Unity Deal TWIC Comment

Whilst I (MC) believe the Unity proposals in Prague are the only chance for the World Championship to regain its former status they were clearly achieved by some very tough tactics. I've had to make some changes in the light of some facts I got overnight.

After Seirawan's proposals, talks were started with FIDE, Kramnik and the Einstein Group and Garry Kasparov. Also involved was Bessel Kok who declared his interest in raising sponsorship for the unification match and further cycles.

There were a number of goals for these people.

FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov wanted unification under the FIDE banner and to save the huge amounts of money the current situation is losing for him. The Einstein Group having just bought the BGN interests and having in place a cycle which includes a Candidates in Dortmund (already organised) and the rights to a final match said they could not deal unless these were seen through to the end. This was their key position for a deal. For Kasparov he had to give up criticising the FIDE President's honesty, agree to return to FIDE and not organise any more cycles. In return for which he gets a shot at the title.

Four players needed to be accomodated outside the Einstein TV cycle. FIDE Champion Ruslan Ponomariov, World Number One Garry Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand and Vassily Ivanchuk. FIDE took charge of negotiating their champions' rights. Now things become slightly unclear. At this point in negotiations a proposal was made that Garry Kasparov be included in the cycle by playing Ruslan Ponomariov. However then the question became "what about Anand and Ivanchuk?". They had already turned down participation in Dortmund because they wanted to support FIDE. The Einstein Group said that FIDE should include them in their part of the cycle and released a document "joint proposal from the Einstein Group plc (London) and Madame Nahed Ojjeh (Paris)". This proposed that Anand and Ivanchuk play off and play Kasparov the winner to take on Ponomariov. FIDE may have suggested they be accomodated in the Einstein cycle. Anand's position anyhow was that he should start level with Kasparov and may have rejected both of these suggestions. Its my understanding that most of the leading players in the World also regard Kasparov has having been given too much for his participation.

Kasparov now enjoyed a strong negotiating position not merely because he is World Number one but because for better or worse his participation is regarded as essential because he is the world's most famous player and sponsorship will be easier to get. The feeling is that Bessel Kok believes that the whole deal doesn't make financial sense without him.

On this basis Kasparov negotiated with both Bessel Kok and Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and came to an agreement based on Kasparov returning to the FIDE fold by playing Ponomariov. These were done deals before Prague as far as these parties were concerned. Once the meetings in Prague started it became clear that they were on one side and everyone else was on the other.

Kramnik talked to many of the other players at the event and most of them told him that Kasparov had been given too much and he made some attempts to safeguard their positions. Kramnik had to substantially back down as the suggestion was made that the other parties might go ahead without him (its unclear whether this would have worked or not). A final agreement was made on the afternoon of May 6th.

The important core figures in the deal were Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, Bessel Kok and Garry Kasparov. They have effectively been left with almost all the political control of this new process. All other parties were left with no negotiating position or could be safely ignored. Strong assurances were made by Kirsan Ilyumzhinov that he will look after the players' rights in this second cycle in a nice speech and these were accepted by Kramnik by now the only real "outsider" left in the negotiations. These were reflected in comments in the final draft of the document and were in the end the only "compromise" that Kramnik could achieve without walking out on the process altogether.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of TWIC, Chess & Bridge Ltd or the London Chess Center.