Former World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen has stated that he will not be competing against Gukesh D in future tournaments. Carlsen relinquished his title in 2022, citing a lack of motivation.
"I’ve spoken to people in my team, I’ve spoken to FIDE, I spoke to Ian (Nepomniachtchi, winner of the Candidates tournament then) as well. The conclusion is very simple: I’m not motivated to play another match," Carlsen explained in 2022.
"I don't have a lot to gain. I don't particularly like it, and although I'm sure a match would be interesting for historical reasons, I don't have any inclinations to play and I will simply not play the match," he had added.
Two years on, little has changed. In a recent interview on the Take Take Take YouTube channel, Carlsen once again reiterated that he would not compete in the Championship again.
"... Let's talk about Gukesh and the match and so on. I'm not part of this circus anymore," he stressed.
Carlsen praised Gukesh for his outstanding performance, stating that he truly deserves to be the World Chess Champion.
"Of course, this was something that was a bit unexpected," he said.
"A lot of us thought that Gukesh was the favourite to win the match, but this was a game that never really took off. Gukesh was clearly fighting for the win. I think he was doing an excellent job to keep the game alive. But it all happened very, very suddenly. And that, I think, is what he explained later as well, that he was a little bit on autopilot, expecting it to go to tie breaks, and all of a sudden you get this chance, and it’s all over," Carlsen added, in his review of the decisive Game 14.
Magnus also applauded Ding Liren for his resilience during the match.
"You can say all you will about Ding and the way that he played, but he actually did raise his level during this match," he noted.
In April of this year, Gukesh stunned the chess world by winning the eight-player Candidates Tournament in Toronto, making him the youngest-ever challenger for the World Chess Championship. He topped a competitive field that featured top players such as Ian Nepomniachtchi, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana.
"And yet, for all we've said about how we probably did expect even more from Gukesh. It feels like he has had more. He has had very good moments, he has had some really weak ones as well, but overall, I think, he deserved it. And especially when we look at the way he got here," Carlsen said.
"First, he was down in the feeder circuit, won the tournament in Chennai on demand to get here. Then he had an amazing performance in the Candidates' Tournament, played, I think, one of the better tournaments that we've seen in recent years there, had a great Olympiad, even though that wasn't part of the cycle. So, the total of it is extremely impressive, even if this match and the way it ended was maybe not as convincing as people would have thought from the outset," he added.
Earlier, former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik had taken to X to say that the match marked "the end of chess as we know it," expressing his disappointment with its quality. He also called Liren's blunder "childish."
Magnus Carlsen seemed to agree with Kramnik's opinion and showed his dissatisfaction with the match's standards, comparing it to "a second or third-round match of an open tournament."
Reacting to these comments, Gukesh said that he is "not really" hurt by Carlsen's and Kramnik’s remarks, noting that world titles are not won solely by high-quality matches but also by willpower.
"I get that maybe in some of the games, the quality was not high, but I think the World Championship matches are decided not purely by chess but by who has the better character and who has the better willpower. And I think those qualities, I did show quite well,” he told the BBC in an interview.
The Indian chess Grandmaster also mentioned that it was his first World Chess Championship, and it took time for him to adjust to the competition, but he managed to capitalise on the "critical" moments.
"And the pure chess part, it was not at a very high level as I would have liked it to be because it's a new experience for me. So the workload was different, the pressure was different," Gukesh said. "It's understandable that I was a bit off, but I managed to strike at the critical moments, which I am happy about," he added.
