Weak era buddy, that’s why Magnus can take a breather at the top.
But seriously, he’s devalued the title of world champion. I know he had a point about the format, and we all remember the epic finals between Kasparov and Karpov, but those gruelling fights brought both men to the brink but also proved just how great Kasparov was, winning in the most exaggerated tightest test imaginable. I think Carlsen sees the shorter format with the tiebreak to decide as being akin to FIDE rigging the deck to create upsets?
Gukesh is definitely a breath of fresh air but it’s almost like he’s serving an apprenticeship. While he holds the most prestigious title, without facing the best player in the world.
Do you think if carlsen wanted the crown back, he’d have to go through the challenge rounds? I suppose he’d have to. I mean, how long can chess have no observable way of deciding who’s the world’s greatest player?
Yes, he has definitely devalued classical chess and the WC title. To Gukesh’s credit, he acknowledged that it doesn’t mean as much since Magnus is still clearly the best player in the world. I don’t know if it was the format that bothered Magnus, I just think he lacked the motivation and even referenced at the time that he wanted to focus more on getting to 2900 in classical. So even though he was bowing out as WC, he still planned on playing a good amount of classical chess to try to become the first to break the 2900 barrier.
However. Magnus has definitely played very little classical chess the past few years and in a recent interview with the Botez dolls he was very candid and mentioned that he believes his best days are past him. It may seem crazy to say that at age 34 in chess, but if he simply can’t be consistently motivated in classical then he’s probably right.
In a different interview around the time of the Gukesh-Ding match or just after he also said something really interesting; he believes classical doesn’t take as much talent as speed chess because you can make mistakes in classical and still survive. I don’t want to totally disagree with his logic but IMO it is way way easier to turn around a bad position in speed chess than it is in classical, at least as far as winning goes. Using Magnus as an example, if he’s going up against a considerably lesser player in blitz and has a very bad opening…decent chance he turns it around and wins. Same scenario in classical and even he is probably just drawing at best and depending on how bad it is he may struggle to do that. With games being so quick there are undoubtedly going to be big turnarounds where players throw away wins especially when time gets very low, even at the top level.
With that said, I think what Magnus was getting at is that if you lack understanding of a certain position you are more likely to have a major mistake in blitz compared to classical when the lack of understanding at top level may just lead to a bunch of very small mistakes that are difficult to exploit. Even going back 50+ years to Fischer he had the worry that classical chess would eventually die as almost all games at the top would be draws. And that was his reasoning for creating Fischer random chess which I should not have left out earlier as part of the resume. That is going to become bigger and bigger. However, classical chess still has a pretty healthy % of decisive games at the top level. So I think Magnus’s position is premature more than anything and maybe is just about him more than the state of the game itself.
Classical chess takes a lot of work, especially WC matches as well as candidate tournaments; and to answer your question, yes Magnus would have to win the candidate tournament to win the right to challenge for WC. Speed chess doesn’t take much work and it’s way more fun and of course it takes about 10 seconds to log onto the website and get a game going. For practicing classical you are either playing games against a program you can’t beat or just practicing openings, memorizing recent games, etc. and Magnus has been the top dog for well over a decade now, he became #1 in 2009 or 2010, so age 18 or 19. It’s a totally different subject but I have a feeling what we think of as peak age for chess players has rapidly changed. Magnus is a freak but he was still growing up with programs for a lot of his formative years which made it easier for him to develop quicker than the great players before him. Now it’s a totally different story… a 3 year old who learns chess is going to be learning from computers their whole lives and will play thousands and thousands of blitz games each year. They can access multiple top coaches over the internet, etc. So it’s way easier for teenagers to become elite players, and I think on the flip side most players will be past their best by mid-30’s going forward.
Anyways, I think what will really knock motivation into Magnus is losing #1. Obviously it will happen some day, unless he retires as #1 like Kasparov, and I believe it will be within the next couple years. Gukesh or 1 or more of the Indian Brigade are going to seriously challenge for #1 soon.
