10/02/2006



It looks like the World Championship will continue (until Topalov finds some new way to be a baby). In my opinion Kramnik is being very honorable seeing how he is continuing the match even after he lost a game on forfeit. The score is 3.5-2.5 in Kramnik's favor, although it would be 3.5-1.5 if they erased Kramnik's round 5 forfeit.
It seems that most of the followers of the World Championship are overall siding with Kramnik, although many feel that both sides behaved poorly.

I personally feel that Topalov (or his manager) was completely in the wrong, and Kramnik handled the situation like a normal human being would. Topalov was clearly trying to attack Kramnik, not only by insisting on the rule change, but publicly declaring that he refuses to shake Kramnik's hand. Kramnik retaliated by forfeiting a match, and this only hurt himself. He is now honorably continuing the match after he handicapped himself with a forfeit.
My prediction is that there will be a lot more draws in this match, and then the final games will be more interesting once Topalov will start having to take risks to make a comeback. I hope and predict that Kramnik will win the match.
I have to admit that my opinion about the match is very biased. Kramnik is one of my favorite players. I honestly don't find his games to be very exciting, but I just think of him as the ultimate chess machine that is impossible to beat. He can just play for hours without making any serious mistakes, and this just grinds his opponents down. All of the people that I know that know Kramnik personally say that he is a very good character, and one of the most humble top level chess players. There are probably better sites for getting more "objective" opinions about the match than this one.

Here are two sites that I recommend for following the World Championship match: http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com
http://www.chessninja.com