Magnus Carlsen: the reason why the world chess champion will not defend his title

“The bottom line is that I don’t feel motivated to play one more game.”

That is what world chess champion Magnus Carlsen said on Wednesday to justify his decision not to defend his title.

The news has come as a surprise given the impact Carlsen’s career has had on the popularity and modernization of a game that is over 1,500 years old.

the young norwegian defended his title for the fifth and last time in 2021a year in which online gaming sites like Chess.com saw unprecedented increases in user numbers (with a little help from the pandemic and Netflix’s “Queen’s Gambit”).

With scarcely 31 yearsCarlsen said Wednesday during the launch of his new podcast, The Magnus Effectwho had “little to gain” by continuing to participate in the world tournament.

That means that Carlsen will not defend his title in 2023 against the Russian chess player Ian Nepomniachtchi.

“While I’m sure a game would be interesting for historical reasons and all, I’m not inclined to play, and I just won’t play the game.”

Rising against the “Soviet oligopoly”

For many, Carlsen’s rise to the top of the “mind sport” world represented a “checkmate” to the old unshakable norms that characterized him during the 20th century.

Carlsen was not born in the Soviet Union or in an Eastern European country, strongholds of the game during the Cold War years.

Since 1937, only two other chess players had managed to overcome the domination of the Soviet Union and its allies: the American Bobby Fischer and the Indian Viswanathan Anand.

But none of them had reached Carlsen’s level of excellence.

Not even the Russian Gary Kasparov, the champion who during the 90s became world famous for his duels against computers.

In addition to his genius on the board, Carlsen’s image has been used to promote luxury watches and sports cars, as well as the products of Dutch sportswear firm G-Star Raw.

A documentary about his life was broadcast in 56 countries and in 2013 his name appeared in the magazine TIME among the 100 most influential people in the world.

Such has been his popularity that he even appeared in an episode of The Simpsons.

Carlsen and the modernization of chess

“Chess was seen as a sport for older men,” Kate Murphy, director of Play Magnus, a company created by Carlsen to develop a line of chess apps, told the BBC.

But “Carlsen changed that perception by winning the title and motivating more young people to play chess,” he said.

Today, none of the 10 best chess players in the world according to the International Chess Federation is over 40 years old.

In this aspect, the inevitable comparison with Kasparov, who won his first title at the age of 22, appears again.

But, according to Peter Doggers, one of the directors of Chess.com, the differences between the two are also beginning to be seen.

“Kasparov was a brilliant player and a perfect ambassador for the sport, but Magnus Carlsen was at the right time and place to benefit from the internet and social media,” he said.

One of the Play Magnus applications allows you to challenge virtual versions of the world champion at different times in his life.

Initially, when his father began teaching him to play at age 5, Carlsen showed no special interest in chess.

But when he finally managed to beat his sister, his eternal rival, everything changed.

“Beating her was my main motivation and in that process chess captured me,” he recalled in an interview in 2016.

At the age of 9, Carlsen was already beating his father in games and when he turned 13, he became a “grandmaster”, the highest recognition for a player next to the world title.

His precocious talent was reflected in the nickname that the press used to refer to during those early years and his meteoric rise: the “Mozart of chess.”

This is why the void left by Carlsen handing over his world title will be a difficult one to fill.

Because although Carlsen warned that he is not retiring and that he will participate in tournaments, which he “enjoys more” than the world championship, the absence of a name as well known as his in the sport may cause some to stop following him.

“I don’t rule out going back in the future. But I wouldn’t take it for granted either,” Carlsen said.

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