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The World Chess Championship October 6, 2002
Now, back to his World Chess Championship site. The site is divided into three major sections: the current era (1991-2002), the FIDE era (1948-1990), and the pre-FIDE era, the years before 1948. The current era section includes events leading up to the actual Championship matches, including the candidates matches, and the FIDE knock-out system, along with the PCA/GMA/Braingames matches. The FIDE era section includes the Interzonals (ah, the nostalgia this site stirs in my heart for the "good old days"), the Candidates matches, and of course the World Championship match itself. Let's take a closer look at the 1970-1972 cycle for an example. The 1970 Interzonal Tournament at Palma de Mallorca brought together the qualifiers from the various Zonal tournaments around the world. In the US the US Championship was the qualifying Zonal, but there was a problem: Fischer had not participated in the US Championship, and so did not qualify for the World Championship cycle. Instead, the third-place qualifier from the US Championship, GM Pal Benko, gave up his spot in the Interzonal so Fischer could play. This is the one criticism I have of this site - while it does an excellent job of organizing & presenting the games & matches themselves, this sort of background information is missing from the FIDE & pre-FIDE era pages. I couldn't find, for example, an explanation of just how the cycle worked (the top six finishers joined the loser of the last World Championship match and the loser of the previous Candidates Matches Final in a series of elimination matches, the winner of which earned the right to face the reigning Champion). Nor are there any photographs of the competitors. In contrast, there is considerable information available about the machinations of the organizers & players in the current era. The information about the cycle is very well organized & presented. The crosstable for the Interzonal shows that Fischer scored 18½ out of 23, finishing 3½ points ahead of his nearest competitor. The Candidate's Matches document Fischer's complete whitewash (6-0) of Taimanov and Larsen, and his defeat of Petrosian in the Candidate's Finals, at last earning the right to face Spassky for the title. Of course, all the other Candidate's Matches are presented also. All of the games are available as a pgn download, and there are diagrams showing highlights from the best games. Inclusion of the 1992 Fischer-Spassky rematch is further evidence of the thoroughness of Mark's efforts. A selection of the best games from the history of the World Championship are made available for online viewing in a java-based viewer. Near the bottom of the home page is a long list of related topics covered on the site, including Women's Championships, ICCF Correspondence Championships, and Computer Championships. The What's New? page documents the continuing development of WCC; in the third quarter of 2002 he added the 10th World Computer Chess Championship to Computer Chess, crosstables for the 1950 title tournament, Candidate Tournaments between 1952 and 1967 (6 events), and Interzonals between 1971 and 1985 (10 events) to Women's events. Overall, I have to rate this site very highly for organization and presentation. The breadth of the material is nearly complete, and only lacking in depth, e.g. the background information mentioned earlier. Mark's ongoing efforts to build this site will surely, over time, rectify this minor shortcoming however. This is the single best online source of games and information about the World Chess Championship that I have seen. Stop by and check out: The World Chess Championship.
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