Magnus - did he bail too early?

As we all know. Magnus Carlsen withdrew from defending his WC title, and has effectively "retired undefeated," in the manner of old boxers like Rocky Marciano.

Officially he held the title for 10 years, not a record by any means. He actually defended it for 8 years: after winning the crown in 2013 against Anand, his last (successful) defense was 8 years later in 2021 against Nepomniachtchi.

So, what to make of this? Should Kasparov have done the same thing - quietly retire after almost 15 years of holding the crown, and not go down in a flame of Ruy Lopez Berlins against Kramnik, in one of of the most mind-numbingly boring WC matches ever?

More important - where is the Carlsen legacy going to land after all this? Did he jump too soon? He did defend his title four times, which is a lot - although in a tight 7-year span. Most "Best of" lists now have him in the Top 3, which isn't an easy level to crack. Think he'll stay there, as the years rumble on? Or will he slowly slip down the Top 10 like others have done (or like Kramnik and Spassky, just fall off completely).

Some good questions.

It's hard for me to imagine Magnus slipping down the ratings chart.

I expect he'll step away from competitive play while still on top, much like he did with the World Championship. He's better aware of his abilities than anyone - and he'd be able to tell when the next generation is ready to dethrone him.

For now, though, I suspect he still has several years more to play as the best player in the world. His interviews during the Candidates seemed rather "ho hum" - as if he wasn't impressed at all by the level of play that he was seeing.

I imagine it gets a bit boring being on such a high mountaintop, all by himself. Top players like Fabiano and Hikaru were wracking their brains to find the best moves in the final round, and Magnus was watching and shrugging - seeing everything that they missed ...

It can be difficult for us to see it, because all the top players are so highly skilled. But Magnus still towers above them.

I'm not sure if this has been raised before but I wonder if Carlsen's classical Elo rating should be considered "retired".

After all he qualified for both the last World Championship match and this year's Candidates, and has potentially avoided loss of competitive ranking points by dodging them. Yet, he still gets to parade that rating about as if he's above it all...

Are his actions really so different from Alireza, who took immense criticism for farming Elo in order to "sneak" into the Candidates.

I'm not sure but there's definitely something unsavoury about him playing other players who have put their ratings on the line to try and reach the top of the pile, whilst he gets to select who he wants to go up against in whatever invitational...

>After all he qualified for both the last World Championship match and this year's Candidates, and has potentially avoided loss of competitive ranking points by dodging them. <

I'm glad someone else brought us this up. Because yes, this wasn't a simple retirement from competitive chess, a la Kasparov in 2005. This was a "I'm not going to defend my title anymore, but I'm still the best player around, and I'm going to protect my rating to make sure I can support that claim." 

Magnus's ho-hum comments during the Candidates - I found them uninteresting and wondered why he was being interviewed at all. At one session he was looking like he just woke up, next to an unmade bed. The interviewers fawned all over him but how much longer can this last.

I think he jumped too soon, he's only 33. Once the WC gets going, his stock will start to slip. Slowly...but surely. 

He felt his interest and likely level of play wasnt up to his standards anymore. If theres no fire, not much for him to gain to continue. It's quite natural after all - Nobody really stands out other than Magnus, so no worthy opponents, wouldn't be a good way to go out losing in such situation.

>He felt his interest and likely level of play wasn't up to his standards anymore.<

That's convenient. Still, I'm not sure how the long eye of history is going to look back on that. Botvinnik could have tried that too - "ah, everyone else is weak, I'm outta here" - and never played Tal. Kasparov could have tried it on - after he pounded Karpov for the fifth time, he could have said "you know, I'm way above the pack now, no more matches for me!"

Somehow I think that would have backfired on both of their legacies. And I think it may harm Carlsen's too.

I didnt really take a stand on how he will fare in the goat conversation in the long run. What is sure is that he isn't riding on the length of his reign but instead the highest peak (rating). If that get's topped, naturally they will take Magnus' spot. If not, he has his place forever among the top dogs (Top3-1).

