Congratulations Magnus Carlsen, World Rapid Chess Champion

Congratulations. Too bad we have no Classical World Chess Champion!

u might be too stupid to understand this but we already have a legitimate classical chess champion ..who is not beaten by the second best classical chess player

Well, after Kasparov we hardly had a dominent world champion who totally outclasses his opponets. Say what you may, it is undisputed that Magnus is the best classical player, whether he is singularly the best or he shares that with Caruana and Karjakin (who also drew him) is up for debate. But in the end, no one can legitimately claim that there is a better player in classical chess than Magnus.

mr. Caruana showed he had a snowballs chance in hell when he no longer could memorize computersmoves. computers are the biggest threat to the game

Agreed.

Since Magnus won the classical title some years back and has successfully defended it ever since, he can legitimately be called the classical chess champion. Someone has yet to dethrone him, and Karjakin came closer than Carauna did.

Magnus is the best current chess player now. Period.

For some reason Kramnik and Anand stayed classical World Champions when they won in rapid tiebreak, it’s somehow always different with Carlsen :-)

I can't disagree with this thread as much as I would like to. Magnus won the classical championship against Vishy and has since been the rapid champion.

I ludicrous argument. It would be like saying if France won the football world cup on penalties they were somehow not proper world champions.

You prefer the old days when the champion held the title if the match ended 12-12, 6-6, etc. and there was no tie break? It's not a perfect solution but it doesn't change the basic fact that until someone beats Carlsen, he's THE CHAMPION, whether you like it or not.

Among other things, the problem lies in the fact that players will simply use any kind of reasonably obtainment-unpreventable game data at their disposal to win, and since chess has (for better or for worse) evolved from a somewhat chivalrous war simulation pastime into a full-blown scientific sport, no one is truly expected to care about anyone considering anyone else a coward for, say, not accepting a gambit or similar; meanwhile, you see many, many more people stuck in this scrub mentality when it comes to fighting games (which are actually kind of like high-speed chess, but with players able to make moves simultaneously; an even greater inherent balance in comparison!).

Now that winning itself takes precedence over any kind of 'chess spirit' that could have any other priorities of perceived values, any professional players wishing to adhere to some sort of code of honour that would prevent them from using engines for home preparation - they'd just get stomped by those who utilise the potential of computers, because hey, why would one care for another's purely human yet flawed analysis when one can memorise a better one and win? Also, how would one go about proving if a variation was thought up with or without computer analysis? What if a player who swore off the engine just happens to be that good?

With that being said, while I highly respect classical chess for the practical perfection-searching truth contest it is, the best way to keep it fresh (from a more bloodsport-oriented perspective) might be the shifting of match & tournament standards to the rapids. If humans can't really keep up with the best of the actual chess machines anymore, then why strain the human CPUs in pursuit of that anyway? Hasn't the classical format hit its plateau hard enough as it is?