On Wed, 02 Jul 2003 03:51:35 GMT, (Sam Sloan)
wrote:

Have you read the demands of Ponomariov?

Among other things, he is demanding to be paid $150,000 "damages" by
FIDE because his match in Argentina was cancelled when the sponsors
could not raise the money.

Never in chess history has a player demanded to be paid so much for a
match which was never played.


As you cite in your own post, he does not want to be paid for the
match. The usual "Kasparovian" lies again. The reasons are logical and
reasonable (compare my other post in this thread).

He also demands that his match with Kasparov be deemed a semi-final
match, not a match for the World Championship. What this means is that
even if he looses the match to Kasparov, he will still be World
Champion.

Per Definitionem this *is* a semifinal match for the Championship. It
is quite ridiculous that Kasparov (and his puppets from FIDE and other
organizations) redefine it as a Championship (final) match. The only
reason for that can be that they (Kasparov and FIDE) believe that the
final (winner of Kasparov vs Pono vs winner of Kramnik vs Leko) will
never be played. By that Kasparov can claim that he - if he wins - is
champ again.
And the claim of Pono is *not* that if he looses the match he will
still be champ, but if he looses the match *and* there will be no
final, that then he will still be champ. And that's something *quite*
different. Here too Ponos argumentation is quite logical. A tourney
that is not finished has no winner. That's quite normal.
Your argumentation is yet another *Kasparovian* one, twisting and
turning the truth.


Who ever heard of such a thing? What sponsor will pay such a large
amount of money if the match is not for the World Chess Championship?

ROTFL, are the sponsors defining the kind of tourney today?


Remember that Ponomariov was also demanding draw odds from Kasparov.


Remember that in a title match (as FIDE and Kasparov now see it !!!)
the champ nearly always had that advantage? That Kasparov had that
advantage in every match he held when he was Champ?
Again this was a logical and reasonable argument of Pono.

If it were me in charge of FIDE, I would just ignore the crazy demands
of Ponomariov and forget about him.

Seems that the Chess world is lucky that you are not.


Ponomariov seems to think that the title of World Chess Champion is
his personal property, not a title awarded by an international
sporting organization.

In fact it is just the other way round, Kasparov thinks that the title
is *his* personal property, and even more ridiculously - his puppets
from FIDE agree.

Andreas