As back in the day when FIDE loved Botvinnik and then Karpov...now
they are giving Kasparov pretty much what he wants.
Here is what Mark Crowther had to say about it...he runs The Week In
Chess...the #1 chess site on the net.
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.
check GM comments at
http://www.chesscenter.com/twic/praguecomm.html
Dave