From: Sam Sloan ISHIPRESS COM> Date: 2 jun 2000 Subject: Re: Tournament System - Knockdown or Swiss At 12:06 PM 6/2/00 -0400, 'Shigeki Masui' wrote: >Following is my personal comment to Larry Kaufman's criticism. >1) I agree to the announcement of the Shogi World Championship that Mr. >Egoshi is the champion and Mr. Ito is the runner up. There is no one >other than Mr. Chiaki Ito who can claim as No.2 in the tournament. >2) I truly believe that there are many reasons why many world class >tournaments in various games use knockdown system in stead of swiss in >the final championship series or tournaments. There are several reasons why the Swiss System is superior for chess, the main one being that in chess between 30% and 50% of the games between evenly matched opponents are draws. Because of the high number of draws, the knock-out system would not work at all in chess, as all draws would have to be replayed. In shogi, there are close to 0% draws and when the rare draw occurs it is not too much trouble to replay it. However, comparing shogi to the World Cup in football is inappropriate. Football is a spectator sport. If there were no spectators, those football matches would never be played. In chess, the FIDE World Championship in Las Vegas last August was organized on the basis of the knock-out system, the idea being to create spectator interest. The result was a complete failure. Less than 20 spectators attended the final matches for the championship. The earlier matches had more spectators, because spectators came to cheer on their national champions. For example, a large delegation came from the Philippines to root for the Philippine National Hero: Eugenio Torre. As soon as Torre lost a match and was eliminated, all the Filipinos went back to the Philippines. Also, nobody seriously recognizes Alexander Khalifman, the winner in Las Vegas, as the real world champion in chess, just as nobody is going to recognize the winner in Armonk as the real World Champion in shogi. Thus, the Swiss System is better, both because is provides a more enjoyable competition for the players, and because it produces a winner who is most likely to be recognized as the best player in the event. Sam Sloan