where the title was disputed until Steinitz beat Zukertort in 1886.

I suggest "formal / informal", as the 1886 match was the first contest that was explicitly for the world championship and, except possibly for 1889, there's been little doubt since about the intended championship status of contests, even if the title was disputed. "Informal" can cover both contemporary and retrospective acclamations of champions. Philcha (talk) 19:31, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I think "undisputed" is OK for 1886-1946 (and indeed all the way up to 1993), the title was indeed undisputed in that time. formal/informal has similar problems to official/unofficial. Peter Ballard (talk) 00:04, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree it's very tricky to find a label. "undisputed" suggests a contrast between "disputed" and "undisputed", and fortunately disputes have been rare in chess: I can only think of 1993-2006 and Steinitz/Zukertort from the late 1870s to 1886; OTOH in the late 1870s some sources say that Steinitz effectively forfeited his claim to the title during his long absence from competitive chess (1876-1882), which implies that they regarded him as undisputed champion before that.

"formal/informal" is meant to flag where a particular contest was defined in advance as being for the world championship, but avoiding the issues of legitimacy that undermine "official/unofficial". If anyone can think of an alternative for distinguishing between pre- and post-1886 that is clearer and carries no complicated baggage, please suggest it as soon as possible. If a suggestion is not presented within a few days, I'll edit World Chess Championship to show how the concept evolved. If a good suggestion appears after that, I'll retrofit it, unless someone else gets there first :-) Philcha (talk) 14:57, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Re "undisputed", I've found that the tortuous process leading leading to the 1921 Emanuel Lasker-Capablanca match produced an ugly situation - including a possible predecessor to the 1946-48 Interregnum of World Chess Champions. Philcha (talk) 18:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes but there was no rival championship, and it was quickly resolved. In that way it was similar to to 1946-48 (and 1974-5, and even 1984-5). I think "undisputed" is an OK tag for all the time from 1886-1993. Peter Ballard (talk) 08:23, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

My impression is that in 1920-21 the players agreed and disputes were between the commentators, and the rival candidates were Lasker, Capa and interregnum. However I'll make sure the detals are exactly right when I edit that part. Philcha (talk) 10:45, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Snippets

Paul Morphy NY Times September 3, 1899
[4] exchange of letters critical of FIDE's "world-championship-lite" ideas; Parr suggests it's an attempt by bureaucrats to prevent champs from becoming powerful - guess who?
Soviet collusion 1930 - CN 4950, "Capablanca and Stalin"; stopped by Stalin! Original at NY Times Philcha (talk) 14:15, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Financing of world championship contests

I've added a section on this, as it's been the root of many difficulties. I'm fairly happy up to 1946-1948 - basically it was like boxing. Does anyone know of good material on:

How the 1948 World Championship Tournament was financed.
How the 1975 Fischer-Karpov match was to be financed? (I expect there will be tons on Fisher-Spassky 1972).
Any of the matches after that?
Especially the details of the deal that Kasparov and Short rejected and of the one they accepted in 1993.
And FIDE's recent championship tournaments. Philcha (talk) 22:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I think it's better to work it into the body of the article. Having a separate section reads strange. Peter Ballard (talk) 08:56, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

After my last post (22:05, 7 June 2008) it occurred to me that it might be best to leave financing from 1948 onwards until later, and possibly split it if the arrangements were too diverse for one section. If the financing of a match was peculiar to that match, it should be covered with that match.

I think it's advantageous to explain up-front the general principles of world championship financing, as: the same principles applied to all championship matches up to World War II; the world worked very differently then - essentially chess match funding up to WW II was a form of gambling, a hugely scaled up version of the early 19th century small-stakes games in clubs (see Bird's Reminscences); AFAIK under the FIDE regime it was a mix of tax-funded and commercial sponsorship; while in the Kasparov-Kramnik lineage AFAIK it was pure commercial sponsorship).

Eventually it might be useful to move the current "financing" section to just above the Lasker section, because it was in his reign that stakes became a barrier; they were also a barrier in Capa's and Alekhine's reigns. It may also be useful to re-title the "finances" section, but I'd leave that until its place in the structure is settled. Philcha (talk) 10:01, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I disagree that it is useful to explain finances up-front. Finances are (I would argue) a peripheral issue not of major interest to most readers, who are more interested in the chess, the matches and the personalities. Much better to talk about it as we talk about negotiations for matches. p.s. I don't want to criticize the excellent work you're putting in, just provide some feedback and input when I find the time. Peter Ballard (talk) 10:36, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

The only way I can think to decide what is of "major interest to most readers" would be a poll. I think that would be a useful idea if it could be organised, as editors generally have to rely on their own best guesses. The biggest problem would be defining and then obtaining a "representive" sample, as I suspect that editors of chess articles are untypical. If you or anyone else can find a way round that, or can suggest a good alternative way to discover what of major interest to most readers, I'd support a proposal to carry it out.

