Magnus Carlsen steps out of World Chess Championship cycle
Chess news and chess trivia blog (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2010
A snapshot from the Carlsen RAW World Challenge
held a few weeks back.
Find great portraits of the talented youngster at www.chesspics.com
Hello Everyone,
One of the world's best chess players - who was No. 1 for most of 2010 and slipped to No. 2 behind the current World Champion Viswanathan Anand in the November rating list by two points - has said that he would like to focus on his chess improvements and not take part in the current World Championship cycle.
It is very nice of Magnus Carlsen to specify that he is doing so not as a criticism of anyone but he feels that he is not comfortable with the cycle as it stands today.
We found the full text of the letter he has sent to the Fide at both www.chessvibes.com and www.chessbase.com. The former even has an interesting poll that is part so funny.
Poll conducted by www.chessvibes.com till we published this post.
1. Bad idea because he won't be World Champion until his, what, mid-twenties? 20.59% (28 votes)
2. Bad idea because he'll be missing out the opportunity to make millions in the coming years 0.74% (1 votes)
3. Who knows, but at least he'll have more time for modelling and pingpong 11.76% (16 votes)
4. Good idea; he'll be stepping in as soon as he's reached 2852 and crush everyone 2.94% (4 votes)
5. Good idea; now FIDE will really have to reconsider the outdated World Championship cycle's regulations 63.97% (87 votes)
Total Votes: 136
However, Carlsen has not yet tweeted or blogged about his decision. But the Internet chess circles are absolutely full of this news since three hours ago.
From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
Also see her personal blog at
posted by Chess Blog Admin @ 9:33 AM
3 Comments:
At November 5, 2010 at 12:21 PM ,
Anonymous said...
Wow that's a brave decision to take. He really knows his mind.
At November 5, 2010 at 1:07 PM ,
Saira Fernando, Madrid said...
Of course as a fan one would miss Carlsen I was so looking forward to him playing in the cycle and maybe taking a shot at becoming the youngest world champion but its understandable. Nice kid. Admirable.
At November 6, 2010 at 7:25 AM ,
Saira Fernando, Madrid said...
Good decision. More strong a personality that most of the top chess players put together. Why cannot all top players get together and point this out. At least now they should rally behind Carlsen. If they have the guts that is.
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