Computer analysis of the world championship.

[Milos]

Fully agreed. It seems as if the bulgarian organizers are not really aware of the situation in Western Europe these days after the volcanic eruption in Iceland and the blocking of many airports. "Going by private car" is ridiculous IMO, and trains are overcrowded. Even Mrs. Merkel had had problems to travel where she wanted to.

It also seams that if organizers were from some "western european" country you would have completely different opinion.
At least, bulgarians don't think they are "superior"...

[shiv]

Fully agreed. It seems as if the bulgarian organizers are not really aware of the situation in Western Europe these days after the volcanic eruption in Iceland and the blocking of many airports. "Going by private car" is ridiculous IMO, and trains are overcrowded. Even Mrs. Merkel had had problems to travel where she wanted to.

It also seams that if organizers were from some "western european" country you would have completely different opinion.
At least, bulgarians don't think they are "superior"...

I cannot answer for Sven, but I personally am not pointing fingers at Bulgaria (or Bulgarians), but at their chess federation. If the organizers were from Northern, Eastern, Western, or Southern parts of the world, I would still have the same opinion.
Topalov has enough of an advantage playing on home ground, he does not need more help. A touch of sportsmanship would have been better for the federation too I imagine.

[Dirt]

I cannot answer for Sven, but I personally am not pointing fingers at Bulgaria (or Bulgarians), but at their chess federation. If the organizers were from Northern, Eastern, Western, or Southern parts of the world, I would still have the same opinion.
Topalov has enough of an advantage playing on home ground, he does not need more help. A touch of sportsmanship would have been better for the federation too I imagine.

Oh, come on. It's not like Anand has to start playing an hour after getting there by car. I know he wanted something like six days rest there before starting, but that's not reasonable now. I don't he would really be disadvantaged by only having a what, two day rest?, after the not really so terrible experience of a long drive.

[shiv]

I think at the top level this makes a huge difference. Topalov gets 6 days rest compared with Anand's 2. Topalov can study chess in the presence of his seconds while Anand has to travel/study alone. A world championship match of 12 games requires a lot of rest.

Also annoyed with the attitude of the Bulgarian Chess Federation and Topalov. Topalov has told Anand that if he wants to communicate with him during the match, he has to go thru an arbiter. Reminds me of toiletgate once again. Anyway, I think I have spoken too much on this topic

[Mincho Georgiev]

I cannot answer for Sven, but I personally am not pointing fingers at Bulgaria (or Bulgarians), but at their chess federation. If the organizers were from Northern, Eastern, Western, or Southern parts of the world, I would still have the same opinion.
Topalov has enough of an advantage playing on home ground, he does not need more help. A touch of sportsmanship would have been better for the federation too I imagine.

Oh, come on. It's not like Anand has to start playing an hour after getting there by car. I know he wanted something like six days rest there before starting, but that's not reasonable now. I don't he would really be disadvantaged by only having a what, two day rest?, after the not really so terrible experience of a long drive.

Absolutely!
Besides, don't be so naive, this is just part of the psychological war, surrounding the tournament as well as the some of the rest of Anand's demands that was almost ridiculous. Speaking about Sofia and Bugaria,
Sven, we are not in 19th century here, our airports were closed too and
for your surprise, we are watching news as well. Did you though about
what 3 day delay means from financial point of view for the organizers?
I suggest you, guys, to collect some more information and then, feel free
to flame towards Bulgaria.
If anyone thinks that is an advantage for Topalov to play in Sofia, think again. This is a responsibility that just adds more weights on him. The facts are that India was not interested to get the domain and FIDE had a
lack of sponsors to provide other, so...
In a time of financial crisis, the award fund is 2 mil. euro, the biggest for the last 15 years. Enough is enough. He will have to drive some.

[Sven]

Fully agreed. It seems as if the bulgarian organizers are not really aware of the situation in Western Europe these days after the volcanic eruption in Iceland and the blocking of many airports. "Going by private car" is ridiculous IMO, and trains are overcrowded. Even Mrs. Merkel had had problems to travel where she wanted to.

It also seams that if organizers were from some "western european" country you would have completely different opinion.

