World Championship match with long series of games: still the best way to crown the king of world chess

World Championship match with long series of games: still the best way to crown the king of world chess

A little over a week from now, we will witness the crowning of the World chess champion. The question is if the 18-year-old D. Gukesh will become the 18th World champion. There is a nice ring to it, isn’t it?

That will undoubtedly be a great moment for Indian chess and the game in general. The World title match, which resumes on Saturday after a day’s break, is still in the balance, with the defending champion Ding Liren proving all those top players who wrote him off — citing poor form and his reported mental health issues — wrong.

Regardless of who wins, a question has also been raised about the legitimacy of this World championship. Former World champion Garry Kasparov has said that he does not regard this match as the World Championship since the planet’s best player, Magnus Carlsen, is not competing. The World No. 1 from Norway had abdicated his crown after winning his fifth title in a row in 2021, citing a lack of motivation.

Kasparov argues that the World Championship is about finding the world’s best player and that it stopped with Carlsen. That is a fair point, but that is unfair to Ding, Gukes and all the players who have been part of the gruelling World championship cycle. You have to first qualify for the Candidates tournament and then win it before you become eligible to challenge the World champion.

And it is not exactly the fault of Ding or Gukesh that Carlsen has chosen to step away. He has also been critical of the format of the World championship – a long series of games (but it used to be much longer in the past), the need to prepare hard for months and the difficulty of getting interesting positions.

But, that is also one of the charms of the World Championship: the new ideas that a World title match could bring to the game. And for those who are not fans of this format, there are the other World championships, like the rapid and blitz, the latest edition of which kicks off in New York later this month.

Like cricket, chess offers a lot of variety these days. It is getting even more varied with freestyle chess and Global Chess League.

So chess needs a World title match in the current format. And it is not the first time that the world’s best player has stayed away. Before Carlsen, Kasparov himself had done it, as did Bobby Fischer.

Yet, the World Championship has survived.