By: Alex Chu

July 20 was International Chess Day. On this day the current 5-time World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen decided not to defend his World Championship Title against Ian Nepomniachtchi who he had previously defeated in 2021.

For the chess world, it was hard to take in this news because Carlsen is unquestionably the best player right now. Carlsen’s loss meant that Ding Liren would Play Ian Nepomniachtchi.

Fide Candidates

The Fide Candidates Tournament was held in Madrid, Spain starting 16 June – 5 July 2022 with a rest day every 3 rounds. In this tournament, 8 top players, not including Magnus, play against each other twice (alternating between white and black pieces) playing 14 games. To qualify you must win multiple renowned tournaments or be honored by The International Chess Federation (Fide).

The results were as follows: Ian Nepomniachtchi from Russia is undefeated. In the first 7 games, Ding Liren from China lost 1 game and had 6 draws; no hope was in sight but then Liren won 3 games in a row and eventually won another game. Only the results of Nepomniachtchi and Liren matter because the first-place player gets automatically placed to play in the 2023 World Chess Championship.

Thoughts

“His decision not to defend the title is undoubtedly a disappointment for the fans and bad news for the spectacle,” Dvorkovich, the president of Fide, said in a statement released by the federation. Most people say that the new world champion will have a hard time filling in Magnus’s shoes.

History

Previously, Bobby Fischer gave away his title to Anatoly Karpov who went on to prove himself. People want the next champion to live up to that. However, then Kasparov beat Karpov and had to play Nigel Short who won the Candidates that year however they didn’t like the format and eventually Karpov play Timman. Magnus also gave up his title because he did not like the format of the event.

Even though Kasparov and Magnus both gave up their titles while playing at the highest level and while being ranked number 1, they changed the future of chess. Kasaparov popularize the game and Magnus made the game cool/ People still consider Magnus and Kasparov the greatest players of chess.