Magnus Carlsen on the FIDE Candidates Tournament
Interview by Frederic Friedel
Magnus Carlsen: As you know I’m having a break from chess tournaments at the moment. Normally I would go to Amber, but unfortunately this wonderful tradition ended last year. I’m not sure if Linares will take place this spring. I certainly hope so, otherwise the break will be quite long. I think the Tal Memorial in June could be my next tournament. At the moment the fall and winter are the high season for top level tournaments.
That’s exactly when FIDE plans to stage the Candidate tournament this year, isn’t it? In October/November. As far as I know the Tal Memorial was moved to June in direct response to this. Would you like to share your thoughts on this with our readers?
Last year I played the Grand Slam Final in Sao Paulo and Bilbao, in September and October, and the Bilbao organiser has already publicized similar dates for the 2012 final. I really enjoyed playing the Grand Slam Final last year. It’s well organized and the combination of Sao Paulo and Bilbao suited me very fine. I have qualified for this year’s Final as well, and my plan is to go there. Normally I don’t comment upon FIDE rumours, but news reports indicating that the next Candidates will take place just after the Grand Slam Final worries me. If the rumours are correct, there will be ten days only between the two tournaments, and that is obviously too tight. I know how hard the top level tournament organizers struggle to get everything in place for their event, and the obvious choice for FIDE would be to avoid the fourth quarter for their Candidate events. The Tal Memorial has already been moved, but the Candidates would still have serious consequences for the Grand Slam Final and probably for London Chess Classic as well.
FIDE must have a very good reason to schedule the Candidates in the fourth quarter instead of for instance the late first quarter or the second quarter of 2013. I’m really curious to know what would drive FIDE to schedule the candidates in the middle of the high season of top level tournaments.
Full article here.
This is a disgrace. Why Nakamura wasn’t invited? He would win easily.
FIDE owes the chess world an explanation.
In my opinion, the only reason FIDE would allow the Candidates Tournament to interfere with other, well established tournaments is if whoever they sold the rights of the Candidate’s Tournament to decided to compete with other major events. It’s all about money.
There is no sport or a popular activity that is not about money, nothing.