I apologize if my posting has been unclear and could be misunderstood by you. The intention of mentioning "Western Europe" was not anything "political", it was just derived from the facts that the volcanic ashes are currently more over Western Europe than over Eastern Europe, for obvious reasons, and it is a matter of fact that those people who are directly affected often think different than those who are not - which is not meant as an accusation but just as description of something normal. I wrote "it seems as if ... are not really aware", and the logical consequence would be to make them aware somehow, which I guess is what V. Anand might have already tried.

At least, bulgarians don't think they are "superior"...

I don't think I am "superior", too. Again, you misunderstood. You do not know enough about me, by far, to judge about that. It is not important for me from which country someone comes, only what he says and does. So please stop writing personal and OT stuff like that.

Sven

[Sven]

Fully agreed. It seems as if the bulgarian organizers are not really aware of the situation in Western Europe these days after the volcanic eruption in Iceland and the blocking of many airports. "Going by private car" is ridiculous IMO, and trains are overcrowded. Even Mrs. Merkel had had problems to travel where she wanted to.

It also seams that if organizers were from some "western european" country you would have completely different opinion.
At least, bulgarians don't think they are "superior"...

I cannot answer for Sven, but I personally am not pointing fingers at Bulgaria (or Bulgarians), but at their chess federation. If the organizers were from Northern, Eastern, Western, or Southern parts of the world, I would still have the same opinion.
Topalov has enough of an advantage playing on home ground, he does not need more help. A touch of sportsmanship would have been better for the federation too I imagine.

Agreed again. Furthermore, I did not intend to point fingers at anyone. I just said that organizers might be not aware of the situation. Nothing against Bulgaria or Bulgarians from my side. If world chess championships would be held in Germany, I would not expect from any of the participants that he or she should travel by car some 1000 km to Germany, and then play world class chess few days later. Nothing political, psychological, or economical in my mind here, just sportmanship, as you wrote.

Sven

[Sven]

I cannot answer for Sven, but I personally am not pointing fingers at Bulgaria (or Bulgarians), but at their chess federation. If the organizers were from Northern, Eastern, Western, or Southern parts of the world, I would still have the same opinion.
Topalov has enough of an advantage playing on home ground, he does not need more help. A touch of sportsmanship would have been better for the federation too I imagine.

Oh, come on. It's not like Anand has to start playing an hour after getting there by car. I know he wanted something like six days rest there before starting, but that's not reasonable now. I don't he would really be disadvantaged by only having a what, two day rest?, after the not really so terrible experience of a long drive.

Not postponing was justified by existing contracts. But the right to get a reasonable rest between arrival and first game is some kind of contract, too, so why should this be broken but not the other? Anand is a professional player so if someone talks economical here then he may do so, too. Reducing the agreed amount of his rest may economically affect Anand, too.

Sven

[Mincho Georgiev]

Fully agreed. It seems as if the bulgarian organizers are not really aware of the situation in Western Europe these days after the volcanic eruption in Iceland and the blocking of many airports. "Going by private car" is ridiculous IMO, and trains are overcrowded. Even Mrs. Merkel had had problems to travel where she wanted to.

It also seams that if organizers were from some "western european" country you would have completely different opinion.

I apologize if my posting has been unclear and could be misunderstood by you. The intention of mentioning "Western Europe" was not anything "political", it was just derived from the facts that the volcanic ashes are currently more over Western Europe than over Eastern Europe, for obvious reasons, and it is a matter of fact that those people who are directly affected often think different than those who are not - which is not meant as an accusation but just as description of something normal. I wrote "it seems as if ... are not really aware", and the logical consequence would be to make them aware somehow, which I guess is what V. Anand might have already tried.

At least, bulgarians don't think they are "superior"...

I don't think I am "superior", too. Again, you misunderstood. You do not know enough about me, by far, to judge about that. It is not important for me from which country someone comes, only what he says and does. So please stop writing personal and OT stuff like that.

