Carlsen Drops Out of WC Cycle!

That is the privilege accorded to the World chess champion  as he had also faced similar situations-- candidates, inter-zonal,round-robin etc to become a Challoenger and  then only dethroned the then existing WCC. Challenging a system just to suit someone"s interests will ultimately ruin the very organisation. Even though Kasparov  challenged  the FIDE,  he defeated  the existing WCC Karpov   duly following due process.  Let Magnus  become a Challenger first then  let us see whether  he becomes WCC.

Magnus's father Heinrik Carlsen on possible formats for a world championship:

"Magnus favours a knock-out system with for instance 64 or 128 players mainly coming from the preceding step. When there are eight players left in the knock-out stage, various alternatives are possible and we would like to mention three viable options.

The first is to continue with the knock-out matches, and the final winner is the new World Champion.

Another alternative is to proceed with candidate matches between the eight remaining players at other venues and shifted in time. After two rounds of candidate matches, the two remaining players would fight for the world championship title.

A third good alternative is to stage a double round robin World Championship tournament between the eight remaining players from the knock-out cup."

Anand on the ideal format:

"I think what we had in Mexico (2007) and San Luis (2005) are the best. (In these championships, eight qualified players played on a double round-robin format). First of all, it’s attractive to have four games (involving all eight players) a day. If you have one game and that fizzles out, spectators have to come back two days later. Not a dream format, in my opinion."

It sounds like they are in basic agreement.

The knock-out system is a joke, especially if it consists of only two games played under regular time control. It leaves too much to chance, one game lost and you're out. I'd love to see the old Zonal->Interzonal->Candidate Matches system reinstated. Today, there is nothing resembling the excitement of a Fischer-Petrosian or a Petrosian-Korchnoi candidate match, and they were just a build up to the final.

Armageddon and blitz chess games should be abandoned in the WCC qualifiers. If there is a tie, the players should play regular games until someone wins (sudden death). My two cents.

In order to determine who the better player is between the WCC and challenger... a match makes the most sense.

Anand draws a lot in tournament but never loses.. while Carlsens wins or loses.

Though if Anand vs Carlsen happens... draws are meaningless and as long as Anand wins one and draws rest, he retains the title. Carlsen or whoever... needs to crush Anand to prove they deserve to reign instead of Anand.

WCC is a big deal and a tournament of 8 people or so would just be odd... Although the system makes it difficult for the challenger... if the challenger does win then he gets to take it easy next year.

I like the current system except for that there are too many people in the cycle... maybe 4 is a better number than 8 for the candidates cycle... Carlsen, Kramnik, Aronian, and then probably Topalov.

well, in tournament he said "possibly" will play. But roundrobin stimulating players to cooperate, also not motivating outsiders to play as strong as they can.

One hit wonder. We knew this will happen.

Lol, when I saw this, I thought it meant he isn't going to defend his title!  Thank goodness this is just someone reaviving a 3 year old topic!

Someone went back in time and convinced him not to play, Anand is now WC again.