By Haoyuan Mo, 2022 Intern
What happens next?
With the conclusion of the Fide candidate’s chess tournament on July 7th, the event’s champion Ian Nepomniachtchi gets the opportunity to challenge Magnus Carlsen to a dual at the next
world chess championship in 2023. This upcoming event has a lot of attention as Nepomniachtchi is not able to challenge manus again for the world chess champion title that
Magnus has held since 2013, and this will also be a rematch as Magnus previously beat Nepomniachtchi in the 2020 Dubai chess expo to get his fifth world chess championship title.
Although this upcoming rematch has gained a lot of traction there is still the possibility of it never taking place as Magnus has expressed his lack of motivation to play a chess championship match to defend his world chess champion title for the 6th time. This could ultimately mean that the international chess federation will have to come up with new regulations to determine which player Nepomniachtchi will end up playing in the upcoming 2023 world chess championship tournament.
What if the rematch does not happen?
While there has not been clear indications which player might be the replacing Magnus in his match against Nepomniachtchi there is talk about the runner-up of the candidates tournament, Ding Liren playing Nepomniachtchi in place of Magnus if he decides to not defend his title. Only time will tell what is going to take place next year at the world chess championship tournament as the international chess federation has given Magnus until July 20th to decide if he is defending his title or not. In the worst-case scenario where Magnus decides to not defend his title then he will have to forfeit his world chess champion title. This has only happened once in history, in the 1975 chess championship tournament where Robert James Fischer refused to play because of a dispute regarding the match conditions of the event with the international chess federation(FIDE).
Other articles-
Chess World Cup by FIDE | Premier Chess
I wonder what Nepomniachtchi will do differently in this de facto rematch? Will he play the same openings/defenses? If so, he had better play with deeper concentration.
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