The Guardian: “FIDE needs Carlsen more than Carlsen needs FIDE”
Almost a week after the 2022 Candidates Tournament, the World Champion Magnus Carlsen hasn’t decided if he’ll defend his title against the second-time Challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi.
The 2023 World Chess Championship conversation has intensely started when Carlsen stated that he will not defend his title but against the 19-year-old chess prodigy Alireza Firouzja. The French GM underperformed at the Candidates, finishing 6th, without giving even the slightest indication that he is able to run for the Candidates title.
On the other hand Ian Nepomniachtchi gave us early signs that he is one of the favorites to win the tournament. With an impressive performance the Russian GM finished unbeaten with 9.5/14 to become the Challenger for the second time. “He clearly lost in the World Championship, and he is not an interesting Challenger. He is the worst possible winner, both in terms of chess and politics,” said NRK’s chess expert Atle Grønn.
In fact Nepo was crushed 7.5-3.5 in his 2021 title challenge to Carlsen, after winning the Candidates again by a two-point margin. This World Championship match experience doesn’t encourage Carlsen to defend his title, while a match against Ding Liren – fans favorite and the Candidates runner-up – would be in great interest. According to FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich, Carlsen’s possible withdrawal increased the value of the Candidates Tournament, in which participants competed not only for first but also for second place.
But what does this really mean for chess? For one, it will dramatically debase the Championship title: what’s the point in fighting for it while the strongest player is not in the fight at all? The Match will also lose a lot of media attention: Carlsen is the sport’s only real superstar. Without him, the Championship match will turn into a fairly mundane three weeks.
On July 4th, the Russian website Sport-Express reported that Carlsen is ready for his fifth title defense against Nepomniachtchi in a match with a new format. But both Director-General of FIDE, Emil Sutovsky, and Carlsen denied this rumours. “The matter is sensitive and I don’t want to go into details, but Magnus never demanded any concrete format,” Sutovsky stated. FIDE only asked the World Champion to decide by the 20th of July, the International Chess Day, a request that was followed by a four-hour meeting in Madrid, before Carlsen headed off to Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker.
According to the Guardian world chess now faces a potential schism. If Carlsen declines, Nepomniachtchi will face Ding Liren, the Madrid runner-up. Such an outcome would echo the events of 1993 when Garry Kasparov broke from Fide, and for more than a decade there were rival world champions.
The governing body’s deadline seems early for a match which has as yet no financial sponsor for the €2m (£1.7m) prize fund, no venue, no match regulations, no player contracts and a starting date likely to be well into 2023. A more relevant date may be 7 August, the day of the Fide presidential election in Chennai, when Arkady Dvorkovich’s main rival for a second term will be a ticket whose No 2 is Carlsen’s chief aide Peter-Heine Nielsen.
And Leonard Barden for the Guardian continues: “FIDE needs Carlsen much more than Carlsen needs FIDE. New York 2016, London 2018 and Dubai 2021 all attracted large online viewing audiences, as did Madrid 2022 last week. If negotiations fail, a Nepomniachtchi v Ding match at Beijing-Moscow, or even Shanghai-Vladivostok like the 2020 women’s world championship, will be perceived as a poor substitute for a match featuring the charismatic Norwegian.”
