The Chess World Championship 2007 in Mexico will start in 27 days on Sept 12th 2007. See official homepage or the wikipedia page for more information.

Please post links to good coverage and game annotations here!

chessdom promises much reporting with videos and comments.

However I ask myself whether the winner of this tournamnt is really world champion. Apparent there are a few special rules for Kramnik and Topalov with rights for rematches and stuff. Does someone know the details? The rules are changed all the time

Thanks for the link!

I don't understand the politics behind the chess world championship either. With all the special rematch rights I am not even sure if the winner of the tournament in Mexico will be 'World Champion' or not. If everybody has the right to get a rematch, this could become a never-ending story.

Personally, I prefer a big two player showdown to determine the chess world champion over a bigger tournament. Following chess games requires a lot of mental energy (unless you just look at the board, listen to the commenting GM "White is slightly better here" and nod wisely but without understanding anything). And a battle between two minds, for me the essence of chess, seems to me more fascinating than a dozen or so GMs playing at the same time. But I guess that is more a matter of taste.

What would you prefer?

Don't care much about the format myself but I do care for FIDE sticking to the rules its creating.

Here are some comments by Magnus Carlsen's dad: http://blog.magnuschess.com/1187718470_on_the_world_champion.html

Mike wrote:
Don't care much about the format myself but I do care for FIDE sticking to the rules its creating.


I agree with that. In addition, I really do not understand how this is supposed to work. According to the link to Henrik Carlsen's blog you posted, both Kramnik and Toplalov have the right for a rematch. Who is world champion then? The winner of another rematch? Or another? The whole thing seems to be like a never ending story to me.

OK, I finally found a link to a chessbase article that explains the chess world championship cycle. You can find all the details here. Thanks to Mark from chess training for posting about it!