Damn. He had previously said he only would defend against Alireza and I guess that was true. As a person, of course he should do whatever makes him happy. As a fan of competition I’d like to see someone go as far as they can.
Well hopefully some good might come from this if it leads to any kind of shakeup of the world championship format.
As I’ve said previously, I play chess daily and I can’t get excited about 14 games played with standard time control between the same two players. 2018 was all draws and last year you feel that just exhaustion following the 136 move game was what caused Ian’s collapse (though that super long game was of course a classic).
But if the world champion even feels it’s not worth his time, then we know there’s a problem.
I think he feels it’s not worth his time because he knows he’s much better than everyone else, not because of the format, but that’s just speculation.
Here’s an article with some good insight from Carlsen himself.
The Challengers’ Tournamant had some great games, but I agree the Championship format is a slog.
It seems it is the format though, from some of his comments in the interview: “I enjoy playing tournaments a lot. Obviously, I enjoy them a lot more than I enjoy the World Championship”
And he’s not retiring, he’s still keeping a packed tournament schedule.
Is chess the only competitive game where the champions themselves decide when and how they’ll play championship games? It seems like every other game has some governing organization, that schedules championships on a regular basis, and when they say there’s a championship match, there is, with the format they choose, and if one of the competitors decides not to compete, it’s just a forfeit.
Boxing seems to involve a lot of faff. Competitors need to agree terms, and there have been times where a champion has appeared to dodge (float like a butterfly) fighting the most obvious challenger. IANA expert though.
I’ve always felt that Kasparov is the GOAT, but has Carlsen surpassed him? He seems virtually invincible, but so was Kasparov for a very long time.
I don’t know about “surpassed,” but Carlsen has become an even greater ambassador for the game. I love his accessibility – playing countless online blitz games against all comers (sometimes apparently while stoned), playing Judit Polgar – and losing in 19 moves – at a sidewalk cafe in Madrid, etc.
I’m a little bummed that the player everyone acknowledges as the world’s best won’t be the official world champion, but I can respect his decision and why he made it.
Carlsen’s rating is the highest of any human in history. Though of course part of that is that he was able to learn from Kasparov and all of the other players before him: Ratings of top chess players have consistently increased over history. And modern players also have the advantage of ludicrously strong computers to practice against and to analyze games.
I think that the most dominant player, relative to his contemporaries, was probably Morphy, but I’m not sure about that. Though if you brought Morphy here in a time machine, any modern top chess player would wipe the floor with him.
The question wouldn’t be “Morhpy in a time machine” it would be “Morphy with x number of years of study of modern theory + computer recaps / suggestions.”
As for GOAT, by understanding is that there are basically 4 guys that you can argue from a perspective and not be seen as crazy: Morphy, Fischer, Kasparov, and Carlsen. But the first two being very quirky/niche perspectives and only really Karparov and Carlsen are in contention.
Chess does have such an organization, FIDE. Officially this will be a forfeit and someone else will become the Champion.
I would throw Capablanca into that mix as well.
Magnus was a great representative for chess. Nepo has the personality of a wet rag. I can’t see him or Ding being very good world champions in terms of PR.
Any idea how this works out for him from a strictly financial point of view? Will he make more money playing a regular tournament schedule for six months than from training for and winning a championship match?
He’s not going away, though, he’ll still be the biggest name in the game by far.
This will be an interesting time, with the universally acknowledged best player in the world actively competing but not holding the title. I can’t think of an analogous situation in any sport offhand.
Magnus just pawn in game of life.
IMO it’s a very dangerous time for FIDE. The world championship(s) might struggle to gain interest and sponsorship. Heck, it wouldn’t surprise me if a host pulled out.
Meanwhile many people will consider the world cup or grand prix, or whichever is the highest-profile event Magnus takes part in, as the real world championship.
Perhaps it will be good for FIDE in the end – like I say, a more world cup style world championship would be much more entertaining than the status quo.
But, OTOH, it’s also a good opportunity for another organization to drink FIDE’s milkshake (if I got that expression right).
I think there’s a chance that this just ends the world championship as it has historically been. There have been a few similar situations in the past, but this is different than all of them:
- Alekhine died while holding the title, so a special tournament was held to declare the next champion.
- Fischer resigned the title, but also stopped playing altogether.
- Kasparov split from FIDE, but still played championship matches organized separately.
Magnus continuing as a full-time professional player and just not wanting to play matches is quite different, and might lead to the classical match format being abandoned altogether. If one or more of the top players don’t value the title enough to play, then there isn’t much point to it.
An interesting possibility would be for Alireza to find some sponsorship and challenge Magnus to a match. Prior to the candidates, Magnus had made some comments about Alireza being the only challenger he found interesting, so maybe he’d be willing to play such a match instead. It would put things back to where they were after Kasparov left in the 90s.
I have always felt, justified by no information, that Carlsen doesn’t want to play Nepo for the world championship. Look at the way he dominated Nepo last time and with his rating and length of time as WC, playing Nepo is nothing but a potential for a loss with no upside. And notice Carlsen made it official after Nepo won the Candidate’s.
I am going to lay a few ducats on Ding to win the World Championship. With how he got into the Candidate’s to begin with and Hikuru’s loss and MC not defending thus allowing him in the WC as runner-up, Ding seems destined to win.