January 1st 2009
Looking back at 2008 it has been a tremendous success for Magnus chesswise.
Climbing to # 4 on the rating list (Oct 1 2008 and Jan 1 2009) and even enjoying 5 days as the unofficial # 1 during Bilbao, winning Corus (shared), Baku (shared) and Foros, and taking second place in Linares and Bilbao, he has every reason to be happy and proud of his achievements.
Having continuously adjusted his ambitions on his way up, he is not fully satisfied with his performances in the 2nd half of 2008. The good thing is that it may slightly reduce expectations and put him back in "an attacking position", where he has proven to be very comfortable in the past.
His first quarter program is again very tight this year, starting with the rapid tournament "Aker Chess Challenge" between Magnus, Svidler, Nakamura and K.Lie at Gjøvik tomorrow, followed by Corus A starting January 16th (opening ceremony).
Magnus is already at Gjøvik where the drawing of lots and a press conference will be held tonight.
The format will be similar to Mainz Rapid with a double round robin qualifier Friday to Sunday and Final / Bronze finals Monday 5th.
The main Open event, with European Champion S.Tiviakov as the top rated participant, is well under way. As are other parallel events, and this weekend the annual Open Norwegian Rapid championship will be held as another part of the broad festival at Gjøvik.
Main organisers Øystein Brekke and Hans O.Lahlum deserves the highest praise for organising such a great festival in Norway. Thank you!
The intended change of the 2008-2011 World Championship Cycle has been met by a lot of protests and responding to this, the FIDE President invited some of the highest rated players in the world to take part in a Skype phone conference on December 27th.
Magnus asked me to take part on his behalf, and as he has already withdrawn from the Grand Prix, we decided to focus on World Championship cycles in general.
Prior to the conference we were informed in writing that the recording will be made available to all the internet "journals"... who can reproduce it in full as a voice or transcript it if they wish.
As this may take some time, we have decided to include our statement at the conference below;
" (Dear FIDE dignitaries, dear World Champion, dear top Grand Masters,)
I'm representing my son Magnus Carlsen and would like to thank you for this opportunity to express our views on the world championship cycle. As communicated earlier we would like to see transparent decision processes within FIDE, and predictability and fairness in the world championship cycles.
Transparent decision processes require a democratic and open dialogue with the parties involved prior to making decisions. Important issues need to be raised well in advance of major decision points and the decision process needs to be well documented and communicated timely and widely. The process of proposing to change the current cycle as brought forward at the FIDE General Assembly in Dresden last month on short notice, does not meet these requirements.
Predictability is necessary to ensure the trust and commitment of chess players, chess federations, sponsors, organisers and top players in contention for the World Championship title.
We need to introduce mutually binding agreements in line with the practice in other top chess tournaments.
The current practice of having one-sided escape clauses in the championship regulations and/or players undertaking, for instance stating that the FIDE Presidential Board or the FIDE President may change this or that, is simply unacceptable.
The many examples from recent years of players that has qualified or is in the process of qualifying for a subsequent step in the championship cycle or for a match, experiencing multiple delays or downright removal of rights, must come to an end.
Regarding priorities, the focus on money and privileges must be replaced by fairness, reliability and predictability.
As many businesses around the world has experienced, if you want economics results you have to excel in what you deliver to your customers and your audience. The results will follow suit.
Fairness; what does this imply? In addition to having predictability, there should not be arbitrary granting of privileges, well, as few privileges as possible really. In the future Magnus would like to see a world championship cycle with a minimum of privileges, or no privileges at all. If any it should be early in the cycle and based on rating and not money.
The transition to such a situation has been difficult in the past due to the legacy of our history.
We strongly disagree with the way FIDE has tried to remedy this by handing out further privileges.
After the unification process from 2005 to 2008, we may be in a unique situation to transcend historical problems and privileges, and it was with disbelief and disappointment we received the news about the proposal to introduce new privileges by creating 4 new spots in the next step of the 2008-2011 championship cycle.
