Who Is the Biggest Threat to Magnus Carlsen in a Chess Match Series?

It seems as though he has no peers, not that I keep up with Chess news. Perhaps some chess fans can enlighten me on this.

Vassily Ivanchuk maybe?

Isn't he too old and the rumors I've heard that he's emotionally unstable? Perhaps if he beats Anand he will remain WCH for a long time just like Kasparov.

I loled when I read that - in a good way, of course!

It is true that Ivanchuk is a very inconsistent player, and one time, after 2 bad losses against a significantly weaker opponent he declared that he was quitting chess (of course, as soon as he calmed down he decided to continue playing).

Levon Aronian and Vladmir Kramnik could win him in a match, I believe. They are currently the numbers two and three players in the world and Magnus Carlsen has not shown that he is a better player than those two men whenever he plays them.

Vassily Ivanchuk may have the most talent and the most potential of any player I've ever seen... but he has one nemesis who constantly thwarts his WCC attempts: Vassily Ivanchuk.

You know a lot about him. 

I think Carlsen's competition for the future is Aronian.

He can't handle stress, and a long match is plenty of it.

Carlsen has 7-4 against Aronian and they started playing each other when Carlsen was 13. I don't think of him as one of Carlsen's most difficult opponents.

Kramnik is only an absurdly good match player if one looks at only the match against Kasparov and avoids looking at all his other matches (Grischuk, Anand, Shirov, Kamsky, Gelfand, Aronian, Radjabov etc). Still, he has been a difficult opponent for Carlsen (3-3 the last six years), but I wonder for how much longer he will keep playing.

Hou Yifan, China's young female champion (only 14 years of age) and who has had a win over Nigel Short.

 On the current FIDE rating list (women) Hou Yifan has shot to the third place with a rating of 2571, only behind Judit Polgar (HUN, 2693) and Humpy Koneru (IND, 2621). We do not wish to indulge in debating the gender question in chess, but it would seem that Magnus Carlsen, the young phenomenon in the ‘male’ chess has a counterpart in the world of women’s chess.

http://en.chessbase.com/home/TabId/211/PostId/4005197

Well, Hou was 2590 after that tournament four years ago, and is 2617 now, so she has a bit left to the 2800+ level and hasn't developed that much after many years of top events. She will be 20 in February. For example Giri is slightly younger and much higher rated (2734 vs 2617).

Yea suggesting hou yifan as a challenge to magnus is simply out of the question.

Kramnik would have the best chance against magnus under match conditions.

So strange how no-one mentions Anand

Anand will put up a fight but it wont go to tiebreaks, I would bet carlsen 9 times out of 10.

I guess we'll see when the time comes but I believe anand is on the decline

Some of the epic Candidates battles were waged over subtleties in a very few openings, with novelties going through trial by fire without engine assistance. Carlsen does not push the frontier in opening theory, and it seems unlikely that he would accept this sort of gauntlet if thrown down. His style uses numerous openings, no clear favourites, and works on the fringes where "equality" and "unclear" have been the historical assessments of analysts. How do you prepare for him? Perhaps you can't, and must resign yourself to pure chess with minimal benefit from opening preparation. Anand will be no pushover either way.

Well actually, Carlsen and Yifan have met across the board!

Carlsen v Yifan (2008) - 52 moves (1-0

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1511927

And Yifan v Carlsen (2013) - 66 moves (0-1))

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1705201

Well, he won both times, but would we last as long? And if Carlsen respects  her chess capability and she is not intimidated by him, surely we should respect her too? 

Disagreeing about her being the biggest threat to Carlsen doesn't equal not respecting her :-) I think Caruana is a great future threat, his opening preparation is good and he is a couple of years younger than Carlsen.

Fabelhaft,

I was not Yifan is the greatest threay to Carlsen, but simply demonstrating to those who dismiss her chess capabilities, that Carlsen himself acknowledges  her.

It will be interesting when she plays Judit Polgar in a full champtionship round, having recently beaten her in 2012.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1655416