After every game between D Gukesh and Ding Liren in the 2024 FIDE World Chess Championship, five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen has been on YouTube analysing every move, breaking down every pattern, sometimes even showing the viewer what he would have done in those positions.
The world championship anyway feels a bit like Hamlet without the prince but even more so when you realise that Carlsen was, until a couple of days ago, in the same city. But not only did he stay away from the actual venue, he was actually playing a different format of the sport.
And, as if for emphasis, when asked whether there was an urge for him to be in that hall playing in a world championship, whether he missed that big stage, Carlsen's answer was unambiguous: "No."
This was, of course, only a continuation of his public stand on classical chess, which is why the five-time world champion chose to step away from defending his title last year.
Freestyle > Classical pic.twitter.com/d4sMFP32Jr
- Magnus Carlsen (@MagnusCarlsen) November 24, 2024
It puts the sport in a delicate position. Of course, it's not the first time that the best player in the world isn't at a world championship match. But it is perhaps first time since Bobby Fischer walked away in 1975 that the best player in the world just doesn't want to be at what is considered the sport's pinnacle. Classical chess, and particularly the world championship, demands the fullest energy and motivation. Having done the whole cycle and being crowned world champion five times, Carlsen reached his wit's end.
"It's still got a special place, the World Championship," GM David Howell, now a commentator for the World Championship on FIDE's official channel, told ESPN. "Even Magnus, he's watching, he's a massive chess fan, literally every move he's watching live. He's still addicted."
But Howell also appreciates Carlsen's position on it. "He's at a point in his career where he doesn't enjoy putting in the necessary hours, the months and months of training. It's understandable," Howell said.
What does it say about the sport, though, if arguably its best player of all time just doesn't want to get involved in its pinnacle? Did FIDE do anything about it last year when Carlsen walked away from defending from his title?
FIDE CEO, Emil Sutovsky, told ESPN that they had some discussions over minor changes in the format, but nothing revolutionary, saying that regular chess would always be the preferred format for the masses over the other variants, some of which Carlsen seems to be championing now.
"It's nothing tragic [that Carlsen isn't playing the world championship], because you have an interesting match with two great players," said GM Boris Gelfand. "Magnus has won so many times, it's very energy-demanding [for him]. Unless you have huge motivation, it's difficult to do it."
"Everyone who follows games appreciates and respects Ding Liren and Gukesh as fantastic players, so it's not an issue for me," said Gelfand, who played the world championship against Viswanathan Anand in 2012. "There's amazing interest all over the world. Generally people like to complain. If they have something, [they ask] why it's not even better."
Sutovsky also pointed to the interest generated for this match in Singapore - where they have sold out tickets for the first week and more - as evidence that Carlsen's decision hasn't particularly affected the occasion and prestige associated with it. Carlsen himself hasn't stayed away, he's even doing reviews for every game of this world championship on YouTube.
But Carlsen's stand does raise the question - does classical chess have a future in its current form? Gelfand and Sutovsky certainly seem to think so. Gelfand pointed out how most games in the classical format [a number he pegged at around 95%] are still very interesting and said that, at the amateur level, there's even more competitiveness in the classical format. So he doesn't yet see an existential threat to the format.
From FIDE's perspective, Sutovsky said that they are always open to tweaks in rules and time controls, but regular chess (and not variants like Freestyle chess) would be their medium to take the sport to the masses.
"Regular chess is, by a huge gap, more popular and more suitable for an ordinary player. You don't have even 0.1% of players playing other variants of chess," he said.
However, the challenge for FIDE is that it also needs to keep personalities like Carlsen playing the formats that it uses to reach the masses. Sutovsky, however, pointed to online chess platforms, where most players still continue to play only the regular formats of chess, and only the odd game in its new variants.
"I understand top grandmasters playing it, because they have been studying chess and working on it for 15, 20, 30 years. Some of them feel like they have exhausted the charm of it. But that's not the case with the chess community in general," he said.
Up and coming players learn from the vast database of games that have already been played. Their aspirations stem from feats previously achieved in the sports, Sutovsky explains. For the amateur player, classical chess remains the format they turn to, largely due to the simplicity of it, as compared to the other variations of the sport, which only offer tweaks to what already exists in classical chess.
"The magic of chess is that it is easy to learn, difficult to master," Sutovsky said. "So other variants have the flavour, but I don't see it becoming very appealing to a wider audience."
"For them, it is important that they can refer to patterns that they learn, classical games that famous players played, pet systems that they like to open with, all of it would be gone in Fischer Random, for example," Sutovsky added.
Additionally, for the elite players, it doesn't yet make monetary sense to break away from the FIDE circuit. FIDE's prize pool for their events in 2024 was $10 million, with $2.5 million for this world championship, and a further $1.42 million allocated for next month's world rapid and blitz championships. Clearly, there's no ambiguity from FIDE on what they see as the biggest match in the sport.
Sutovsky is not yet concerned either about the prize money associated with alternate chess events, which he says aren't yet close to what FIDE can offer, so the monetary motivation for players to continue to aspire to play classical chess remains associated with it.
Will Carlsen ever come back to the World Championship?
The only person who can answer this is Carlsen, but he will perhaps find motivation when he sees an opponent who's worthy of him expending his energy and time in preparation. Howell said that chess has always been a sport which operates in cycles.
"It's a player 15 or 20 years younger, who comes and takes it from the older warrior. I have a sneaky feeling Magnus might be tempted in the future," he said.
So who are those younger players that could tempt Carlsen out of his self-imposed world championship exile? There is no dearth of them around the world. Carlsen himself has made no secret in the past of his admiration for Alireza Firouzja, who was at the Candidates earlier this year.
"I think if Gukesh wins this [year's world championship], if there's a cycle of the new generation, whether Firouzja comes, Pragg... He's a big fan of [Nodirbek] Abdusattarov as well. If one of these youngsters keep it [the world championship title] for a long time, maybe he'll be tempted in the future," Howell said.
For now, Carlsen is very happy keeping his distance from the world championship. The spectacle goes on.