Who is the best person to beat Magnus Carlsen?

In fact, that was one of the reasons people were arguing that Karjakin had decent chances to win the match before the match started. Because of the short nature of the match. People were saying, Karjakin just needs to get a lucky win somewhere, and it will be hard for Magnus to come back. They wouldn't be making that argument if the match was twice as long.

And somehow, Justs99171, I would imagine that if Magnus did lose the WCC, you'd stop even considering him as the best player of all time. The only trouble there is that to do that, you'd have to contradict the statement you just made that the current format of WCC matches make them meaningless. Or, maybe you're better than I give you credit for. Maybe you really would say "Magnus lost this match but it's not a big deal because the format of the WCC is worthless." 

My pick is Wesley So . He needs a team/trainer to help him though . 

I don't think anyone will beat him in 2018, and if he wins that one too he has won four title matches in a row, and no one ever won more than that in a row. Lasker and Kasparov managed more successful title defenses in a row thanks to drawing matches with draw odds, but no one won more than four title matches in a row.

Wesley So definitely has potential. He's coming off the best win of his career (his own words). After Caruana won Sinquefield and attained the third highest rating in history, everyone was ready to annoint him as the successor to Carlsen. 

I think So has too many personal problems to overcome. I see So in much the same vein as Keres and Ivanchuk, great tournament players who knew how to play attractive chess, but who could never quite make the leap from that to world champion. 

We are blessed with many great players now. The one who defeats Carlsen will have to be able to win a tough Candidates tournament and then turn around and play a great match. Karjakin came close, but Carlsen was clearly the stronger player even in classical time controls. That's why I keep thinking that Giri is the one to watch. If Giri can start winning a few games here and there, he will be perhaps the best suited for a tough match against Carlsen. 

Caruana is still one to watch too.

Keep a watchful eye on Jeffrey Xiong too . 

Why?

Cos he's very young.

Because he is a talented youngster with a lot of promise/potential . 

The road to the championship is a lot easier today than it was in Fischer's day. Back then, Fischer won the 1970 Interzonal Tournament (the equivalent of today's Candidates Tournament), but then had to play three 6-game matches on top of that before he won the right to face Spassky for the crown. If you consider the qualifications required for participation in the Interzonal, that made the road to the title a five stage affair in the early 70's! A long, grueling road.

Today, any one of ten players who qualify for the Candidates could, under the right circumstances, win the tournament and vie for the crown. Making the current cycle a two stage process --- qualify for the candidates and win, and you're the next challenger.

Assuming that the "usual suspects" will be playing in the next Candidates Tournament, any one of them could win a single tournament.

Another reason the road to a championship is easier for a challenger today is tiebreaks. In previous WC competition, a tie goes to the incumbant. Now a tie means speed chess tiebreaks. That's huge.

Agreed, good point.

Karjakin, especially now that he has got three weeks of intensive, highest quality, training under the attentive eye of the current world champion!

xiong's barely just become a Gm (albeit a very young one). Don't see Carlsen quaking in his boots just yet. He is obviously currently a rising star. But he's not the only one. (Don't suppose his nationality and also hailing from the Deep South was also a factor in your endorsement of him, Reb? Just curious :)

"That's why I keep thinking that Giri is the one to watch. If Giri can start winning a few games here and there, he will be perhaps the best suited for a tough match against Carlsen. "

I don't think Giri is really anything so special. His rating is high, but there are a decent amount of players who generally average higher ratings than him. He just doesn't lose that much. But a 2790 player who doesn't lose much is no better than a 2790 player who loses a little more but wins a little more. I think that a lot of the reason why his losses are low are because of his style. For him to get more wins, I'm not sure he can necessarily just play at an upgraded version of his normal game. He'd have to change his game, and that could both help him and hurt him. That's my theory anyway. He's so young though that anything could happen.

His style would be good in matches, at least. But it's hard to see him winning a candidates tournament to get to that match in the first place.

Elubas, Giri had several won, or close to won games in the last Candidates. He's only 22, and he doesn't have to change his game much to get the wins.

SmyslovFan, what do you think of the criticism that he plays too many draws? Is it a fair criticism?

Well, Kramink had a pretty steep drop early in his career, after he beat Kasparov, but then he bounced back.

Sure, it's a fair criticism. But there's a real difference between the way Leko played for a draw from move one as White and the way Giri plays. Giri doesn't go looking for draws, he just finds them. 

I think this is due to a really bad tournament experience he had when he was a teenager. Seirawan wrote at the time that the sort of experience he had (I think it was at Wijk aan Zee) would drive some young players out of chess entirely. Giri's response was to become fire proof. 

This is one more reason I think that Giri can and will change. He didn't grow up playing for draws, he started playing for draws after a bad experience. This shows he can learn from his mistakes.

Giri has another problem though, in that many people just don't like him. He often says precisely the wrong thing and comes off sounding arrogant. There won't be too many people rooting for him as long as he has both the reputation of drawing every game and the reputation of being arrogant.