Next let me mention some features we would like to advocate related to a world championship cycle;
Firstly let's talk about privileges;
What about privileges related to rating? Well, maybe some places in a knock-out stage could be allocated to top rated players as done in the World Cup for many years.
What about the privileges of players backed by strong managers, sponsors or organisers? We don't believe in these as it promotes cronyism and makes it possible to buy your way to important rights.
What about the privileges of the reigning World Champion? This is a difficult question but we see strong arguments for reducing the privileges drastically or even abolishing them outright. In the past, with the right to a re-match, a reigning world champion had about 75% chance of retaining the title against an evenly strong opponent, leaving only 25% chance for all the remaining chess players in the world. It was ridiculous. Even without rematches, the 50% chance of today is strongly favouring the reigning champion. This may have made sense in the past when there were few serious contenders for the title, but today, with about 30 top players within 100 rating points of the top, this is no longer fair.
Next, let's discuss the cycle;
The first step needs to be accessible to as many players as possible world wide. Both zonal tournaments and the regional qualifiers for the World Cup have worked well and one of these practices may be continued in the future.
Next Magnus favours a knock-out system with for instance 64 or 128 players mainly coming from the preceding step. When there are 8 players left in the knock-out stage, various alternatives are possible and we would like to mention three viable options;
- The first is to continue with the knock-out matches, and the final winner is the new World Champion.
- Another alternative is to proceed with candidate matches between the 8 remaining players at other venues and shifted in time. After two rounds of candidate matches, the two remaining players would fight for the world championship title.
- A third good alternative is to stage a double round robin World Championship tournament between the 8 remaining players from the knock-out cup.The World Champion would retain his (or her) title for two years until the next champion is decided.
Now, you may object and ask us; what is new? This is what has been tried for more than10 years without much success, isn't it?
Well, the main point is that it did not work as long as Kasparov and later Kramnik were outside the FIDE cycle. Currently this is no longer a problem. The chess world has been united and the only privileges we need to care about are those of World Champion Anand, who had to win both the 2007 world championship tournament and the somewhat questionable 2008 match, and the other is the winner of the 2007 World Cup Kamsky who was promised a semi-final match for the world championship title based on the regulations prior to the World Cup.
A transition from the current situation to a future without significant privileges must of course be organised in a way that is fair and preferably also fully acceptable to these gentlemen.
This obviously involves giving privileges to Anand in the next one or two cycles, and privileges to Kamsky in first of the ongoing cycles.
It is a bit difficult to comment categorically on the planned Kamsky-Topalov match as we don't understand the reason for organising such a match, but neither do we really know what has been discussed or agreed between FIDE and the other involved parties over the last one and a half years. The process has certainly not met our requirement for transparency.
In summary, we want mutually binding agreements governing FIDE cycles, the eventual abolition of privileges in general, and we want FIDE to focus on fairness and predictability and not money and privileges.
Thank You for Your attention.
Henrik Carlsen, On behalf of IGM Magnus Carlsen, December 27th, 2008. "
Lastly we would like to mention our appreciation of the statements made by reigning World Champion V.Anand and top players V.Topalov and L.Aronian during the conference. Their comments have raised our hopes. Maybe reason will prevail in the end :-)
Happy New Year!
Henrik Carlsen,
Engerdal, January 1st, 2009
Climbing to # 4 on the rating list (Oct 1 2008 and Jan 1 2009) and even enjoying 5 days as the unofficial # 1 during Bilbao, winning Corus (shared), Baku (shared) and Foros, and taking second place in Linares and Bilbao, he has every reason to be happy and proud of his achievements.
Having continuously adjusted his ambitions on his way up, he is not fully satisfied with his performances in the 2nd half of 2008. The good thing is that it may slightly reduce expectations and put him back in "an attacking position", where he has proven to be very comfortable in the past.
His first quarter program is again very tight this year, starting with the rapid tournament "Aker Chess Challenge" between Magnus, Svidler, Nakamura and K.Lie at Gjøvik tomorrow, followed by Corus A starting January 16th (opening ceremony).
Magnus is already at Gjøvik where the drawing of lots and a press conference will be held tonight.