However, my point was more so that Magnus doesn't care about the length of his reign enough to continue. He fears losing to a subpar opponent while not at his best. Continuing for him personally is a lose lose. It's not an excuse for anything but simply a personal reason to stop.

I believe Magnus will still have his historical place among the greats, even if he avoids Classical play from here on out.

Remember Fischer only won the title once, then ducked away into obscurity after that. Yet he's still talked about as one of the greatest of all time ...

I'm going to repeat some of what I said before here again. The problem as I see it is that the world titles are spaced far too closely to one another - every 2 years. Make it every 4 years like the Olympics or the FIFA World Cup, or my personal preference would be every 6 years, then people would REALLY care. Chess players last at their peak for quite a while, vastly longer than other sports professionals. 6 years would be enough and would make it really exciting. Very little changes in 2 years in chess. People have been world champion for decades.

There is no point in having a candidates and going through the whole process every 2 years when you already know who's going to win. These games take weeks to prepare for, no wonder Magnus didn't want to do it again. The only reason they are 2 years apart now is for money. FIDE organizers see twice the money if they have them only 2 years apart when it's actually just making a bit of a farce of the whole thing. Another thing that could be done is that a candidates would be "triggered" by some events, such as by someone other than the world champion obtaining the highest rating.

There should only be like a few world champions per lifetime. This is how it used to be. You could name all the old champions by heart very easily - Steinitz, Lasker, Euwe, Spassky, Petrosian, Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov - ok there were a bunch more, the point is that world champion should be a monumental thing, with only a handful of changes per lifetime. Not something that the likes of Ponomariov, Khalifmann, Ding and Kramnik obtain. There should only be one world champion this whole time and that's Carlsen. Before that the only world champion should have been Kasparov - of course if Kasparov only had to defend his title once and Kramnik did manage to beat him that one time (vastly more difficult than what happened) then yes Kramnik would be deemed worthy of world champion. Only once every 4-6 years would mean Carlsen very likely would be keen to play again to defend his title, and there would also be a much bigger prizefund as incentive. The candidates tournament and final would then grow into an incredible, extremely dramatic spectacle that people could think about and remember things about how they were at each point in their lives, like the FIFA World Cup can be. Every two years and no-names winning it all turns into a blur.

I totally agree. Back in the "good old days" it was three years pretty consistently. Petrosian in 63 and 66, Spassky in 69, Fischer 72, Karpov 75 (by default), 78 and 81 - then the 84 mess which was finished in 85 with Kasparov. Then things got a little screwy and Kasparov and Karpov seemed to be playing every other year, until the split when we had two cycles starting in 1993.

The "reunification" of 2006 was supposed to bring us back to the old ways, but it didn't. As you said, greed ruled the roost and we started having WC matches almost every year. So yes, I can see why Magnus would get sick of it and bail. BUT - he could have also said to FIDE look, let's go back to a 3-year cycle, this has gotten out of hand. I think he had enough clout and enough of a following that he could have at least tried to push for this. He didn't - he just walked, at age 32 or whenever it was, and that is pretty young.

Now he's roaming around playing a variety of tournaments in different formats and yeah, he's still dominating (mostly...there have been some slips), but I don't see a path to continued greatness here. The WC is what finally matters, not winning Fischer random tourneys or Croatian blitz events. And his biggest headline since his abdication was when he accused a player of cheating (which was never proven) and bailed on a tournament. No one cares about his winning yet another Chess960 weekend, except maybe his accountant.

Chess isn't kind to its heroes when they leave too early...Morphy, Fischer...hopefully Magnus can avoid this.

Magnus didn't bail too early.

I didn't like one chess product that Carlsen left, or their staff, so I have a feeling he enjoys low effort as a boss/player and maybe likes money and comfort over having a large number of chess games played otb in 1 year.