The fifth installment of the unifying match for the world title between Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov did not take place. A quarter of an hour after the verdict of the jury of appeal was announced, Topalov appeared in the tournament hall. The chief referee of the match, Geert Geisen, went out to the audience and announced that the start of the game was postponed for 15 minutes. As it turned out later, the referee expected the appeal of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov to the participants of the match, in which the FIDE president asked them to remain calm, not to forget about the interests of world chess and to continue the struggle in a calm atmosphere.
However, after 15 minutes, the clock was never started, although Topalov was waiting for his opponent, sitting at the chess table. The party, if it can be called a party, began at 15:23. Meanwhile, at half-past four, a statement was made by the chairman of the appellate jury of the Greek, Georgios Makropoulos, to numerous journalists accredited to the match.
Geisen started up the white watch that Kramnik was supposed to play, while Makropoulos, in the press room above, began to clarify the position of the jury of appeal.
Soon everyone saw Vladimir Kramnik, who appeared not in the game room, but in the conference room, where Makropoulos explained the essence of the decision made by the jury, emphasizing his neutrality, impartiality and reasonableness. Vladimir did not find anything better than to enter into a discussion in English with Makropoulos, and then switched to Russian to make a statement to the press. It states that the jury’s decision does not stand up to criticism, that it is biased, that the accusations against Vladimir Kramnik related to his excessively frequent visits to the toilet room are sucked up and are not based on any real data. Vladimir made it clear that the reason for all this is the score 1: 3, with which his opponent loses the match. Moreover, he pointed out that in the text of the statement by Silvio Danailov, Topalov’s manager, there are sharp personality attacks against the classic world champion.
As a result, the fifth installment, having formally begun, was never completed. After an hour, no move was made by White, and, according to the rules, Vladimir Kramnik was credited with a technical defeat. The most annoying that Kirsan Ilyumzhinov at that time was in Sochi at a meeting of governors, prominent businessmen and ministers with Vladimir Putin and could not affect the development of events in Elista. True, when it became clear that the events were taking on a completely uncontrolled and truly terrible turn, Ilyumzhinov immediately flew to Elista and was already in the evening in City Chess, the city of chess, where he tried to somehow rectify the situation. However, according to the decisions made, the score has already legally become 3: 2. Kramnik categorically protested against such a development of events, and although the issue of toilets and some other controversial issues were quickly managed, if not resolved, then at least agreed on ways to solve them, so far no one can tell whether the match will continue or not. The main problem is the question of the score from which to continue the match. Various suggestions are made, for example: the score remains 3: 1 in favor of Vladimir Kramnik, but the number of parties is increasing from 12 to 16. At first, Topalov’s party in the person of Danailov was ready to answer with consent. Kramnik, having thought for a while, also seemed not to mind, but, in consultation with his coaches, seconds and manager, rejected the offer. And after that, Danailov said that the Bulgarian side was not ready to agree to such an option.
At the same time, there was a process of coordination of all other issues, for example, the issue of toilets. In the end, it was decided that a strictly defined relaxation room and a strictly defined toilet were assigned to each side. Representatives of the Bulgarian delegation (as they say, these are special people from the guard of the President of Bulgaria, whose main task is to search for various "bugs" and other bad devices) completed their examination and did not find anything criminal, as one would expect.
In addition, at the request of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the appeals jury of the match, who found themselves in such a stupid position, resigned in full strength. The candidatures of the new members of the jury were agreed with both participants of the match, while the FIDE President took over the interim leadership. Thus, there was only one unresolved, but the most important question - how the result turned out to be and how many games (12, 14 or 16) the match will consist of?
There is another idea for overcoming the crisis: in the event that Topalov loses the match (which is quite probable since he will start from the score 1: 3 and will consist of 12 games), give Veselin the right to a rematch on the same conditions but move it to next spring.
There have already been precedents in the history of world championship matches when fights were interrupted, if not completed at all. It’s enough to recall the matches with Bobby Fischer, as well as the beginning of the famous Karpov-Kasparov confrontation, when the epic, which consisted of 48 games, was never completed (with a score of 5: 3 in Karpov’s favor, the match was stopped because the day was expected to end Secretary General of the Central Committee of the CPSU Konstantin Chernenko). Chess mankind hopes that this match can still be saved. Moreover, the FIDE participants, the headquarters of FIDE and President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov receive a lot of appeals from the chess federations of different countries, from chess clubs, individual grandmasters. All of them are calling to try to find a compromise, because a failure of the match would lead to an irreparable blow to world chess and their future.
Sergey Makarychev, international grandmaster, NTV-Plus commentator / ELISTA