The format will be similar to Mainz Rapid with a double round robin qualifier Friday to Sunday and Final / Bronze finals Monday 5th.
The main Open event, with European Champion S.Tiviakov as the top rated participant, is well under way. As are other parallel events, and this weekend the annual Open Norwegian Rapid championship will be held as another part of the broad festival at Gjøvik.
Main organisers Øystein Brekke and Hans O.Lahlum deserves the highest praise for organising such a great festival in Norway. Thank you!
The intended change of the 2008-2011 World Championship Cycle has been met by a lot of protests and responding to this, the FIDE President invited some of the highest rated players in the world to take part in a Skype phone conference on December 27th.
Magnus asked me to take part on his behalf, and as he has already withdrawn from the Grand Prix, we decided to focus on World Championship cycles in general.
Prior to the conference we were informed in writing that the recording will be made available to all the internet "journals"... who can reproduce it in full as a voice or transcript it if they wish.
As this may take some time, we have decided to include our statement at the conference below;
" (Dear FIDE dignitaries, dear World Champion, dear top Grand Masters,)
I'm representing my son Magnus Carlsen and would like to thank you for this opportunity to express our views on the world championship cycle. As communicated earlier we would like to see transparent decision processes within FIDE, and predictability and fairness in the world championship cycles.
Transparent decision processes require a democratic and open dialogue with the parties involved prior to making decisions. Important issues need to be raised well in advance of major decision points and the decision process needs to be well documented and communicated timely and widely. The process of proposing to change the current cycle as brought forward at the FIDE General Assembly in Dresden last month on short notice, does not meet these requirements.
Predictability is necessary to ensure the trust and commitment of chess players, chess federations, sponsors, organisers and top players in contention for the World Championship title.
We need to introduce mutually binding agreements in line with the practice in other top chess tournaments.
The current practice of having one-sided escape clauses in the championship regulations and/or players undertaking, for instance stating that the FIDE Presidential Board or the FIDE President may change this or that, is simply unacceptable.
The many examples from recent years of players that has qualified or is in the process of qualifying for a subsequent step in the championship cycle or for a match, experiencing multiple delays or downright removal of rights, must come to an end.
Regarding priorities, the focus on money and privileges must be replaced by fairness, reliability and predictability.
As many businesses around the world has experienced, if you want economics results you have to excel in what you deliver to your customers and your audience. The results will follow suit.
Fairness; what does this imply? In addition to having predictability, there should not be arbitrary granting of privileges, well, as few privileges as possible really. In the future Magnus would like to see a world championship cycle with a minimum of privileges, or no privileges at all. If any it should be early in the cycle and based on rating and not money.
The transition to such a situation has been difficult in the past due to the legacy of our history.
We strongly disagree with the way FIDE has tried to remedy this by handing out further privileges.
After the unification process from 2005 to 2008, we may be in a unique situation to transcend historical problems and privileges, and it was with disbelief and disappointment we received the news about the proposal to introduce new privileges by creating 4 new spots in the next step of the 2008-2011 championship cycle.
Next let me mention some features we would like to advocate related to a world championship cycle;
Firstly let's talk about privileges;
What about privileges related to rating? Well, maybe some places in a knock-out stage could be allocated to top rated players as done in the World Cup for many years.
What about the privileges of players backed by strong managers, sponsors or organisers? We don't believe in these as it promotes cronyism and makes it possible to buy your way to important rights.
What about the privileges of the reigning World Champion? This is a difficult question but we see strong arguments for reducing the privileges drastically or even abolishing them outright. In the past, with the right to a re-match, a reigning world champion had about 75% chance of retaining the title against an evenly strong opponent, leaving only 25% chance for all the remaining chess players in the world. It was ridiculous. Even without rematches, the 50% chance of today is strongly favouring the reigning champion. This may have made sense in the past when there were few serious contenders for the title, but today, with about 30 top players within 100 rating points of the top, this is no longer fair.
Next, let's discuss the cycle;
The first step needs to be accessible to as many players as possible world wide. Both zonal tournaments and the regional qualifiers for the World Cup have worked well and one of these practices may be continued in the future.