Re the personalities, I think the evidence indicates that financial considerations were at the root of several well known conflicts. And unfortunately urban myths abound concerning chess masters' personalities and relationships, so it's entirely in the spirit of Wikipedia to emphasise points that are relevant and verifiable. Philcha (talk) 11:12, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I just think it is a good principle of writing (Wikipedia and otherwise) that subjects should be gradually introduced. Having "finances" up front is just way too abrupt for my liking - names and dates are mentioned before they've been explained and given context. Working them into the negotiations for each match (where appropriate) seems much more natural to me. Still, I'd like to hear other opinions... Peter Ballard (talk) 11:47, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

A general rule is to look at what the sources we are using have done. If our sources have a chapter or section in which they combine financing information on all chess matches together, then we should consider doing that ourselves. My guess is that our sources do not do that, and that instead of treating financing of World Championship matches as a topic of study in itself the particulars of the financing for each match are detailed when discussing the match itself. If the sources do not consider match financing an individual topic of study, then we shouldn't present it that way (no original research and synthesis). It's hard for me to see what common factors we can draw between the prize requirements of Lasker, Capablanca, and Alekhine (these are closely related to each other), and Kasparov's decision to break from FIDE over 50 years later (at least in part over money). Basically financing of chess WC matches has always been difficult and contentious, but I've never seen a discussion of that in isolation from the matches and the period involved. I agree that financing is important, but I think it needs to be discussed in context rather than in isolation. Quale (talk) 01:39, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't implying that Kasparov's break-away in 1993 was related to the the prize requirements of Lasker, Capablanca, and Alekhine. But AFAIK Kasparov's break-away was motivated partly by money as well as by distrust of FIDE and especially Campomanes after the termination of Karpov-Kasparov 1984.

Re financing of championship contests up to 1945, the sources (especially Bird, seconded by Lasker) support the following themes without any element of WP:OR or WP:SYNTH: it evolved out of low-stakes games in clubs; there was significant stakes inflation from 1843 onwards (2nd Staunton vs St-Amaint match); this became a barrier to challengers; but the players themselves did not do particularly well out of this. Before I started work on this article I had only a vague awareness of the stakes issue, despite having been an avid reader for chess books for many years. I expect it will be unfamiliar to non-specialist readers and therefore think an explanation is needed. I've tried to keep it brief and simple, for example I omitted Bird's much more detailed account of stakes inflation and relied on the contrast between £100 a side (1843 and 1866) and £400 a side (1886) to make that point. Philcha (talk) 12:47, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Evolution of World Chess Championship

Sorry if this appears rather brief - a power blip 10 minutes ago made my computer reboot when I'd almost finished a fuller version.

Until I started researching for various bios of top players, I did not realise how long and complex the evolution of the World Chess Championship was, and no Wikipedia article did justice to it. I stated over 2 weeks ago on this Talk page and at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess#World_Chess_Championship_-_more_sources.3B_.22official_.2F_unofficial.22_is_broken that IMO the "official" / "unofficial" distinction is supported by neither historical facts nor any reasoning that I've seen, and that I would start editing World Chess Championship accordingly in 2 weeks if there were no serious objections. No-one raised any serious objections. It would be common courtesy to let me finish what I have in mind, so everyone can see how it plays out.

I've therefore reinstated the sections "The reign of Wilhelm Steinitz" and "The Lasker controversies", but left in place the material incorporated from these into the pen portraits so editors can compare the effects. Philcha (talk) 13:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Structure

The structure of the article doesn't make sense to me. It discusses Steinitz and Lasker in great detail, and then goes back to the pre 1886 champions, then talks about Steintiz and Lasker again. In addition, it seems odd to begin with financing. The order is very confusing. --Pawnkingthree (talk) 13:55, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see User:Philcha was adding the above section to the talkpage as I was writing this one. It might have been better, if you wished to duplicate information so people can compare the effects, to do it in a subpage of your userspace, as anyone coming now to the article itself might wonder why there is so much repetition. --Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:06, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

If you check out my previous comments (cited above), I actually think this article needs a different approach (I suggested these points 2 weeks ago, gave 2 week's notice of my intentions and there have been no serious objections):

The evolution of the Championship is sufficiently complex and supported by such detailed sources that it warrants being the dominant aspect of the article. For example there were 3 attempts to produce agreed rules for challenges before 1946-1948, and the first of these (1888-1889; supported by the reigning champion) produced a "candidates tournament". If that means reducing the pen portraits, so be it - the bio articles are getting fuller, and are acquiring more thorough analyses of champions' play and influence.
The "official" / "unofficial" distinction is a recent over-simplification which is not supported by the historical evidence. IMO we should mention it because it's so commonly seen, but should not use it as a basis for the structure of the article. Philcha (talk) 14:28, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Again, I don't wish to discourage the large amount of excellent work you're doing, but I must second PK3's request: please keep it chronological, and please leave the article in a state so that it makes sense. Peter Ballard (talk) 00:54, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Here's what happened: I did some rearranging, to try to fix the order, and I made that clear in my edit summary. Philcha thought I had deleted his sections (which I hadn't), and so dropped them in a second time under the edit summary "Reinstate "The reign of Wilhelm Steinitz" and "The Lasker controversies")", leading to the repetition. Peter Ballard (talk) 01:03, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually I did notice that Peter Ballard had moved rather than deleted my edits.

