He has said that he is done with the emotional and physical grind necessary to play the world championship format, a format that requires a lot of preparation, a lot of stamina, and very long individual games. He still plays chess, but he has voiced a repeated preference for quicker time controls and different formats.
My read is that he’s just done with the need to prove himself at that format given the toll, and now he just wants to do some other things.
^^^ That, too.
Thank you!
He’s generally bored with long-form chess and has nothing really to prove. Frankly, I admire him for it. This is nothing new with him – obviously, he sat out the last chess championship, but even before that he was chirping that he might not not defend his title. The only exception he had was if Firouzja would be the opponent. (Which didn’t happen, but Firouzja is/was an up-and-coming player that Magnus saw as a worthy opponent.) I honestly wouldn’t be surprised, though, if Gukesh brings him out of hibernation for next time around (assuming he wins the championship.)
It seems to me that tiring of the stress and retiring is a fairly common end for chess champions’ reigns.
True, but first, he retired from the world championship when he was 30, which is really young for that, but second, he’s still actively competing… just not in that competition.
Who can blame him? The classical world championship has increasingly struggled for sponsors and venues because it’s arguably the least interesting competition in the calendar. It feels like watching a week of heads-up poker.
Even the computer head-to-heads are more interesting, because they are forced to start with different openings.
I know people will shoot back that people who really know chess love the WCC, but yeah, even the world’s best player is bored with this format.
I think that’s true for us as watchers, and for other grandmasters, but the prize fund in his last world championship was €2 million, split between the two players 60/40. Carlsen can always attract sponsorship and money for whatever he competes in.
That’s not much more than the chess world cup.
Yes, the world cup prize fund is shared between many, many players, but the world championship has the prestige of being the world championship.
What I am saying is: I think the prize fund of a more interesting chess championship – say in American chess cup format – would have a substantially bigger prize pot. Enough that the top two could be in that 1m euro ballpark.
…but of course it’s pure speculation and we can’t know until such changes are made.
I have to think (hope?) that Carlsen would attempt to dethrone Gukesh should he become World Champion. If for no other reason than to show that he’s still better than the new young guns, like he said he would if Firouzja were the challenger last time around.
He has no reason at all to play against Nepo, Fabi or Ding Liren - he already knows he’s better than them, and so does everybody else.
Not trying to argue, but I think the days of money following tournaments of any kind are dead, especially because for the longest time it was all funded by eccentric billionaires or random companies anyway. In fact, the whole St. Louis/American experience is funded by another eccentric billionaire, though he’s been smart about putting more money down on infrastructure than he has on prize funds… I think the entire prize fund for the recent tour was only $1.2M, and look how many really strong grandmasters he had participate, and how many games he got out of it.
But I could be wrong, and I actually hope I am.
On a side note, I’m pretty sure Hikaru Nakamura has made it into the tens of millions of dollars at this point, just from his two streaming platforms. An incredibly steady production of streams, from one of the strongest grandmasters in the world, is an irresistible combination. I’m not sure how easily duplicated it is.
This is a great point. Content creators make much more than almost all competitive players. Of course, doing both is the best bet. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone like IM Levy Rozman makes more than all professional players other than maybe Magnus and Hikaru.
ETA: And this also highlights why the current classical format is dead. It’s bad streaming content. Two players playing almost perfectly for a draw. The only drama (like in Fabi/Nepo yesterday) was due to the time trouble, which took hours of “bad content” to get to.
ETA2: Actually I think Fabi’s first blunder was after time control was reached, so maybe “time trouble” wasn’t the right term. He just screwed up. I think the later blunders were due to time issues.
You’re right, it was moves 41, 59, and 66. The mistake on move 41 is really such a classic blunder immediately after making the time control.
In fairness a lot of sports and games work a heck of a lot better in highlights form than viewing in their entirety.
But (and to get into another rant) the official chess channels do need to learn from the success of youtube channels like gotham, hikaru, agadmator. Chess analysis should be at the forefront: people who love chess, love analysis. With a slight lean towards educating the audience.
A lot of time when I tune in on chess.com it’s just a meandering conversation with the current board in the background that apparently they’re all bored of because there’s nothing obvious to go for in the position. Or if they do start talking lines it’s really fast and often not even shown on a board.
I get that it is frustrating for grandmasters to have to show us things that are obvious to them, but either you’re trying to make something people will watch, or you aren’t.
Absolutely, but you have to acknowledge (and by you I mean tournament organizers, not you specifically) that classical chess has probably the lowest action-to-time ratio in any competitive activity. At least in a 3 hours baseball game there are pitches happening.
Hell, even test cricket (the other super-long sport with a low action ratio) has more minute-by-minute action than classical chess. And there is a reason test cricket is, I believe, the least popular form of that game now. I’m sure cricket purists complain about T20 and the like, but they didn’t stop the train any more than the chess purists will.
Classical chess is simply not made to be watched live. Which is fine. But when the players themselves can make much better money playing a version of the game that is made to be watched live, rapid and blitz, it’s not surprising things are going the way they are. And for many of those players (Magnus in particular) that form of the game is simply more fun as well.
They’ll even keep talking after someone makes a move. You’d think they’d drop whatever they were yammering about to discus actual game action, but apparently not.
Agree completely.
It’s a pity that we cannot change the title of world chess champion to be something decided by a shorter time format / more decisive rules, but that will never happen.
So I think the best that could feasibly happen is a candidates-like tournament to decide the world champion.
I would agree with you though that even that would have limited appeal due to classical time controls, but it would still be better.
It’s quite sad that every time there’s a chess championship, that the press initially picks it up (and they definitely will this time, with it being India v China) then dwindles away after a few days of hours-long draws.
I speak Chinese, so I might try the Chinese coverage. But of course Chinese state TV has numerous problems of its own.
There were at least four channels covering the matches live, and FIDE’s official channel was non-stop analysis with the boards front and center and Irina Krush + a random GM going through games (both men’s and women’s, which I prefer). Those guys at chess24 (chess.com) are far too chummy and gabby, I agree with you that they sometimes just wander way too far afield, but that’s still probably the second best channel, and I did switch over to them when Judit Polgar was on, because she was mainly interested in looking at the games. I like chess India occasionally because they poll audience members during the match, but sometimes they are just way too energetic for me. And St. Louis chess is the worst, I loved Yasser Seirewan back when he was publishing inside chess, but he sucks so bad as a commentator.
I mean, it’s kind of a wonderful world when we have so many channels available to look at the same event, so there’s that.
Ah thanks for the recommendations. Tbh my own ignorance has played a factor here, as I hadn’t looked at fides stream in a long time and seems it’s changed since my recollection.
Well. After four games, Ding Liren is really struggling at Norway chess, already dead last by a significant margin. There are still 10 games left, but it’s not looking good. (I can’t figure out how to copy paste from their table, sorry about that)