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0 pointszarzavat3y ago0 comments

It takes months of preparation to prepare for the world championships, basically rote memorisation with a team of people. If he doesn't do that, he will lose.

This is time that could be spent playing tournaments.

This would be okay if the world championships was every four years, but it's every two, so a large fraction of Carlsen's time is spent preparing for this one match that everybody knows he's going to win anyway.

It's similar to the way that many professional teams are reluctant to allow their players to play in the Olympics (in e.g. Basketball, Ice Hockey, and Olympic Football is completely neutered). Carlsen clearly feels that the World Championship is not important enough to sacrifice a large chunk of his career for.

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kamaal3y ago

>>Carlsen clearly feels that the World Championship is not important enough to sacrifice a large chunk of his career for.

Which other tournaments are considered like the top levels of Chess competition, and what are the criteria for being the top chess player in the world(If not winning the world championship)?

matsemann3y ago

The criteria is probably their rating. Since they use the ELO system, each game gives or loses points. So the ratings are a good measure in how good you are over time and meeting multiple opponents.

And Carlsen absolutely dominates the others, and have been the top rated player continuously for a decade. So no questions about who is the best, WC title or not.

Carlsen is right now 98 points above Nepo, the challenger, which is an insane difference.

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