And Still We Wait (on Carlsen)
There's a big difference between mostly dead(lines) and all dead(lines).
“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” — Douglas Adams
Earlier reports had said that today - July 20 - was the deadline for Magnus Carlsen to decide if he would defend his title against Candidates victor Ian Nepomniachtchi, or if he’d abdicate and Nepo would face off with Candidates runner-up Ding Liren. Apparently, this is not the case.
Carlsen, to all reports - or at least to all rumors - is uninterested in defending his title without serious changes to the format, which has generally been understood to include a healthy dose (or more) of rapid play. Whether FIDE will give in to Carlsen’s whims will remain to be seen; my hope is that they express a willingness to change the format - and, accordingly, the qualification procedures - for the next cycle. For this one, no. The Candidates was a classical tournament, and players qualified for it by succeeding (almost entirely) in classical chess. Moreover, they qualified for the qualifiers by their classical prowess, not through rapid - or blitz, bullet, hyper-bullet, ultra-bullet, or even correspondence chess. It’s nonsensical to suddenly switch to a rapid format, and less crazy - but only in comparison - to have the event decided by some sort of “triathlon” composed of classical, rapid, and blitz chess. (When all three formats are roughly equally weighted, as opposed to the sort of rapid playoff we’ve seen in three of the last six World Championship matches.)
FIDE has shown a spine in the past when champions have made unreasonable requests; hopefully they will do so once again. It would be bad for chess and the value of the World Championship title if the world’s long-time #1 lost his crown by forfeiting it. But that Carlsen is simply tired of playing World Championship matches? C’mon. I suppose Elon Musk is tired of counting his money, but that’s the awful burden you face when you’re worth more than $200 billion. All Carlsen has to do is lose a match, and then he’s “free” of the burden.
Just to recap and clarify: I’m not opposed to a change in the format. Given that rapid and blitz are both very common tournament forms, and not just in recreational play, it’s not a terrible idea for a World Championship match to test the players in those disciplines as well. But not this time, for at least two reasons. A lesser reason: Carlsen might have been spending his time lately building up his stock of rapid & blitz opening ideas, knowing all along that he intended to issue FIDE this sort of ultimatum. Nepomniachtchi and the other candidates couldn’t have known that this was going to be Carlsen’s demand, and haven’t spent any time specially preparing openings for a non-classical championship match.
Second and more importantly, the qualification was based solely on classical chess. Rapid & blitz specialists who might have had shot at the Candidates didn’t get to participate unless they did so on the basis of their classical skill. It’s like deciding to hold a decathlon, but only 100m specialists get to compete in the qualification stages.
Next time around then, sure. But here’s a question: what do we do with the events at the end of the year, those called the World Rapid and the World Blitz championships? If we’ll have those events, and we’ll have a World Championship with a classical, rapid, and blitz component, shouldn’t we have a World Classical Championship as well? Hmm…this sounds like an interesting idea. Maybe FIDE could try organizing one?
While I seem to be in the minority and harbor little hope that my wish will come true, I hope that the format returns to purely classical chess. We have blitz and bullet championships, so, in my view, we need to keep the classical championship for classical chess; I would even get rid of rapid playoffs in favor of matches of potentially indeterminate length or even stipulate that the champion retains the title in the event of a tie.
It might be irrelevant now, but - quoting Dennis twice - what could be the format of the _entire_ next cycle if this is taken into account?
"my hope is that they express a willingness to change the format - and, accordingly, the qualification procedures - for the next cycle."
"Second and more importantly, the qualification [in this cycle] was based solely on classical chess."
How to include faster time controls throughout the cycle? World Cup matches always with tiebreaks, and a player can advance despite losing in classical? Grand Swiss with a role for rapid and maybe blitz? Either several games between the same players in one event, or two (to three) events back-to-back, each with their own Swiss pairings with combined final standings? Or rapid/blitz qualifiers for the candidates at the expense of existing classical ones, e.g. world rapid/blitz championships also becoming candidates qualifiers?
Then the candidates event as a "triathlon", same or similar format as in Biel (now underway and earlier editions)?