Magnus Carlsen's Decision to Not Defend His World Championship Title is Bad for Chess

A famous saying in the chess world is "The threat is stronger than the execution," but now that Magnus Carlsen has announced that he will not defend his World Chess Championship title we also see that the execution of a threat can be quite damaging.

Before the beginning of the Candidates Tournament to determine his challenger, Carlsen stated that he was not likely to defend his title unless a member of the younger generation such as Alireza Firouzja won the event. Carlsen noted that he had already defeated representatives of the prior generation and representatives of his own generation. I cannot recall another champion in any sport suggesting that his or her enthusiasm for fighting for the crown depended primarily on the identity or age of the challenger. A championship mentality is epitomized by trying to defeat whoever the challenger is.

As it turned out, Ian Nepomniachtchi--the challenger who lost the most recent World Chess Championship match to Carlsen--won the Candidates Tournament for the second consecutive time. Shortly after Nepomniachtchi prevailed, Carlsen declared, "I am not motivated to play another match; I simply feel that I don't have a lot to gain. Although I'm sure a match would be interesting for historical reasons and all of that, I don't have any inclination to play, and I will simply not play the match." Carlsen added, "The matches themselves have been at times interesting, at times a little bit of fun. But overall, I feel like it's my time to go from the world championship matches. I enjoy playing tournaments a lot. Obviously, I enjoy them a lot more than I enjoy the world championship, and frankly I don't see myself stopping as a chess player any time soon."

Carlsen made the announcement on International Chess Day, and to emphasize the point that he is only retiring from World Championship play but not from competitive chess, he promptly won the SuperUnited Rapid & Blitz Tournament, finishing atop a strong field that included Nepomniachtchi and Firouzja.

There have been 16 officially recognized, undisputed World Chess Champions, starting with Wilhelm Steinitz--whose claim to the title is undisputed, though the exact starting date of his reign is disputed--and running in an unbroken chain through Carlsen, who became World Chess Champion in 2013. There were also six "FIDE World Chess Champions" crowned from 1993-2006, and the less that is said about the split title era the better, but a brief summary of the lamentable time when chess imitated boxing's alphabet soup of champions can be found in my article about Viswanathan Anand defeating Vladimir Kramnik in the 2008 match that finally reunified the World Chess Championship title.

Becoming World Chess Champion is the dream of all serious chess players. When the World Chess Champion announces that he will not defend his title he thereby cheapens the value of that title, and this is even more true when the World Chess Champion makes it clear that he intends to keep playing chess. Thus, his message is that being the World Chess Champion does not matter very much, and in fact other chess competitions matter more to him.

Prior to Carlsen, only two of the undisputed World Chess Champions failed to defend their titles. Alexander Alekhine died while he was World Chess Champion, and Bobby Fischer refused to agree to match terms with challenger Anatoly Karpov, resulting in Karpov receiving the title by default in 1975. In the wake of Alekhine's demise, FIDE took over the organization of the World Chess Championship, starting with a round robin event in 1948 that crowned Mikhail Botvinnik as Alekhine's successor. Karpov, eager to prove worthy of Fischer's forfeited throne, ran off an incredible series of tournament victories and held the title until 1985, when he lost a match to challenger Garry Kasparov. 

This is not about whether Carlsen has a right to resign his title but keep playing tournament chess; he obviously has that right. The point is examining to what extent Carlsen has a responsibility to defend his title for, as he put it, "historical reasons." I would argue that the World Champion should keep defending his title until someone beats him, or until he has broken the record for holding the title for the longest time (which is either 27 years by Emanuel Lasker, or 28 years by Wilhelm Steinitz if you count the start of his reign in 1866). 

I am nowhere near the caliber of chess player that Magnus Carlsen is, but I have won the Dayton Chess Club Championship a record 10 times. I considered it a point of pride to fight for the title every year, and I only missed one DCC Championship from 1987 until the club disbanded in 2020. I won my 10th title in 2015 as a new father who was also in the middle of attending law school, and I did not hesitate to play in the 2016 event even though I knew that it would be very challenging to win a repeat title considering my life circumstances at that time; I intended to either win again, or "validate" my successor by participating in the tournament. Over that 33 year period, I was rarely the highest rated player in the tournament, and I don't believe that I was ever the highest rated player in the years that I won (I was the highest rated player some years when I failed to win, but that is another story for another time). The point is that either championships matter or they don't matter. To me, a championship--whether for city, state, country, or the world--means something, and it means something more even than events that offer bigger cash prizes. 

