Will Magnus Carlsen's refusal to defend world chess title devalue it?

There's only one instance where a reigning world champion relinquished his title without playing: Bobby Fischer in 1975

In a surprising development, Magnus Carlsen confirmed on Tuesday in a podcast that he was not going to defend the world title. The 31-year-old Norwegian Grandmaster, who has been the world champion since 2013 and continuously the world’s highest rated player since 2011, had hinted at this in the past few months.

Carlsen clarified that more than lack of motivation, he is plain tired of coping with the extra tension of a title match. He won the title in a match against Viswanathan Anand in Chennai in 2013. He defended the title, again against Anand, in 2014. He has subsequently defended the title three times – against Sergey Karjakin (2016), Fabiano Caruana (2018), and Ian Nepomniachtchi (2021). Against Caruana and Karjakin, he won in rapid tie-breakers after failing to make headway at the classical time-control, and he demolished Nepo with a classical game to spare.

In early July, it became apparent that Nepo would, once again, win the right to challenge Carlsen when the Russian GM won the Candidates in Madrid comfortably. While the Norwegian was reckoned to be the overwhelming favourite in a forthcoming title rematch, he had already said that the only match prospect he found enticing was a possible bout against the brilliant 19-year-old French–Iranian GM, Alireza Firouzja.

Despite the foreshadowing, Carlsen’s decision is odd, on several grounds.

There is only one instance where a reigning world champion relinquished his title without playing. In 1975, Bobby Fischer refused to face challenger Anatoly Karpov. Fischer, who was apparently going through an extended mental meltdown, actually did not play a single official game between 1972 (when he won the title) and 1992, though he insisted on calling himself world champion.

Garry Kasparov was officially stripped of his world title in 1993 when he decided to take a title match against Englishman Nigel Short private, rather than letting it be organised under the auspices of the World Chess Federation (Fide). But they played a match.

Another instance where this nearly happened involved reigning champion Emanuel Lasker, way back in 1921. Lasker offered to relinquish the title, but he ultimately played and lost a match to the Cuban genius, Jose Raul Capablanca. Lasker apparently played that match, in Havana, because a generous purse was offered by Capablanca’s fans in his home-town.

This brings us to another reason why Carlsen deciding to pull out is just a little surprising. Win or lose, a title match carries a reasonably large purse. Carlsen picked up Euro 1.2 million for the last title match (Nepo received Euro 800,000), and he would presumably have been looking at the same ballpark in the next match.

However, Carlsen makes a decent living from his other engagements and he has firmly stated his intentions to carry on playing every other sort of event. Indeed, he will be playing soon in Croatia and after that in Chennai at the forthcoming Olympiad. Apart from modelling and endorsements, Carlsen is also a smart entrepreneur.

His company, Play Magnus (he owns approximately 10 per cent stake), is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange with a valuation of about Euro 85 million and merchandises a range of chess-related apps and software. He’s also been World No 1 at Fantasy Football, ahead of some 7 million others in 2019, and reached the top table in serious poker events.

So he can afford to ignore the financial angle. It will be interesting to see if he downsizes his research team, though he’s likely to continue his relationship with his long-time second, Peter Heine Nielsen.

So much for Carlsen. He remains the highest-rated player in the world, by a distance. Nepo and Ding Liren of the PRC (who came second in the Madrid Candidates) will play a title match sometime and we could conceivably see a Chinese world champion in 2025. It’s impossible to call the winner of a possible Nepo-Ding match (nb Ding is his family name, written first Chinese style), and both players are likely to be backed by huge resources including super computers and strong GMs.

Assuming the Ukraine war and China’s zero-Covid policy and real estate woes don’t throw any spanners in the works, that match is also likely to be reasonably funded. The chess federations of both nations will push to find sponsors – and these should be forthcoming without much trouble.

There have been many instances where the world champion is not the highest-rated player. Fischer, for example, was higher rated than world champion Boris Spassky for at least three years before they played for the title (and was higher rated than Karpov when Fischer quit). Kasparov was higher rated than Karpov before he won the title in 1985 and higher rated than Vladimir Kramnik even after losing the title to Kramnik in 2000. And, Carlsen was higher rated than Anand in 2013.  

However, while there’s no reason why the world champion must also be the highest-rated player, the highest-rated player has usually competed in the title cycle, lending it legitimacy. Carlsen’s refusal implies the title itself may be devalued in terms of branding. We may even see this triggering possible changes of format where a traditional head-to-head title match is replaced with some sort of super tournament. While Ding or Nepo would both be deserving title-holders, they would labour under Carlsen’s long shadow.

A, B, C of chess ratings

Chess ratings are calculated live and officially updated every month for performances in all official events – with three different ratings for classical, rapid and blitz time controls.

The ratings are calculated according to a mathematical formula created by the late Professor Arpad Elo. This is applied to “predict” the results of head-to-head encounters, and rating points are gained and lost according to actual results. Magnus Carlsen has been the highest-rated classical player since July 2011. He has also won the World Rapid and Blitz title and been rated No 1 in both short formats.