Peter Doggers of Chessvibes has compiled a list of commons from a number of players. What do you think? Do you think Magnus did the right thing by dropping out?
Aronian: It’s a pity, I think. I don’t know — I actually like the system with the Grand Prix and this candidate matches. I think bringing back this tradition is not a bad idea, but, everybody can have their own view on this. I remember once we had this big conference [call] with Illymzhinov and then we were all telling our view to the president, and then one of the players, I won’t mention him, said, “oh, but I think this system is unfair. We should have two World Championships in a year, and they should be knockout.” So, you know all the great players have a different kind of understanding.
Aronian: Maybe in the future the number can be changed, but I don’t see anything wrong with four games as well. I mean, you know it’s still a match, after all. Maybe in the next years it can be altered, but now I don’t really see a — I mean I think that six games would be better or eight games would be better, but… you should look at the financial side of it, and since I’m not one of the sponsors, I don’t really care. The system is right. If you’re willing to change the number of games, that’s fine with me.’
Gelfand: Very strange to withdraw from the cycle with no obvious reasons. OK, he’ll be here you can ask him, but I don’t see any reason. Actually it’s one of the best cycles for many years. It’s more or less returning to the historical cycle, what was praised also by Kasparov and Karpov, whom Magnus supported during [the FIDE election] campaign. So I don’t see [an] obvious reason. I remember, lets say, seven or eight years ago there [was] no cycle whatsoever. And I am an old man, I have a good memory, yeah? While now it’s a very decent cycle, so I see no reason whatsoever for him to withdraw. But it’s his choice, maybe he’ll be here, he’ll explain.
Mamedyarov: I don’t know, it really is bad news for all because he won all tournaments — last tournaments — but he decided not to play in world championship. It will be not easy for FIDE and for all. We will see, yeah.
Mamedyarov: Maybe he’s right about — it’s more interesting eight players and seven games. I like it because all players will play against all and it will be a good tournament like San Luis and Mexico. But now is quite OK — for me it’s very dangerous to say something, because — I don’t know — it’s the first time if I will play, and for me [it’s] not easy to say something. But I think it is very bad that Carlsen [will not] play. It’s very bad.
Kramnik: I saw, yesterday I read his letter — well it was very surprising to me… I still didn’t really understand the real reason because he mentions a lot of different reasons, but I don’t actually understand exactly why, so — anyway, of course it’s his choice although of course it’s a pity for the whole world of chess. I guess there are a lot of fans which he has and… it was pretty surprising, I mean I didn’t expect this because now it seems that at least, well, everything seems to be more or less under control — this candidate tournament seems to be fixed, and everything is there, it’s a pretty nice tournament — OK, I see there can be different systems, but it’s all right, this system is not the worst one — we’ve seen worse with knockouts and everything so, it’s all a bit confusing and strange. I don’t know what to say about it.
Kramnik: Well, I think it’s OK, you know it’s been like this for more than a century. We can discuss whether it can be changed or not, but it’s been like this — I don’t have any problem with it. I think it’s OK the World Champion has certain privileges — I mean it’s just a different structure, a different idea. In a way it’s like a monarchy, a World Chess Championship is like a monarchy. In football, in soccer it’s a bit different, but here the chess king has some kind of value, and he stays there, and you have to come and to beat him. This kind of general idea — well, you might of course argue with it. You can say whether it’s good or bad, but it’s been like this for the whole history of chess, so I think it’s OK. At least for sure, in my opinion, it’s not a reason not to play the World Championship.
Full article by Peter Doggers here.
I think these players are right. Eventually you reach a tournament of matches, and the winner will challenge the world champion in a match. You cannot become the 16th without defeating Anand in a match, and it is reasonable that the challenger is ultimately determined in a match tournament.
For Carlsen, I can understand, that as he is still so you, it would be better to still learn chess and improve, as becoming WC might hinder this, but I think the system is sound.
And the audience would have, henceforth, a world championship match every two years! What could be greater. Not the uncertainty of the last decades, and not the Lasker years, either. It has to be a match, and a match tournament should logically precede it, with the candidates for it chosen in a “good” manner.
(And still feel Morozevich suffered the worst, his planning broken.)
I remember when Fischer stated the system to select candidate to challenge World Champion was unfair because a tournament can have collusion between players from one country and history has shown Fischer was correct in this, Russia was ganging up to prevent him from becoming challenger. Because of this the Tournament and then matches system came into effect. This was a good system because it stopped this form of cheating and the strongest player challenged the World Champion. After he became Champion his unlimited matches were not practical from a sponsor point of view. Under Kirsan the knockout and tournaments system was no good. Now we do not have a perfect system, but this is the best one in years. For Magnus to drop out now with the reasons he stated does not make sense at all! This is not good for chess.
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This is a very big topic in chess right now. As a chess player I think Carlsen has done extremely well to get to the top at only 19! I agree with his view also. If Carlsen doesn’t want to play then that’s up to him. People seem to be saying bad things about him because he won’t play? When Fischer was doing this sort of thing people thought that’s cool because it’s Fischer. To me the World Champion gets things too easy! Tradition is crummy! Aronian calls chess and individual sport? These guys have coaches and teams of seconds who analyse with computers, that’s not my defenition of an idividual sport! Carlsen doesn’t need to compete to be WC. He’s the #1 rated player in the World. For me he’s better than the current WC Anand.
Carlsen is just plain ‘yellow’. Playing normal tourneys and playing the candidates are not the same. Carlsen’s confidence as far as meeting the likes of Kramnik and Aronian in the candidates is low. He has run to daddy and said ‘I can’t do it’. So daddy comes up with a whole list of excuses and complaints! It’s a bloody shame!
Magnus is a big baby. Why should tradition change just for him? The World champion can not just be another round robin tournament. The champion has to be dethroned like in boxing.
Kramnik
He’s the next Fischer – withdrawing from things he should play in!
It’s the best system we’ve had in years. I don’t understand why Carlsen doesn’t make the best of it.
Fischer played with the system until he became champ, and then he felt like he ought to have some say in the conditions. Not unreasonable, though if he’d been a little more flexible he and Karpov probably could have had a match. But Carlsen chickens out before even making the attempt. Topalov was also “rating champ” for a long time, but as we’ve seen this doesn’t translate into the ability to win matches.
Magnus Carlsen would have been in a much stronger position to call for a re-evaluation of the rules as World Champion and he has sacrificed this opportunity by refusing to even participate.
I’m sure his public and private reasons are different, however we should accept his excuse with dignity and recognise that he is not prepared to put up with the current conditions to be World Champion as his predecessors were.
He has made it quite clear that becoming World Champion is not his current priority, but being the top rated player is.
Real reason why?
He got chicken scared.The only reason.I saw his face ,just BEFORE he blundered,in the last game vs Anand where he obtained completely winning position.
Looks like Kasparov was not only training him, but egging him on to be “political.” Remember Kasparov dropped out in order to jack up a prize fund for Kaspy vs Short.