Next Magnus favours a knock-out system with for instance 64 or 128 players mainly coming from the preceding step. When there are 8 players left in the knock-out stage, various alternatives are possible and we would like to mention three viable options;
- The first is to continue with the knock-out matches, and the final winner is the new World Champion.
- Another alternative is to proceed with candidate matches between the 8 remaining players at other venues and shifted in time. After two rounds of candidate matches, the two remaining players would fight for the world championship title.
- A third good alternative is to stage a double round robin World Championship tournament between the 8 remaining players from the knock-out cup.The World Champion would retain his (or her) title for two years until the next champion is decided.
Now, you may object and ask us; what is new? This is what has been tried for more than10 years without much success, isn't it?
Well, the main point is that it did not work as long as Kasparov and later Kramnik were outside the FIDE cycle. Currently this is no longer a problem. The chess world has been united and the only privileges we need to care about are those of World Champion Anand, who had to win both the 2007 world championship tournament and the somewhat questionable 2008 match, and the other is the winner of the 2007 World Cup Kamsky who was promised a semi-final match for the world championship title based on the regulations prior to the World Cup.
A transition from the current situation to a future without significant privileges must of course be organised in a way that is fair and preferably also fully acceptable to these gentlemen.
This obviously involves giving privileges to Anand in the next one or two cycles, and privileges to Kamsky in first of the ongoing cycles.
It is a bit difficult to comment categorically on the planned Kamsky-Topalov match as we don't understand the reason for organising such a match, but neither do we really know what has been discussed or agreed between FIDE and the other involved parties over the last one and a half years. The process has certainly not met our requirement for transparency.
In summary, we want mutually binding agreements governing FIDE cycles, the eventual abolition of privileges in general, and we want FIDE to focus on fairness and predictability and not money and privileges.
Thank You for Your attention.
Henrik Carlsen, On behalf of IGM Magnus Carlsen, December 27th, 2008. "
Lastly we would like to mention our appreciation of the statements made by reigning World Champion V.Anand and top players V.Topalov and L.Aronian during the conference. Their comments have raised our hopes. Maybe reason will prevail in the end :-)
Happy New Year!
Henrik Carlsen,
Engerdal, January 1st, 2009
Comments:
Posted by: Bobby F.
Well spoken. Let's hope for an accordingly improved future WC cycle. This WC/FIDE mess is very unfortunate for everybody engaged in international chess and should be solved ASAP.
It's been such a joy to follow Magnus through 2008. For me it's X-mas time every time he plays a tournament. I look forward to the many exciting games in 2009.
Thanks for the games and ALL THE BEST FOR THE NEW YEAR!
It's been such a joy to follow Magnus through 2008. For me it's X-mas time every time he plays a tournament. I look forward to the many exciting games in 2009.
Thanks for the games and ALL THE BEST FOR THE NEW YEAR!
Posted by: Tony
Happy New Year Magnus and Henrik.
Best of luck over-the-board and in negotiating off-the-board.
Best of luck over-the-board and in negotiating off-the-board.
Posted by: Rolfo
Good,
thorough and decent considerations on your stand.
Wish all the best for the new year,
first and
foremost for
Magnus and his play, also regarding the outcome of the ongoing process/talk
with FIDE ( it seems that one has to be somewhat pragmatic in dealing with FIDE,
I'm sorry to say that present FIDE isn't
very transparent and democratic neither in structure nor in descisionmaking
)
thorough and decent considerations on your stand.
Wish all the best for the new year,
first and
foremost for
Magnus and his play, also regarding the outcome of the ongoing process/talk
with FIDE ( it seems that one has to be somewhat pragmatic in dealing with FIDE,
I'm sorry to say that present FIDE isn't
very transparent and democratic neither in structure nor in descisionmaking
)
Posted by: Nina
Godt nytt år, familien Carlsen!
Lykke til i Gjøvik Magnus!
Lykke til i Gjøvik Magnus!