Magnus Carlsen has made it clear that being World Chess Champion does not matter very much to him, and that is sad for chess. I understand that the current cycle requires him to do a lot of preparation for one high pressure match, and then go through that process again without much respite. No one said that being a champion is easy. I also understand that Carlsen would prefer that the World Chess Championship match not be played with classical slow time controls--but there is something to be said for maintaining the tradition of playing slow time control chess in which most games are not decided by chaotic time scrambles. There are separate World Chess Championships for Rapid and Blitz, and Carlsen has already won both of those titles on multiple occasions. The World Chess Championship played at a slow time control is something special and different.

I respect Carlsen's accomplishments and I acknowledge his right to make this decision, but as a chess champion on a local level, as a dedicated participant in rated chess events, and as a chess fan I am profoundly disappointed.

Garry Kasparov on the Future of Chess

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov retained the title of FIDE (International Chess Federation) President by a landslide vote of 110 national delegates to 61 over former World Chess Champion (1985-2000) Garry Kasparov. Kasparov ran on a reformist platform aiming to end the corruption and waste that has characterized Ilyumzhinov's reign. Ilyumzhinov's victory is not good for chess; while Ilyumzhinov passionately loves the game, his outlandish ideas (including but not limited to his publicly expressed thought that chess was brought to Earth by aliens and that he has personally visited the aliens' spaceships) and his shameful allegiances with dictatorial/tyrannical regimes do not bode well for the sport, art and science of chess. It is not surprising that Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin was among the first to heartily congratulate Ilyumzhinov.

Kasparov's fiery statement after the election, titled The Future of Chess, not FIDE, outlines why Kasparov believes that he lost the election and what he thinks should be done in the future to promote chess. Here are some excerpts:

My campaign was about expanding the horizons of the chess and securing its future, our future, in a world with ever-increasing competition for our attention. My themes were bringing sponsorship, education initiatives, and new technology into the game and empowering the national federations. I do not for one moment believe that this election result indicates a problem with this platform, or with the exemplary individuals on my ticket, or with our many successful activities. The sad conclusion is that working hard and having big ideas and investing millions of dollars for the global development of chess all has very little to do with winning a FIDE election today. It was this disastrous situation that my team and I set out to change...

I faced three main challenges in this campaign. First was the FIDE machinery, the abuse of power that made votes disappear and turned commissions into puppets. This was not a surprise, but I believed at the start that I had enough resources to overcome it and I probably did. There were two other factors I badly underestimated. I anticipated the Kremlin’s involvement but couldn’t imagine its extent or how susceptible Europe would be to it. Nor did I anticipate how resistant even many of the biggest federations are to change. They saw it as a threat and looked for excuses to maintain the status quo.

These last two factors in particular eroded the base I thought I had at the start, a base of anti-Kirsan, anti-corruption, pro-growth federations with democratic traditions and substantial numbers of chess players with interests to protect. Perhaps that base still exists, but it is very small now and nearly every federation is eager to do a little business with Ilyumzhinov’s emissaries come election year. I guaranteed money in exchange for effort and sponsorship in exchange for activity and events. It’s clear that many prefer money with no responsibilities and no activities, regardless of what this means for chess...

It is fitting that the slogan on my posters here in Tromsø was “Kasparov: the future of chess” and not “the future of FIDE.” Eventually, growth and change in the chess world will change FIDE; it is clear that FIDE cannot change itself. More numbers and more effort will be needed at the grassroots level. Lovers of chess must become administrators of chess. I spoke often of building up the base of players to raise up the entire chess world and this is just as true in chess politics. More good people coming in will eventually push more bad people out. You can go and do it! Find a way to fight for chess! People must work in their chess communities and change their federations so that our great game has the representation it deserves.

My thanks again to all my team and supporters, and to our excellent hosts of the last two weeks here in Norway. The summer sun never sets in Tromsø and the sun will never set on the game of chess.

The delegates who voted for Ilyumzhinov because they were swayed by bribes and/or cowed by fear should be ashamed. If a person as brilliant, charismatic and well-connected as Garry Kasparov cannot even come close to unseating Ilyumzhinov then it seems like Ilyumzhinov will stay in power for a long time.