Chess Games

Chess games are closely followed throughout the world by enthusiasts in the field from both professional and amateur backgrounds. The game of chess has historically acted in the capacity of a meeting place for different cultures and countries, in part because it carries great prestige and respect as a form of competition and because it is felt to display a high degree of intelligence and cunning on the part of the person who can master it. Because of the high value placed on achievements in displayed skill in playing chess, incidents of contentious dispute as well as periods of amicable relations have occurred as a result of contests which are disagreed about in their outcomes by the participants and various onlookers and interested individuals. In order to provide some measure for addressing the issues that may result from disagreements over chess games, federations have been formed which provide a organizational framework for putting together broadly based chess competitions and for defining all of the rules and questions that come out of the process of playing chess. These organizations can provide the players involved in any given game of chess a common ground of understanding and agreement on the basic rules for playing chess and thus avoid the potential disputes that could arise between various cultures or regions that have formed independent approaches to chess. They also give players who have progressed to a competitive level of expertise and skill in how they play chess games an organizational format for addressing concerns that arise in the course of playing with another person, such as accusations made by either party that some method of cheating was involved in the game.

Despite the measures that are taken on an organizational level to provide a basic foundation of order and courtesy for the playing of chess games, disputes have been still known to arise in regard to highly publicized and significant chess competitions, sometimes without any satisfactory outcome being reached by the regulatory bodies involved in regard to the individuals in question. Such issues have been seen to sometimes concern the proliferation of new technological methods having an effect on the playing of the game of chess. One competition that ended in a highly unsatisfactory manner for one of the participants, and with an ugly cloud of negative publicity and contended decisions hanging over the other opponent, occurred in 2006. This competition, the World Chess Championship, brought together two previous champions from other competitions in the game of chess, Classical World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik and the FIDE World Chess Champion Veselin Topalov. It was accompanied by accusations of cheating and the use of forfeiture procedures by one chess player against the other, with a final decision being reached as to the winner of the match only with difficulty. The controversy involved in the raising of disputed issues with the conduct of this game of chess brought much attention to the world of chess games but of a largely negative manner, the tension resulting from which was only defused by the final announcement of the first undisputed World Chess Champion being determined in thirteen years.

The players in this case came to the particular game of chess from differing honors established for the recognition of outstanding players of chess. Vladimir Kramnik, for instance, in arriving at the World Chess Championship as the Classical World Chess Champion, was being backed with recognition from the older institution in the world of chess. The common prevalence of the idea in chess playing circles that a competition could locate a true world chess champion dates back the early nineteenth century, when references to this idea begin to appear in print as speculation. Though world chess champions began to be acclaimed at this time, the recognition was derived from merely an informal opinion or consensus as to which player was manifesting the most skill and expertise in playing chess games. It was not until 1886 that chess players throughout the world managed to agree upon a game of chess beforehand that would be used in its results to determine who the actual world chess champion was. By granting him the more limited title of Classical World Chess Champion, it was intended to convey that Vladimir Kramnik’s level of accomplishment was at that point at a more limited plane of achievement.

FIDE, the organization which had affirmed Vladimir Kramnik’s opponent, Veselin Topalov, as FIDE World Chess Champion, is more recent in its provenance, and plays a leading role in the worldwide organization of and setting of rules for chess games. FIDE stands for “Federation Internationale des Echecs,” and it has slowly grown from fairly informal and loosely organized beginnings to become the dominant organizing body for all of the various chess organizations that are based around the world. The idea of creating the organization to perform this function for the world of chess players first arose around the start of World War I, the disruption of which to the culture of and level of international cooperation in Europe prevented FIDE’s formation from taking place for a measure of time. In 1924 the organization was created in Paris along the lines of a union for players of chess games. As it undertook the publicly prominent task of affirming that various well-known chess players could be considered “world champions,” FIDE began to emerge in the consciousness of the general public and among enthusiasts of playing chess as an “official” source of authority for judgments on the world of chess. In its present-day incarnation FIDE is highly professional and known for its function of providing the organizational framework of all of the major chess playing competitions, such as the contentious 2006 World Chess Championship between Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov, as well as giving a stamp of official approval and a body of guiding regulations to less widely based and well-known chess competitions that are held throughout the world without the direct participation of FIDE.

In the case of this match in 2006, the controversy which arose between the two individual players dated back to a split by the famous chess player Garry Kasparov, who was widely respected and considered by some authorities on the world of chess players to be the greatest such player in the world, from the official embrace of FIDE, which had affirmed him as its officially sanctioned World Chess Champion up to 1993, when he made the decision to set off on in his own direction. He made his defection from FIDE good by setting up a rival organization for the holding of chess competitions, the Professional Chess Association. This deviation from FIDE created two sections of the field of World Chess Champion, with players who won Kasparov’s title in succession being named as Classical Chess Champion, the title held by Vladimir Kramnik when he arrived at the 2006 World Chess Championship. The decision to hold this match was made as a means for reconciling the two lines of chess champions. Because of the high stakes involved in the eventual outcome of the match, the negotiations which produced the final agreement on and conditions of the 2006 World Chess Championship were arrived at only after lengthy negotiation between both parties.

The 2006 World Chess Championship was held over the course of several days, in the length of which the dispute between the two players only emerged gradually. Tensions and concerns that had previously only been resting under the surface arose finally into public view and the concern of FIDE as a whole on the day given for Topalov and Kramnik to rest between the fourth and fifth games, when the manager for Topalov issued a statement to the organization and to international media outlets that they were concerned that Kramnik was using his visits made to a private restroom during the game for the purposes of cheating, as these spaces were the only parts of the building not being held under any form of surveillance. To support this complaint, Topalov’s manager suggested that Internet technology had been installed in the restroom allowing Kramnik access to online advice as to the best course for him to take in the game of chess. The game was postponed and the tournament committee deliberated for three days before deciding to block access to the private bathrooms and allow the players access only to public bathrooms.

In response to this decision, which was seen as a judgment on character, Kramnik appealed that the original conditions for the game be respected and forfeited the fifth match. An intervention by the President of FIDE allowed the games to resume with the forfeiture standing against Kramnik. The remainder of the games resulted in a tie between the two players. FIDE then organized a series of quick tie-breaking matches, from which Kramnik emerged as the winner. With the result of the final chess games, Vladimir Kramnik was affirmed as the fourteenth undisputed World Chess Champion.