Posted by: Ole Morten Persen
I agree totally with your assesment of 2008. It was way beyond what anyone could expect. The second half, although not quite as succesful, was still not that bad. But fortunately it only proves that Magnus still is human and has areas where he can improve. And with the gain in experience he enjoys now he will hopefully make another step in his chess development. Then the results will be whatever they will be, but I'm sure he will enjoy some successes in 2009, and just as important, give all chess fans some excitement. All the best wishes for 2009 to you, Magnus and your entire family.
Posted by: Sam
Henrik - happy new year to you and your family and congratulations to Magnus on a hugely successful year in chess. Here's to another successful year!!
All the best for 2009. I look forward to following all of Magnus' games thoughout the year!
Sam.
All the best for 2009. I look forward to following all of Magnus' games thoughout the year!
Sam.
Posted by: Rob Vlaardingerbroek
Happy 2009 everybody.
A decision will be taken in Budapest which will represent a fair and balanced view of the best way forward.
The above was said by Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.
Is it possible, Fide will make a good decision?!
I know I am cynical, but maybe..... I keep hoping and miracles can still happen.
At least Henrik you know what you are doing. Good luck, keep fighting.
Best,
Rob.
A decision will be taken in Budapest which will represent a fair and balanced view of the best way forward.
The above was said by Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.
Is it possible, Fide will make a good decision?!
I know I am cynical, but maybe..... I keep hoping and miracles can still happen.
At least Henrik you know what you are doing. Good luck, keep fighting.
Best,
Rob.
Posted by: Chess enthusiast
I very much adore your stance and principled insistence on fairness, but I doubt whether the proposed format would be to chess fans liking. Experience from the past years suggests that people want to see the drama of the Championship match. The matches Topalov-Kramnik and Kramnik-Anand recieved much larger interest than any of the Championship tournaments or KO's. It is true that the rights of the Champion to sit on his throne could be questioned. But please, let us not bury the traditional match format.
In a 8 player Championship tournament corruption (losing to a friend or close associate, countryman) could occur in later rounds. And you could prove nothing, only be suspicious. That would be in potential contradiction with your stated goal of fairness.
So whatever you do, please, stand for the traditional match format.
In a 8 player Championship tournament corruption (losing to a friend or close associate, countryman) could occur in later rounds. And you could prove nothing, only be suspicious. That would be in potential contradiction with your stated goal of fairness.
So whatever you do, please, stand for the traditional match format.
Posted by:
The Daily Dirt turned up a extended comment (by Nevermore, quite far down, as the initial bit was with Ivanchuk) analysing your FIDE correspondence. See tinyurl.com/9wva9l It puts more emphasis on the difficulties of organisers than players. A good start to dialogue if nothing else, Be nice to see what the other top GMs had to say!
Posted by: Roger
Henrik, I wish a happy New Year 2009 to you and your family!
Magnus, I wish you new inspiring victories in chess and good luck in all you do besides the chess!
First of all, I agree with you that any formula for the championship may not be changed in the middle of the cycle.
Secondly, I was disappointed to find Magnus supporting knock-out formula as majority of the chess fans I know (even those dissatisfied with the split it the chess world caused by Kasparov) consider the match as the only ultimate way to find a champion. The present championship idea seemed balanced in the sense that it included knock-out (as potential shortcut for rising talents),
a series of tournaments, and a match as a culmination.
Return to the knock-out championship will cause the denomination of the champion's title and the drop of public and sponsors' interest.
I think what we need is some tuning of the existing formula in the next cycle rather then breaking and repairing all over again.
This way or the other, Magnus have good chances to win the crown!
Magnus, I wish you new inspiring victories in chess and good luck in all you do besides the chess!
First of all, I agree with you that any formula for the championship may not be changed in the middle of the cycle.
Secondly, I was disappointed to find Magnus supporting knock-out formula as majority of the chess fans I know (even those dissatisfied with the split it the chess world caused by Kasparov) consider the match as the only ultimate way to find a champion. The present championship idea seemed balanced in the sense that it included knock-out (as potential shortcut for rising talents),
a series of tournaments, and a match as a culmination.
