CHENNAI: The International Chess Federation (FIDE) will likely revisit the format that identifies the world champion, especially if the current regime retains power at the elections next month in Chennai.
Viswanathan Anand, Arkady Dvorkovich's running mate, said that it was time to relook the pathway that takes players from pretenders to champions via the Candidates.
"I think it's certainly time to revisit the format," he said during a promotional event in the coastal town that's organising the 44th chess Olympiad.
"Let's not forget, once upon a time it was brilliant. When I started out as a junior, it was nice to know that all I had to do was to play the zonals and inter-zone before entering the world cycle. It was a simple pathway that led to the world title. It wasn't a magical thing 50 years ago. In the modern context, it needs to be revisited. All there is is a contradiction; we have to have it every two years or others can't get any chance at the world title. And for a champion, it's too much, especially if he/she keeps winning every two years, (it) becomes unbearable.
The format, especially the World Championship, has come into sharp focus after Magnus Carlsen decided to not defend his title. It's been speculated that the Norwegian, who has been the undisputed champion since he beat Anand for his first world title in Chennai in 2013, is not a fan of the gruelling format. Because the Championship consists of 14 Classical games (followed by four Rapid games in case of a tie) to identify the winner, the preparation time itself takes three to four months. You extrapolate those figures over a decade and Carlsen has lost 15-20 months in prep time itself (Carlsen himself has personally refuted any and all speculation, even dispelling rumours that he requested FIDE to change the format to make it less gruelling.
Anand, however, made the point that Carlsen has always maintained his stance vis-a-vis format. "My understanding is that his argument was always against the format and not the opponent (in the final). I think he thought Alireja (Firouzja) would be different, but it wasn't a serious argument. I think his main problem was that he didn't like the format which he has been saying for a long time." There was this theory doing the rounds that Carlsen would play if the challenger was Firoujza, a young Iranian-French Grandmaster who is one of the highest-rated players in the game today. However, Firoujza didn't win the Candidates.
"We respect his decision (to opt out of the world championship match)," was what Dvorkovich, current FIDE president, said at a press conference on Thursday. "I believe we will see him many more times in action and maybe at some point, he will come back to the Worlds cycle. We discussed changes going forward but Carlsen said that it's not good to change the format within this cycle because it has already started. He hasn't requested any changes and I would like to undermine that."