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Comment by stormfather | Hacker News Reader

He's also not really the world champion. The world champion just got bored of winning so hard.

He's the World Champion, he might not be the best in the world but that is always an arguable thing.

Bobby Fischer was never defeated either, but that doesn't matter. If you can't or won't defend the championship then you stop being champion. (And I don't see how the argument that championship matches would take too much time and prep can coexist with the claim that it wasn't challenging enough for Carlsen - if it's really that easy for him then he shouldn't need all that prep in the first place)

That’s his excuse anyway. If you can’t hold on to the title, no matter the actual or stated reasons, then you are simply not the World Champion.

Excuse? You must not follow chess too closely. He is the undisputed GOAT. He is clearly bored - he plays atrocious opening moves these days just to get an interesting game. He's so good he transcended the need to keep proving it. Excuse. Lmao. Gukesh is the WC only because he is not good enough to present an interesting challenge.

That's just what he says. He is obviously not going to publicly say that he is scared of competing in the WCC. But in all likelihood, he is. At least Ding could compete in the WCC without 6 months prep, which Magnus clearly cannot.

Your apparent personal dislike of Magnus Carlsen (based on this and other comments) does not make your baseless assertions any more convincing.

What I am saying is true. I am not interested in convincing a delusional person.

Your complete lack of supporting evidence makes for a most compelling argument.

You are just yapping for the sake of yapping. You have no evidence to back anything you are saying, so you go first lol.

You’re the one disputing the stated facts, not me.

Magnus may be better player than Gukesh, but the reason he is not defending WC title is not because Gukesh or any opponent is not good enough, but because it takes too much freaking preparation to defend WC title and he doesn't think it is worth the effort.

A completely unprepared Magnus vs a 100% prepared opponent will go to a better prepared opponent (See Magnus interviews if you don't believe this). 4-6 months spending memorizing lines is not easy. It is too much work. Magnus has already proven he is GOAT, he doesn't have to prove anything.

But - this doesn't take away achievement from other players, if Magnus doesn't want to be bothered doing all the prep.I wonder if we will say the same thing in any other sport.

Ma Long for example - did not participated in Paris Olympic singles, does that mean Fan Zedong or Truls moregard achievement was any less? Nobody would say that.

Magnus Carlsen is the highest rated classical player, and has been since 2011.

It's also worth noting that is he is the reigning Rapid World Champion, the reigning Blitz World Champion, and the reigning Chess World Cup Champion.

He chose not to defend his Classical world title, and has been quite clear about the reasons.

There are stated reasons and there are actual reasons. You have to differentiate between the two, otherwise you are just extremely naive.

Please, enlighten us all.

Magnus played 5 world championships, with 3 against players of his generation. In those 3,he only managed a plus score once - against Nepo who was more than holding his own then lost one tough game and went on his notorious monkey tilt. The other two were drawn in classical.

Magnus is, by a landslide, the best tournament player (probably ever) but the world championship for classical is very different than a tournament, and his results there have not been anywhere near the level of his tournament performances.

And Magnus has also stated that he believes he has peaked. Basically - he was going to imminently lose, and I think he wanted to go out undefeated. Notably the one player he was willing to play, Alireza, was the only viable contender who he would expect to have been an overwhelming favourite against.

Also in terms of legacy, the max number of world championship victories is 6. He stopped at 5.

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