I agree about the awkwardness of the structure is it is at present. I now think it's "make your mind up" time. I've already stated why I think the "politics" of the World Championship should be the main focus of this article, so I'll add just 1 further point: after 1948 the history of the system was uneventful until 1970ish (Fischer), despite there being 5 different champions in that period. Philcha (talk) 06:15, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I have to disagree. I think results, matches and people should take pride of place in the article. That's what most histories I've seen focus on, and I think that's what's of most general interest. Match rules have a place, especially 1948-93 where they were fixed. Before 1948 the rules varied so much that, if they begin taking up too much space, I think they should go in the champions' articles, or even individual match articles. Peter Ballard (talk) 11:55, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Peter Ballard, I think the 2 solutions you proposed would create an awful lot of duplication: Wilhelm Steinitz + Johannes Zukertort for the disputes of 1872-1866; Wilhelm Steinitz + American Chess Congress + Isidore Gunsberg (? + Mikhail Chigorin + Max Weiss ?) for the American Chess Congress' attempt in 1888-1889 to produce a system; Emanuel Lasker + José Raúl Capablanca (? + Akiba Rubinstein + Aron Nimzowitsch) for the Lasker controversies; Efim Bogoljubow + FIDE for the "FIDE champion"; Alexander Alekhine + José Raúl Capablanca + Max Euwe + Salo Flohr + FIDE for the late 1930s muddle, etc. It would be much better to have one main article plus briefer references in the other articles to the relevant parts of the details, and the main article would also do something the individual articles cannot do, which is to show how the the whole process, how one event influenced another, etc. Otherwise we might as well just scrap the whole World Chess Championship article, as all of its content (before I started editing) could likewise be split among various individual articles.

Re "That's what most histories I've seen focus on," it depends what you mean by "history". Books like Kasparov's My Great Predecessors have more specific objectives, in the case of MGP to show what each player contributed to our understanding of the game. An actual historical book generally contains a mix of chronological and thematic chapters. For example I just looked at A History of England by Keith Feiling, and between the chapters "The Angevins 1154-1213" and "Revolution and Reform 1213-1272" there's one titled "Preparation for nationality" - and so on. World Chess Championship cannot cover players' careers in anything like the detail of the individual player articles, and the best way it can add value to Wikipedia is by covering the development of the world championship theme (or meme - and that's not one of my flippant puns). Philcha (talk) 08:27, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps I've overstated my case - I don't want no politics, just a balance. Certainly details (tedious details IMHO) like player payments belong in the individual match pages. If one section gets really verbose (e.g. the formalizing of the concept of World Champion in Steinitz's day) then give it its own separate article, rather than duplicating it in players' articles. But I'm still of the opinion that there is a place for an overview of the entire history of the world chess championship, and that place is this article, and if ANY one section gets too detailed then it belongs in a sub-article. But anyway, I don't just want a 2 person discussion, let's hear some other opinions. Peter Ballard (talk) 13:00, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Peter, the article should be arranged chronologically and primarily concerned with the players and the results. Histories of England are indeed sometimes treated thematically, but I don't think I've ever seen the World Chess Championship treated that way. If there are sources on the chess WC that are organized that way, let us know and we can take a look. Deriving grand themes for this article that aren't explicit in our sources is synthesis and original research. Quale (talk) 15:27, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Quale has just highlighted my point: Bird is explicit about stakes inflation; Spinrad is explicit about attempts to identify a "world number one" before the term "world chess champion" became current; Winter is explicit about the rise of the term "world chess champion" and about most of the issues raised by Steinitz' reign, including its start date; Landsberger and Thulin are explicit about the American Chess Congress' attempt to define rules and about Steinitz' co-operation with this project; the sources I've cited are explicit about the Lasker controversies and attempts to resolve them, and about how Capablanca's demand for a $10,000 stake raised a barrier to challenges in the early 1920s; Winter is scathing about the late 1930s muddle and explicit about the 1946-1948 interregnum and how it was resolved. There's no original research and I don't think there's so much as a prima facie case for synthesis. And if you look at the range of sources, you'll see that there are also no grounds for accusations of Undue weight.

