Carlsen missed his spot in Candidates 2024

Magnus Carlsen announced that he would not participate in the Candidates, leaving the spot to Nijat Abasov to compete in the tournament to choose a challenger for Dinh Lap Nhan's Chess King throne in 2024.

Eight Candidates players have all been identified, including Ian Nepomniachtchi, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Fabiano Caruana, Abasov, Vidit Gujrathi, Hikaru Nakamura, Gukesh Dommaraju and Alireza Firouzja.

Carlsen has a spot thanks to winning the 2023 Chess World Cup, but in an interview with Chess on January 6, he said: "I won't participate in Candidates, so don't worry."

Carlsen explained that he is no longer interested in participating in Candidates or regaining the FIDE Chess King title. "I like the current schedule, playing online tournaments at home and occasionally traveling to chess tournaments," he said. "I don't miss world finals anymore."

Carlsen refused FIDE's invitation, meaning the fourth-placed World Cup player Abasov will be promoted to replace him. The Azerbaijani player is the only person in Candidates 2024 whose standard flag Elo is below 2,700, when his coefficient is only 2,641. The remaining seven players all have Elo 2,720 or higher.

Carlsen talked about this decision a long time ago, when the 2023 World Cup was taking place. He explained that he only wanted to play the world final if FIDE reduced the number of standard chess games and added more rapid chess to the schedule. He said that is the right method to determine the best chess player. "If they need to find the best chess player, they don't need to look at chess types, they just need to look at my name," he added, then laughed.

According to Elo today, January 7, Carlsen ranked first in the world in all three chess genres, with standard coefficients of 2,830, fast 2,823 and blitz 2,886. He just won the double championship in rapid and lightning chess at the end of last year, but Elo is still down. The Norwegian player has also won 17 chess championships, and has been the number one player in the world since 2011.

Dinh is currently the nominal Chess King, after defeating Nepomniachtchi in the 2023 world finals. The Chinese player will have to defend his position at the end of this year, with the winner of the Candidates tournament.

Candidates 2024 takes place from April 2 to April 25, when players compete in a double round-robin match, in Toronto, Canada.