Chess great Carlsen boycotts Championship qualifier
Nov 5, 2010 12:16 PM By Lennart Simonsson, Sapa-dpa
Norwegian chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen on Friday said he has decided not to enter next year’s qualifications for the 2012 World Chess Championship.
The process and rules governing the qualifications were “unfair and unmodern,” Carlsen, 19, told Oslo daily VG.
The international chess federation FIDE has scheduled a Candidates Tournament between eight players in April 2011 to determine who will play reigning champion Viswatnathan Anand of India the following year.
Carlsen questioned this procedure, saying it was as if football World Cup champions Spain were already secured a berth in the final of the 2014 World Cup.
The Norwegian said he had written FIDE to explain his decision and if the rules change he was open to taking part in future World Chess Championships.
Meanwhile he planned to focus on improving his game and defend his top ranking.
Source: http://www.timeslive.co.za
in team games, players change over the years and often team is not as strong after 4 years hence you don’t get seeded into finals. in all individual sports where a title of world champion exists it is normal for challenger to have to dethrone the reigning champion.
team sports are different as players change
May be Carlsen Should have given F1 race as an example!
But in Chess it is an age old issue that Champion has to be challenged by a challenger and need to be defeated in a match.
But then, from now on a new system can be implemented and it should be followed without any politics or favors to anybody.
Only then the future WCC will have unanimous acceptance. Or else there will be some who will question the authenticity of the WCC itself.
It’s weird Carlsen would say that. Of course the WC doesn’t have to qualify for the world championship, he is the world champion.
Who can blame him? I saw this coming months ago. fide is not fit to handle the WCC.
It’s no surprise. He’s right. I would not be surprised to see other GMS follow this example. Either that or we’ll get another GM we never heard about become WCC. I can’t beleive Anand is worried about it….we get another Shabalov..or..whatever that other guys name was….its a ridiculous system.
This decision seems logical to me. For most players, the world championship is the big-money payday. It’s only the top few players that can really make a living playing chess full time, and even then it is the world championship that pays more than every other event in a given year combined.
But Carlsen is unique – he is young and #1 in the world, which has earned him some very lucrative endorsement contracts. If he isn’t happy with any aspect of the crazy-change-every-month rules of the FIDE, then he is better off protecting his revenue stream and trying to stay #1. A world title would be nice, sure, but I’m sure he can sleep quite comfortably dealing with the FIDE as little as possible and still making a tremendous living with his enormous talent, and on his own terms to boot. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. 🙂
Who will care about another tournament? Chess is chess, must be based on tradition, prestige, feel of uniqueness. I don’t understand how one can compare it to football… Football has a different tradition and, more importantly, most players behave in a way that insults what’s left of it, not to mention numerous fans, they don’t need tradition, really, they need it to be loud, that’s it. Moreover, in football, there is one such tournament every four years, in chess, on the contrary, it would be just another one, maybe a little more interesting because of the field. Only a little, and maybe, I would expect some boycotters…
Its not true that in every individual sport the reigning champion is automatically seeded. Check tennis ATP Barclay’s tournament in london, the best 8 rated players participate in the final, regardless of last year’s champion.
Of course, if FIDE had had a decent president, this situation would have been pre-empted before it came to this – the world’s best player, and the only westerner in the running pulling out. That’s a catastrophe for FIDE and for chess.
One can only hope that those who failed to support the opposition against Ilyumzhnov are ashamed of themselves.
If Magnus really feels that way, why doesn’t he play in the World Open, so he can try to become the “World Open Champion.”
I respect Carlsen for being his own person and standing up for him opinion. I’m sure he’ll be a world champion one day, he’s a great talent. With Carlsen being ranked #1 it’s already confusing for chess fans, why is Anand World Champion if he’s not the best player? The next world title will be devalued even more.
buckle up Carlson, dont act like a kid. Stop whining and play like a man. There is no short cut in life.
Carlsen is not a chess great until he has won THE world championship.
When Anand won the world championship tournament, he finished one point ahead of Kramnik, where he got most of his wins against the worst performers in the tournament.
That is not a true test of beating the best in even competition.
I think Carlsen’s decision has more to do with trying to protect his image and marketability than anything to do with improving the world championship.
If he was to lose, especially go out in the QF’s, then his image would be severely tarnished, or brought back to reality, depending on your point of view.
If he was genuine about discussion with fide, he would have sent his complaints about the format to fide direct and asked that they be dealt with in house, rather than putting them out into the general chess press.
It is a recent historical fact that the top players boycotted and/or protested previous formats of the world champ until they went back to the candidate qualifying matches.
Bravo, Carlsen.
He knows very well that he is the only show in town and therefore he can afford to point out to this stupid World Chess Championship procedure with Mini-Matches.
However, i think he’s not right with the privilege of the reigning champion. others already pointed out the difference between chess and team-sport like soccer and i share this view.
I want the old Chess Championship system out of the 60s/70s/80s back!!