I actually started off fairly comfortable with the view presented by the world champion bio articles etc. as at around the begining of 2008. When editing Wilhelm Steinitz I got curious about how the 1886 start date for his reign became conventional wisdom, as I remembered that Fine used 1866; that's when I found Winter on "Early uses ..", but at that point it was just something that was nice to know. Then I thought I should improve the context for Wilhelm Steinitz. First I edited the articles on his major competitors Johannes Zukertort and Joseph Henry Blackburne‎, and then on his predecessor as "world number one", Adolf Anderssen - no surprises in any of these. Then I though it would be useful to know more about Howard Staunton, and that's when Spinrad's "Early World Rankings" got me thinking about World Chess Championship. I can't remember exactly when I picked up the Thulin/Landsbreger stuff about about the American Chess Congress' attempt to define rules, I can only remember that it wasn't in my first set of edits on Wilhelm Steinitz. Then more recently I started editing Emanuel Lasker, raised a query on Talk:Emanuel Lasker about his negotiations with Rubinstein and Capa, which Peter Ballard kindly answered, and found out about what I've titled "The Lasker controversies". I can't remember exactly when in this sequence I first started editing Mikhail Botvinnik, FIDE and Alexander Alekhine, but researching for these edits put me on to the sources for the late 1930s muddle and the Interregnum.

In short, I didn't even find the sources, they found me and changed my mind. Philcha (talk) 16:55, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that's what Peter and I are arguing. There's no doubt that writers have treated individual issues in depth (Alekhine and Capablanca negotiations, etc.), but I've never seen any of them say that these individual stories are the story of the history of the World Championship as a whole. That simply isn't the way that the entire history is organized. It's a chronological story centered on individuals, not match negotiations, that should be told chronologically. Fischer defended his demand for a two game victory margin requirement for the challenger in 1975 by pointing out that similar conditions had been used in one or more of Lasker's defenses of his title, but that doesn't mean that we should necessarily break match conditions into a separate section and deal with 140 years of match negotiation history there out of chronological order. Each of the specific issues you talk about belongs to a particular time frame, and can be discussed in chronological sequence where it has appropriate context. To elevate match financing as the central point of interest in the World Championship series is undue weight, since that's not the way it is normally viewed. Issues and controversies surrounding financing and match conditions should be covered, but to give them a central place above the individuals is not a good idea. To go back to the history of England example: suppose we were writing about the last 1000 years of English history. You can imagine at least two ways to organize such an article: 1) chronologically, breaking up the times in reasonably sized pieces and dealing with politics, technology, etc within each time period, or 2) by topic, one section for politics covering all of the last 1000 years and another for technology, again covering the last 1000 years, etc. Either organization would be valid, but for most purposes the chronological organization would be vastly superior to separating each topic out and covering the chronology repeatedly. Quale (talk) 19:23, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

The organisation I've been using is chronological, but focusses on the management of championship contests rather than on individual players - I don't think focussing on players will work as a framework because e.g the late 1930s muddle involved 4 players directly (Alekhine, Euwe, Capablanca and Flohr), at least 2 others accidentally (Keres & Botvinnik challenged Alekhine after AVRO; Fine tied for 1st at AVRO but dropped out), and an organisation (FIDE); conversely from 1948 to 1969 we saw the same script enacted by a varying cast. I have not "elevated match financing as the central point of interest in the World Championship series" - the evidence shows that it was only a general obstacle from 1904 (Marshall's challenge to Lasker) to 1927, and after 1927 Alekhine made it an obstacle only for Capa, but not for Bogoljubow or Euwe. Looking further ahead than I've written, it nearly became an obstacle in 1972, while in 1993 it was an issue when Kasparov and Short broke with FIDE in 1993, but was no obstacle to their match. I outlined match financing (1843-1937) up front in order to avoid explaining the basics of match financing every time it did become relevant. Philcha (talk) 19:57, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "FIDE, Euwe and AVRO" and "Birth of FIDE's World Championship challenge cycle"

For the moment I've just copied in the corresponding content from FIDE, which in turn refers to Interregnum of World Chess Champions for the most detailed account of that messy period. That means there's a lot of duplication and we need to decide which article should do the heavy lifting for which topic. My own feelings are:

World Chess Championship should be the "root" article, so that it tells a continuous story from the beginning to the present.
Interregnum of World Chess Champions should continue to be the main article for its own subject, as it's too big and complex to fit easily into another article. We should look for ways to shorten the corresponding parts of "Birth of FIDE's World Championship challenge cycle".
The late 1930s muddle is not at present a big enough topic to justify a separate article. Since World Chess Championship is getting quite large, I suggest the details should go in FIDE and the account in World Chess Championship can be shortened, if this is possible without too much loss of significant information. Philcha (talk) 22:28, 9 June 2008 (UTC)