Sven

No hard feelings, of course! What I meant to say (and you should believe me on this one) is that the published information regarding the tournament so far in the press is insufficient and that misleads a lot of people and gives the impression that the Sofia organizers have a bad treatment towards the Anand's team which is not true. In fact, the Sofia headquarter made almost the impossible to satisfy all of the Anand's team demands so far, regardless that some of them was beyond belief. I'm fully aware of course, that the champion has the right to demand.
I'm going to give you another interesting fact, again regarding the psychological war going on. As far as I know, his wife (and manager) came in Sofia in Monday - last week, declaring that all of the rooms for
their team are now occupied without giving any other information.
Of course Silvio and the others get the impression that way, that Anand
is in the hotel already and he prefers to check-in incognito.
Couple of days later though, he contacts them, requesting the delay.
Now, can you all imagine, what 3 day postponement could cause of financial and organizational point of view?
All I'm trying to tell You is to avoid being miss leaded.
Another interesting fact, that probably again you are not fully aware of is the flaming of other GM's toward Topalov, which is an additional annoyance if you mind them. Yesterday, Kramnik made a statement that
Topalov have an advantage for playing in Sofia, which is absolute nonsense, especially if you remember where Topalov-Kramnik was played.
Anyways, WCC is big forum and things like these are absolutely normal,
but at the end, we all highly anticipate the very interesting tournament.

[Sven]

Fully agreed. It seems as if the bulgarian organizers are not really aware of the situation in Western Europe these days after the volcanic eruption in Iceland and the blocking of many airports. "Going by private car" is ridiculous IMO, and trains are overcrowded. Even Mrs. Merkel had had problems to travel where she wanted to.

It also seams that if organizers were from some "western european" country you would have completely different opinion.

I apologize if my posting has been unclear and could be misunderstood by you. The intention of mentioning "Western Europe" was not anything "political", it was just derived from the facts that the volcanic ashes are currently more over Western Europe than over Eastern Europe, for obvious reasons, and it is a matter of fact that those people who are directly affected often think different than those who are not - which is not meant as an accusation but just as description of something normal. I wrote "it seems as if ... are not really aware", and the logical consequence would be to make them aware somehow, which I guess is what V. Anand might have already tried.

At least, bulgarians don't think they are "superior"...

I don't think I am "superior", too. Again, you misunderstood. You do not know enough about me, by far, to judge about that. It is not important for me from which country someone comes, only what he says and does. So please stop writing personal and OT stuff like that.

Sven

No hard feelings, of course! What I meant to say (and you should believe me on this one) is that the published information regarding the tournament so far in the press is insufficient and that misleads a lot of people and gives the impression that the Sofia organizers have a bad treatment towards the Anand's team which is not true. In fact, the Sofia headquarter made almost the impossible to satisfy all of the Anand's team demands so far, regardless that some of them was beyond belief. I'm fully aware of course, that the champion has the right to demand.
I'm going to give you another interesting fact, again regarding the psychological war going on. As far as I know, his wife (and manager) came in Sofia in Monday - last week, declaring that all of the rooms for
their team are now occupied without giving any other information.
Of course Silvio and the others get the impression that way, that Anand
is in the hotel already and he prefers to check-in incognito.
Couple of days later though, he contacts them, requesting the delay.
Now, can you all imagine, what 3 day postponement could cause of financial and organizational point of view?
All I'm trying to tell You is to avoid being miss leaded.
Another interesting fact, that probably again you are not fully aware of is the flaming of other GM's toward Topalov, which is an additional annoyance if you mind them. Yesterday, Kramnik made a statement that
Topalov have an advantage for playing in Sofia, which is absolute nonsense, especially if you remember where Topalov-Kramnik was played.
Anyways, WCC is big forum and things like these are absolutely normal,
but at the end, we all highly anticipate the very interesting tournament.

I understand what you mean. As always, there is no "white or black", the truth is somewhere inbetween.

As to the financial aspects, what would happen if the current champion would go ill seriously one day before starting? Everyone would *have* to accept a delay, then, at least the first game would not start as planned, and organization would have to accept that the champion does not show up at the official opening presentation. Maybe he would even lose the first game, I don't know the rules. But the point is, why should a situation like the current one, caused by force majeure,, be handled differently, where in this case the champion can't even be blamed himself for the transport problems?

Sven