Magnus Carlsen will not defend his World Chess Championship title in 2023
It’s official. Magnus Carlsen and the world chess championship will be like opposite-coloured bishops now. The greatest player in the world has said he has other goals to pursue in chess. Such as being the first human to break the 2900 ratings barrier.
The five-time world champion had hinted not playing the long-drawn, best-of-14-game world championship earlier but it was at a podcast on Tuesday that Carlsen said he wouldn’t defend his title in 2023. This would be the first time since 1975 when Bobby Fischer forfeited the championship contest against Anatoly Karpov that a world champion wouldn’t defend the title. 1993 was different because defending champion Garry Kasparov had broken away from the chess governing body Fide to form a rival organisation. In 1946, Alexander Alekhine died when he was champion; Mikhail Botvinnik became the new champion two years later.
As per Fide rules, Ian Nepomniachtchi will now play world No.2 Ding Liren to decide the new world champion.
“I’ve spoken to people in my team, I’ve spoken to Fide (world chess body), I spoke to Ian as well. The conclusion is very simple: I’m not motivated to play another match," said Carlsen in the first episode of The Magnus Effect hosted by his friend Magnus Barstad. “I don’t have a lot to gain, I don't particularly like it and although I’m sure a match would be interesting for historical reasons, I don’t have any inclinations to play and I will simply not play the match.” He did not rule out a comeback but said, “I also wouldn’t count on it either.”
Carlsen, 31, had doubted whether he would defend the crown soon after beating Nepomniachtchi without losing a game last December. In the podcast he said he had been thinking about it for “probably a year and a half.”
At the Candidates tournament, which ended on July 5, Carlsen said he had informed Fide president Arkady Dvorkovich and director-general Emil Sutovsky of his decision.
“It’s been an interesting ride since I decided to play the Candidates in 2013, which was to be honest on kind of a whim,” he said, with a shrug. “I just decided it could be interesting and ever since the world championship title has given me a lot and opened a lot of doors, and I’m happy about that. The matches themselves has been at times interesting, at times a little bit of fun.”
The ‘fun’ began in Chennai in 2013 when Carlsen stopped Viswanathan Anand from a sixth title. He did that again in 2014 beating Anand. It was Sergey Karjakin in 2016, Fabiano Caruana (2018) – “the most fun, according to Carlsen– and then Nepomniachtchi. Though barring 2018, losing any of the other matches would have been a “disaster”, Carlsen also said that winning a fourth world title and then another “didn’t mean anything.”
Carslen said he had no other goal than to win it “once” and was not “very motivated” to defend his title in 2016. The Instagram post in 2014 that said, “two down, five to go” was to “mess with people,” he said, with a smile.
Soon after his fifth world title, Carlsen had said he could change his mind if the talented 19-year-old Iranian Alireza Firouzja came through the Candidates. But Nepomniachtchi won.
From a poor run at poker in Las Vegas to constantly losing his room card, the almost 73-minute episode had a lot of football and veered to chess around the 51st minute. In an almost eight-minute monologue, Carlsen explained his decision before clarifying that he isn’t retiring. Far from it.
Carlsen said he enjoys playing tournaments more than the world championship. He is in Croatia now for a Grand Chess Tour event, will be in Chennai for the Chess Olympiad, “which is going to be a lot of fun”, go to Miami for an event and play another leg of the chess tour. “I don’t see myself stopping as a chess player any time soon.”
In an interview to HT last November, Anand had said Carlsen is “hungry” for chess. “That’s why he is willing to play long games, play blitz and rapid, travel at a minute’s notice, play on the park bench, play bullet on the internet. Everything else everybody has to some degree but his hunger is unbelievable,” he said.
Not unusual for a chess player, Carlsen sits still for most of the podcast but brings his hands closer to his chest when saying that he is “excited to get back to where I was in 2011, 2012.” Then he was “trying to be better, do the right things, play the tournaments, be the best in the world and not care about the world championships.”
Once the world’s youngest Grandmaster at 13, Carlsen wants to edge closer to one of his other “big” goals: the 2900 rating. “It’s going to be tough obviously but I have managed to keep my rating this year (2864). It means the goal is not further than it was,” he said, breaking into a smile.
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