I swear this is not Carlsen talking. This has to be his father Henrik, Simen Agdestein, Garry Kasparov, or the Norweigian chess federation pushing their opinions through Carlsen.
Carlsen seems easy going enough to simply want to play chess and not get into messy chess politics. He could not have written this letter. Period.
well, realistic assessment of his chances to grab THE TITLE. I guess “modern” means playing in cherry-picked private tourneys and claiming being #1.
Wow…seems Kasparov is still coaching Carlsen after all 😉
Is this Carlsen talking or Kasparov? Sounds like someone wants to mess up chess again and create a situation to undermine the championship.
Like Fischer, he is afraid of losing. Maybe the recent losses got into his head more than he wants to let on. A true competitor doesn’t complain about the rules. Just go in guns blazing, no excuses, no complaints, no regrets, may the best player win and be crowned champion.
Carlsen knows full well that he cant beat Anand or Kramnik in match play presently.He is waiting for them to get older.I cant believe how people interpret this act of cowardice/cunningness as a heroic deed.
I’m disappointed.
I’m very disappointed about his decision. People say he’s unique and so on, but then why doesn’t he take the best opportunity to show that? If he’s the best, he can beat anyone, right? No one is asking him to play chessboxing instead of chess, so I expected him to show his chess talent against other top players. Honestly, I have the feeling that he’s just afraid of losing. Every world champion has proved his power, so why it should be different with him? If he can’t prove he’s be the best over the board, then he’s not the best at all.
It’s not true that only team sports/games use that system and individual games use another. They all use the same system except chess. All the sports that used this dinosaur system, abandoned it sooner or later. Tennis for example (Wimbledon) used this system till 1922, when title holder waited for the challenger. Of course it was abandoned as completely unfair system.
Chess is still suffering, because is following the same old path. Chess MUST change. Like football changes, tennis changes, swimming changes, etc, even chess should change, or it will never become popular sport.
One of them is also elo-system, which is completely out of date. If FIDE want to have a real ranking it should absolutely follow ranking systems of other individual sports.
I think Carlsen is 100% right!
True, Carlsen seems not to understand the difference between team and individual games. Supertournaments are a dime a dozen now, and making the world championship just another of those would only drag it down.
And regardless, it’s ridiculous to come this far and then suddenly, at the last minute, decide that the system is too unfair to play under. Obviously he doesn’t feel ready to win the title yet and is bowing out as gracefully as possible.
Why is Anand not the best player? In the november rating list, he is the highest followed by Carlsen. I agree that Carlsen is now higher in the Live rating list. This is why we need the world championship where you have to beat the defending champion to win the title. Carlsen does not want to go down this long road. If he really wants to change this, he should go through this cycle, win the world championship and then say, we should have the top 8 players play quarters, semi etc. Then he will have some credibility. Right now, it is the same tired rhetoric we have heard before.
Many of those comments are intelectually disappointing – questioning motives instead of discussing arguments.
LOL Magnus LOL. Then you should let Anand be champion automatically for 4 years using your soccer analogy. You can’t pick and choose the rules you like.
Makes sense. I don’t think Carlsen was reffering to Anand about the automatic placement…but to Topalov who got the title shot without qualifying due to a messy deal with Fide and is back in the running again. I think Carlsen and Anand are quite good friends and I don’t think Carlsen has a problem meeting him or anyone else in a decently arranged match. These Mini matches are a disaster…and make it more of a crap shoot. Look, Since the Fide split we’ve had the weirdest situations…Champion by Tournament…and three!!!! very nice gentlemen that I won’t name..but we all know don’t belong as WCC. Fide is broken…and Carlsen doesn’t need them. Fide treats the whole qualification cycle like a bunch of amateurs.
I, as one of your comments above agree…I miss the old days…60’s to 80’s. Interzonal, decent length Candidate matches..decent space between them…etc and a WCC that’s at least longer than a lousy 12 games. He’s right about this.
Carlsen is right. The last time chess was great, well run and well respected was in 1972 when Fischer was playing. Ever since it has been a fiasco. They need to return to the Interzonal Tournaments, Candidates Match cycle and the full-out World Championship Matches of 24 games, minimum. Only then will Chess return to it glorious past.
It is Fide who decides the rules for the Chess World Championship, not Magnus Carlsen. Fide didn’t care when Fischer told them in 1975, they didn’t care when Kasparov told them, and they will not care whatever Carlsen tells them. Just the facts.
I think Magnus is playing a long term game here, right now he may be the world’s favourite player, numer uno is live ratings but he knows that Anand, Kramnik and topalov are too strong in match plays due to their vast experiences. Match play for World title also involves lots of politics/pshychological maneuveras including terms/discussions with FIDE, opponent, sponsorship etc etc. and he thinks he is not well prepared in any of those fronts. He knows that by just being the elite player in chess won’t win him the title and in next 4-5 years Kramnik, Anand and Topalov would surely be waning in terms of chess strength, the kid knows this will happen. Magnus might be critized but he is tryiing to learn the ‘GAME’ afterall kasparov is his guide. Though I would have loved to see him play against Anand, Kramnik at their best. Even Anand went through various qualifying formats before being WC. Looking at history of chess championships, every worthy champion had to go through the grinding process before reaching the finals. Carlsen would never know what it feels like to win the title if he doesn’t go through that ‘grinding’. Interestingly I see a few points raised for fairness like tournamnet format as in football which Carlens likes and is quite good at winning them as well. My take on this would be, Carlsen chickend out when the world was looking forward to him dethroning Anand and proving he is the best! Well I appreciate Magnus for his long term plan (world title) and short term (Elo live ratings.