Return to the knock-out championship will cause the denomination of the champion's title and the drop of public and sponsors' interest.
I think what we need is some tuning of the existing formula in the next cycle rather then breaking and repairing all over again.
This way or the other, Magnus have good chances to win the crown!
Posted by: Rob Eagle
Henrik,
Whilst broadly supporting your stand against FIDE, I too was dismayed to see your support of knockout or round robin tournaments to decide the world championship. The knockout format is unpopular and discredited, having seen "world champions" not even rated in the top 20 and who were subsequently show to be uncompetitive in super-tournaments. I also don't see the round robin tournament as much good either, as what is to distinguish it from the 4-5 other elite tournaments held every year, but having the name tag of WC.
There can only be one way to decide the WC, and that is a match. It doesn't seem unreasonable that to become WC you should have to defeat the title holder.
Whilst broadly supporting your stand against FIDE, I too was dismayed to see your support of knockout or round robin tournaments to decide the world championship. The knockout format is unpopular and discredited, having seen "world champions" not even rated in the top 20 and who were subsequently show to be uncompetitive in super-tournaments. I also don't see the round robin tournament as much good either, as what is to distinguish it from the 4-5 other elite tournaments held every year, but having the name tag of WC.
There can only be one way to decide the WC, and that is a match. It doesn't seem unreasonable that to become WC you should have to defeat the title holder.
Posted by: Rob Vlaardingerbroek
Hi all,
Any fair format which will be followed consequently and which is not changed at any point with which the players feel comfortable and happy is better then what is going on now.
KO tourneys are not the nicest , but the question imho is not what do we kibitzers want to see but what can make sure that great players have the possibility to become and keep an interest in becoming a World Champion.
Rob.
Any fair format which will be followed consequently and which is not changed at any point with which the players feel comfortable and happy is better then what is going on now.
KO tourneys are not the nicest , but the question imho is not what do we kibitzers want to see but what can make sure that great players have the possibility to become and keep an interest in becoming a World Champion.
Rob.
Posted by: dan
As your average club-level player/enthusiast, I completely agree with the comments of Chess Enthusiast, Roger, and Rob Eagle. Many individual sports such as golf and tennis don't really have the idea of World Champion. Players compete for top honors in major tournaments or series, and top players have to fight off the whole field to maintain their status. But chess has a long history of World Champions, each of who had to beat their predecessor in a match (with a couple exceptions due to death or disappearance).
Granting this privilege to the current titleholder does indeed make the WC moniker harder to obtain and easier to defend, and that's precisely why it's so valuable! If you reduce the title to simply being the outcome of a series of tournaments, you might possibly end up with the "strongest player of the moment" (and that's doubtful if you're using a simplistic knock-out approach) holding the title, but we can just as easily look at the current ratings list to determine that.
I'm in full agreement with your comments on fairness, and I don't think that privilege should be overextended to the titleholder (e.g., the rematch request), but I would encourage you to reconsider your stand on the worth of allowing the current champion to defend his title with a match. If you don't think that's fair, then what exactly is it that you think the title of World Champion is all about? I know what we crowds of admirers down in the class-sections want.
And, incidentally, I think it would be awesome if Magnus beat Anand in a match, and I guarantee you that's a match the world would love to see. I wish him the best!
Granting this privilege to the current titleholder does indeed make the WC moniker harder to obtain and easier to defend, and that's precisely why it's so valuable! If you reduce the title to simply being the outcome of a series of tournaments, you might possibly end up with the "strongest player of the moment" (and that's doubtful if you're using a simplistic knock-out approach) holding the title, but we can just as easily look at the current ratings list to determine that.
I'm in full agreement with your comments on fairness, and I don't think that privilege should be overextended to the titleholder (e.g., the rematch request), but I would encourage you to reconsider your stand on the worth of allowing the current champion to defend his title with a match. If you don't think that's fair, then what exactly is it that you think the title of World Champion is all about? I know what we crowds of admirers down in the class-sections want.
And, incidentally, I think it would be awesome if Magnus beat Anand in a match, and I guarantee you that's a match the world would love to see. I wish him the best!
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