Carlsen Drops Out of WC Cycle!

There are alot of people who seems to be under the conviction that Carlsen did this as a way of avoiding the WC cycle to get a shot for himself. I have a question to everyone in the thread who expressed that, and similar opinions.

What giant crack pipe have you been smoking?

Oh I'm sorry, let me rise to a higher level, to match this thread.

He's a kid! Lol! I won't miss him! He thinks he's bigger than King Kong even though King Kong is bigger than small houses! Carlsen is not bigger than small houses! Lol! He thinks he will become the WC by this, he won't become the WC by this. I'm so smart, I figured him out!

Come on.

Well, first of all, I don't see that he proposed enormous 2 matches knock out tournaments, which is the kind of WC champions that Reb and some more bashed, besides, tournament has created atleast one decent WC, Botvinnik. 

If I can see some other perk with a change? Well, hopefully FIDE will stop changing their mind about fifteen times a year, take a look at some of the past candidates and even wc matches that never took place, even though they where very well supposed to do. And it's pretty stupid that you have to win a tournament in 2008 in order to face the champion some time in 2012.

With that said, I don't agree with Carlsens proposition of changing it into a tournament, and I do prefer the challenger - champion matches. But the current system is hardly without fault.

Let's give him a little more credit, he is the highest ranking chess player in the world, he's probably not dumb enough to think that his withdrawal from the cycle will force FIDE to re asses the system and dethrone Anand.

Just a reminder: Carlsen isn't the first top player to decline taking part in a WC-cycle, Fischer did it well before he became a WC, so did Kramnik.

^ Hey dued quit hogging the pipe man

The Vikings !

When did Kramnik do that?

If he wants to see some changes he should sail into FIDE headquarters on a longboat pulled by valkyries.

This may serve to set up some sort of post-championship big money match between the survivor and Carlsen.  Maybe it's not the world championship for $$, maybe it's the "Donald Trump Chess Cup" for $$$$. 

It's partly about the championship, and partly about trying to make some money.

Besides, what's more traditional in chess than continually changing methods of determining the champion?

I think that the current system for the Chess WC is wrong in it's very essence.

It favours the "reign" system. In which the world champion has to defend against a very active and stressed out contestant which has played a lot of games recently. So the champion can research more into the contestant's strategy and opening book. Meanwhile, the champion only sits and waits while preparing exclusively against one player.

If we want the best players to be WCs, then we need to make it so that everyone faces off in the exact same manner and under the same brutal circumstances.

Football WC is a great example. Boxing is a great counter-example on where great boxers never reach the title of WC even when they have better records than their WC counterparts.

Has vishy made a response/statement about this? He seems  like a pretty flexible guy but i don't think he should give in, its Carlsens loss not his. 

The WC doesn't know who his challenger is until he's been selected. The challengers on the other hand know exactly who they will be up against- although they are prevented from studying up on him exclusively because, of course, they have to play the others first. So I don't think there is a valid imbalance in this respect.

But the Champion does know the possible candidates, which are much fewer than the opponents the challengers must face. Doesn't he?

You guys are all so cynical. Carlsen says that he's withdrawing from this cycle. THIS CYCLE. And while he thinks that the cycle should in principle be structured differently, I believe his main reasons for withdrawing from this cycle are: 1) the risk isn't so big - he ISN'T ready to be WCC, as his recent 'cold streak' shows, and I think he knows that he lacks the experience, and 2) the cycle has changed whilst in progress, which is totally the wrong way to go about things.

And as he says, he isn't trying to change this cycle at all.

Well...Sven Magnus Carlsen has really shaken up the chess pond with his withdrawal. All we can really do is guess about the reasons, and responses.

One thing is clear, Magnus will look pretty silly if FIDE refuses to budge, and he rejoins the Candidates...so what will he do then? Looks like the King's Gambit is currently being played....

...what a time to be a chess fan...

Enter The Dragon

I'm not clear on the process of becoming the champ in chess, nor am I convinced that one match play series of games between two players can determine the best player in the world. What if one of the players has a nasty cold during the world champion match play event?

Using golf as an analogy, Tiger Woods has held the number one spot for a very long time, with one very short hiccup, and recently a major personal hiccup.

Lee Westwood from England is currently ranked number one. Tiger has lost major championships along the way. However, when you look at all of his golf stats for any given year, except this year, he plays golf better than anyone else.

Why isn't Magnus Carlsen the champ? He does hold down the number one spot, with I would guess, better chess stats than any other chess player.

Except for boxing, the champion or championship team holds the tilte for one year, and then they must fight the entire next year to get the title again, i.e., American football, baseball, basketball, hockey, tennis, pretty much every sport, etc.

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I just read the letter by Magnus Carlsen and his decision makes sense. I'd rather see him focus on improving his chess skills, defending his No.1 spot...and not get distracted by FIDE politics.

Magnus uses a sports analogy as well: 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.

This makes perfect sense to me and I agree: reigning champion privileges should be, in general, abolished.

I'm not sure which year, but it was during one of the Fide Knock Out championships where the winner got a match against Karpov. Anand won the knock out only to come exhausted to a fight against the well rested Karpov.

I think people are somewhat miss reading Carlsen's letter, he's making some suggestions, not claims on what should be changed, we can probably count on seeing him in a WC cycle again, hopefully one that's working properly.

Looks like Carlsen doesn't take chess as serious as some members on this forum. Carlsen do what he wants, respect him for that!

 Uhhh.... how many games did the winner win in the most recent Linares ?  Corus ? Dortmund ? Why would a world championship tourney be any different ? Fischer didnt become the WC by just winning a series of games against Spassky either. He first won a series of games against Taimanov, then Larsen and then former world champ Petrosian and only then got to play a series of games against Spassky for the title. I think this method is more likely to produce the best chess player than any tournament method is.....