I prefer the tradition of a WC determined in match play. Longer qualifying matches are much better to avoid a lottery. This works best when the champion is also seen as the best player. In the 1960’s, there was tension because Fischer was higher rated than Petrosian or Spassky. Now Carlsen has been #1 for the last year. We could move to a system like tennis or golf in which there is only a points leader but no ‘champion’ but not I think a system that has both. As for Carlsen, he has plenty of time to make his mark.
I think Magnus should quit chess and marry Liv Tyler.
Take the money and run Magnus!
Be happy!
I think Carlsen’s stance devalues the title of Champion. Boxing is the appropriate analogy. Anand is the WCC and challengers have to fight for the right to dethrone him. Perhaps Carlsen feels he cannot beat Anand head to head.
He is missing the point of what the title of WCC means. There is a built in drama for the title fight that is not present in any other format.
A number 1 FIDE rating is not equivalent to the title of WCC. To be WCC Carlsen must defeat Anand across the board on a particular time and place after having earned the right to do so. The champ might be a dog in between championships but as long as he continues to win when it counts he is still champ.
I hope Carlsen is objecting to how challengers are seeded, etc rather than to the idea of having to challenge the reining champion for the title.
Because after all, the value of the title WCC is a function of how the rest of the world sees it – the opinion of Carlsen notwithstanding.
Anonymous 8:52
The distinction between world no 1 and world champion really isn’t that confusing for chess fans, honestly. It adds interest and value. The distinction is clear and exists in many sports.
I say this without making comment on the issue. Just that the difference between the Champion and No 1 is very simple for the vast majority of people. (Other aspects of the cycle maybe not so simple, at all.)
For the people who are wondering how the top rated (read live rating) player of the world is not the world champion. If rating is the only criteria then no need of world championship. Every two months world champion will be updated(officially) and after every match(Live rating).
Team FIDE has corrected their ill doings (remember Khalifman/Anand/Ponomariov/Kazimdizhanov era)and is presently with a decent system for the world championship which has been followed in the mighty past and is revered by the majority.
Carlsen should look at Anand before taking this cowardice decision. He has fought all the formats put before him by the governing body (FIDE). Event the marathon runner (Anand) was forced to face the reigning champion (Karpov) in a 100m race. Then he faced Topalov in his country under al adverse conditions, which a player like Kramnik would not have accepted.
Regarding the champion is given the privileage to participate directly,
Chess is the only popular sports where you can see a world champion in his forties. Which means there wont be much fluctuations in strength in a span of 2 years. And of course a challenger will be having a much bigger appeal than a bunch of challengers. In such cases (many challengers) at least theoretically there is a chance for match fixing by a group of players. Can you deny this Mr. Carlsen?
Magnus would have gained credibility if he had advocated change in system after fighting through it and becoming a world champion
Kasparov “bad” influence!
Candidates challenger qualification have always been organized to determine who should the WC opponent…
“Magnus would have gained credibility if he had advocated change in system after fighting through it and becoming a world champion”
Nope, by then he had already sold his soul!
In every game, whether team or individual, that supports a direct world champion system rather than maintaining only ranking/rating system like tennis, reigning world champion does get privilege. Even in football, reigning champion Spain need not qualify for 2014 WC. Others, irrespective of their ranking, must.
This privilege differs from game to game. In football, the privilege is being one of the final 32. Whereas in chess, it’s one of the final 2. Football WC is every 4 years. In chess, challengers get more frequent opportunity to challenge. Every game is different. Reigning champ being one of the 2 seems skewed in his favour. But the exact balance is subjective – 1 of 4, 1 of 8, or more? My personal choice is world champ starting from the quarters. However, debate on format is not new. The great Kasparov once said on such a topic, that he will be happy to be defeated in the same format that he himself overcame to be the champ.
And here lies Anand’s all-round ability. He was world champion in all type of formats so far. He participated, not always without complain. But he never withdrew. I expected Carlsen to do the same. If he would recommend change in format after becoming a world champion, that would have much more weight.
For those who see Carlsen as automatic world champ by virtue of his best elo rating, rating and championship are different. At least as different as match play and tournament play. By football analogy, highest ranking team is not automatically the world champion. World championship is earned through face-to-face wins only.
Carlsen’s already announced strategy is to maintain numero uno rating for now, and focusing into world championship a few years later. The current decision is completely aligned with that. In the mean time, we chess fans are disappointed to see match fight between him and other experienced top match players like Anand, Kramnik or Topalov, among others.