Magnus Carlsen chose last weekend’s Norwegian League in Oslo for his three final classical games as world champion. The world No 1 scored two wins as White, one where he crushed his opponent and the other an endgame grind transforming a draw into a win before halving his final game as Black against England’s David Howell.
It was mission accomplished. Carlsen relinquished his crown on a high note, and also helped his club, Offerspill, become Norwegian champions for the first time by winning all their nine matches. Just to make sure, Offerspill fielded three other elite GMs in their final match, winning 4-2. The decisive weekend games were played in Norway’s national football stadium, Ullevaal, in Oslo.
Carlsen’s next classical games will be at Norway Chess in Stavanger, starting 27 May. By then there will be a new official world champion, as Russia’s world No 2, Ian Nepomniachtchi, playing under a neutral Fide flag, meets China’s world No 3, Ding Liren, in their €2m, 14-game title match at Astana, Kazakhstan.
There is only one precedent for Carlsen’s action. Nearly half a century ago, in 1975, Bobby Fischer resigned his Fide world title and was succeeded by Anatoly Karpov, who had won the Candidates a year earlier. Negotiations for a match between them stalled after three face-to-face meetings. At the first, in Tokyo in 1976, the opposition of the USSR Sports Committee proved a barrier; the second at Córdoba, Spain, later that year proved inconclusive; while at their final attempt in Washington in 1977 they got as far as a draft agreement before Fischer refused to sign it.
Then, support for Fischer waned as he no longer competed, Karpov won almost every tournament he played, and the Russian became world No 1 as well as champion. Now, Carlsen retains his popularity and No 1 status, and will be in action later this month in the online Champions Tour.
Several times in the past Carlsen has said that he intends to retire from chess before age 40, but he also wants to remain No 1 for longer than Garry Kasparov, his rival as the greatest of all time. Kasparov was No 1, with two brief breaks, for almost 20 years from 1985 to his retirement in 2005. Carlsen first became No 1 in 2010, with two brief breaks for Vishy Anand, and continually since 2011. So 20 years would take him to age 40 in 2030 or 2031, by which time there may be a clear No 1 from the current teenage generation.
Asked after his game with Howell whether it was a special day for him, Carlsen said: “In terms of the league, yes, but in terms of the world championship, I’ve been mentally finished with that a while ago. I still hold two world titles [rapid and blitz].”
David Howell’s draw with Carlsen cemented an impressive run for the England No 2, who won the individual gold medal at last year’s Chennai Olympiad with 7.5/8 and a tournament performance rating of 2898 and has now followed up with an unbeaten 7.5/9 (TPR 2749) in the Norwegian League.
Howell’s Fide peak rating is 2712, but his latest 15/17 sequence, averaging over 2800, suggests that his work as lead commentator for the online Champions Tour and his association with Carlsen may have stimulated him to new heights as a player.
The key event for Howell this year will be the Fide Grand Swiss at the Villa Marina in Douglas, Isle of Man, in October-November, which qualifies its two winners for the 2024 Candidates. In the 2019 and 2021 Grand Swisses, Howell made late surges and was close to the Candidates in the final rounds. With the impetus of his latest successes, 2023 could be his year.
The European Individual Championship at the Serbian spa town Vrnjacka Banja reaches its closing rounds this weekend. It looks like disappointment for the five young English IMs aiming for GM norms, who have scored 0/7 when paired with 2600+ rated GM rivals. The one surprising English success story is the Warwickshire amateur Tristan Cox, at 39 the oldest of the group by more than a decade, who trounced the four-time Ukraine champion Valeriy Neverov in the opening round and has since defeated two more Fide-titled opponents.
3858: 1 Nf6+ Kg7 2 h6+! Kxh6 3 Qf8+ Kg5 4 Rf5+! gxf5 5 Qg7 mate. White actually played 1 Qe7, when Black could have resisted longer by 1...Rc6.
