The World Chess Championship is currently happening in Kazakhstan, but the world chess champion, Magnus Carlsen, isn’t participating. He has chosen to abdicate his throne, surrendering the title he first won in 2013 without defending it for a fifth time.
Instead, the match—a best of 14 games (plus tiebreaks, if needed)—is between Russian grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi, who faced Carlsen for the title in 2021 and is the second-ranked player in the world, and Chinese grandmaster Ding Liren, the world’s third-ranked player.
When asked before the start of the match who he thought would prevail, Carlsen replied, “I don’t care.”
It’s a strange situation. Discounting the schism in the 1990s that created a separate chess federation and champion for a brief time, a world champion hasn’t voluntarily walked away since Bobby Fischer disappeared from competitive chess after winning the title in 1972.
What makes the situation even stranger is that while Fischer stopped playing competitive chess, Carlsen says he will continue participating in tournaments. When Fischer refused to defend his title and vanished from the public eye, Anatoly Karpov was awarded the championship and went on to dominate the world of chess for the next decade. But whoever wins this year’s chess championship will be forced to reign in Carlsen’s incredibly long shadow.
Read the full article at The Ringer: https://www.theringer.com/2023/4/25/23696962/magnus-carlsen-world-chess-championship-2023-rating-elo
