JU HAS HAD to endure five World Championship Events since May 2018. She grittily took it all in and didn’t quit Women’s Chess, as Hou did.
Again, congrats to Ju Wenjun and my eternal gratitude to her.
The present Ju vs Tan match format calls for a tie break of quick games should the match end in a tie. I am against this. Below is the reason why.
1. Best Qualifiers?
The credible, fair, tried and tested Zonals – Interzonals – Candidates (with known strong players directly seeded into the Interzonals and Candidates; and here ratings may be used with caveats) over the random World Cup – type ‘lottery’ like tournaments. If possible long Candidate matches and 20 to 24 game World Championship matches.
My thoughts regarding the quick game tiebreakers for the World Championship Match:
The Romance of the Chess World Championship Match and the World Champions that won them:
There can only be two.
The champion to hold the title he beat all the masters for.
The challenger on quest for same title of yore.
i. Ideally the champion must have beaten the old one to be champion.
ii. Stop these FIDE quick game tie-breaks to decide the Classical Champion.
iii. The tiebreakers should be as fair as possible.
Notice that in the traditional champion-retains-title-in-a-tie, all the champion needs is a tied match to retain his title. Advantage champion.
My recommendation is we give more Whites to the challenger. Advantage challenger.
So things even out.
We still retain the tradition of the challenger beating the champ to get the Title.
The challenger gets to do it in a classical game, not a quick game.
Thus, suggestions if the World Championship match ends in a tie:
Additional classical games with a limit, wherein the challenger receives more Whites. If the champion manages to tie or win at the end, he retains the title.
Thus the tiebreaker can be one extra White game for the challenger. Or two, three, or four.
Concretely, we have three additional games. Challenger gets to play two whites and one black. He has to win at least one game and draw the other two. If the score is tied after three games, the titleholder retains the World Championship. We could even vary further, say one Black followed by one to three Whites for the challenger. Studies can be made in order to determine the best specific format (of Blacks and Whites) that can afford the challenger a fair chance at winning.
In my opinion, this would probably be welcomed by most of the chess world in terms of the sporting excitement it affords. Here we have the challenger; forced to try all means to win in classical games against a sitting champion that only needs to draw all the tiebreak games. A real drama at the end of the match. If the match still ends in a tie, the champion retains his title, and deservedly so since he got more Blacks.
This way the challenger must beat the champion in a classical game (not a quick game) in order to grab the title, and in so doing win the match outright. (Send comments and suggestions to mabuhibisaya2017@gmail.com)
