Nice !

@twobit.

The previous post highlights what i was referring to earlier

(pointless arguments about who's the best).

How anyone can be idiotic enough to state Anand or anyone other than Carlsen is the best player when Carlsen consistently has the highest rating and at a much younger age is beyond me.

I always felt that Carlsen was right about this. As the level of chess these days evolved into an increasing number of "super grandmasters", the whole 2 year cycle of awaiting the qualification process of a challenger appeared unfair and outdated. It takes too long and appears too demanding to fight for a single, "challenger' position. Again, while the challenger has to prepare for multiple opponents, fight them all, beat them all, the champion can just sit back and wait and prepare only against a single opposing challenger. The effort of ranking world number one and performing consistently against highest level of opponents months after months, tournaments after tournaments amounts to nothing this way. Most sports moved toward rewarding consistency from penalty kicks and last minute blitz and sudden death matches where luck has significant impact. Chess should follow this trend to bring being the world number one and the world championship title as close as possible to reflect true and genuine achievement.

And yes, that trophy is horrendous...

go magnus!! i love u

Carlsen says to the biggest Norwegian newspaper that he probably will play the next WC-cycle:

http://www.vg.no/sport/artikkel.php?artid=10040107

Here is his letter to FIDE......

 

To: FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov & FIDE World Championship Committee.

Reference is made to the ongoing World Championship cycle.
The purpose of this letter is to inform you of my decision not to take part in the planned Candidate Matches between March and May 2011.
After careful consideration I’ve reached the conclusion that the ongoing 2008 – 2012 cycle does not represent a system, sufficiently modern and fair, to provide the motivation I need to go through a lengthy process of preparations and matches and, to perform at my best.
Reigning champion privileges, the long (5 yr) span of the cycle, changes made during the cycle resulting in a new format (Candidates) that no World Champion has had to go through since Kasparov, puzzling ranking criteria as well as the shallow ceaseless match-after-match concept are all less than satisfactory in my opinion.

By providing you with 4 months notice before the earliest start of the Candidates as well as in time before you have presented player contracts or detailed regulations, I rest assured that you will be able to find an appropriate replacement.

Although the purpose of this letter is not to influence you to make further changes to the ongoing cycle, I would like to take the opportunity to present a few ideas about future cycles in line with our input to FIDE during the December 27th 2008 phone-conference between FIDE leaders and a group of top-level players.

In my opinion privileges should in general be abolished and a future World Championship model should be based on a fair fight between the best players in the World, on equal terms. This should apply also to the winner of the previous World Championship, and especially so when there are several players at approximately the same level in the world elite. (Why should one player have one out of two tickets to the final to the detriment of all remaining players in the world? Imagine that the winner of the 2010 Football World Cup would be directly qualified to the 2014 World Cup final while all the rest of the teams would have to fight for the other spot.)

One possibility for future cycles would be to stage an 8-10 player World Championship tournament similar to the 2005 and 2007 events.

The proposal to abolish the privileges of the World Champion in the future is not in any way meant as criticism of, or an attack on, the reigning World Champion Viswanathan Anand, who is a worthy World Champion, a role model chess colleague and a highly esteemed opponent.

Rest assured that I am still motivated to play competitive chess. My current plan is to continue to participate in well-organised top-level tournaments and to try to maintain the no 1 spot on the rating list that I have successfully defended for most of 2010.

Best regards,
IGM Magnus Carlsen

Remind me, why did Carlsen opt out of the Candidates match this year? Wasn't following closely when it happened.

Very good that youngster Magnus won the World Championship

Well done Carlsen a world champion in the making. Anand looks like he struggled to stay off the bottom and I don't even see the World Championship challenger in the event, what's going on FIDE.

Live long Carlsen

very entertaining! congratulations magnus! i know vassily can do better next time

yeah i don't like the trophy either... it looks like it came from the twighlight zone

Yes, it is! Give me a knight anyday.

@ StakeOut - it looks like one hand holding another hand to me. Not sure why or what that is supposed to represent!

what the feck is that brown blob on top of the trophy?! 

"Ivanchuk was winning in his match against Magnus inspite of giving up his Queen in the reguar time control match"

I think not.

What a comeback from Magnus. 

It is really not an argument about who is better, but who is putting in the maximum effort. Let us see what the Tal Memorial will look like. It was still unfortunate for Ivanchuk to have to deal win a gun in his face, I am sure it is not easy to get over that.

Better to just enjoy the games instead of arguing over who's the best.

Congratulations,Carlsen!