“Chess is only a recreation and not an occupation.”
— Vladimir Ilych Lenin

Is there anyone who hasn’t heard yesterday’s announcement of World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen? There is? Okay, then just for you: the Champion has announced that he will no longer play matches for the World title! Well, that is unless his opponent is Alireza Firouzja.

“It’s been clear to me for most of the year that this World Championship should be the last. It doesn’t mean as much anymore as it once did. I haven’t felt that the positive outweighs the negative.

If someone other than Firouzja wins the Candidates Tournament it’s unlikely I will play the next World Championship match. Then I think I want to say that I am happy. There is so much more I can try to do. I am very motivated to get the rating to 2900.”

Feel free not to believe me, and go check the news for yourself:

And what if the champion wasn’t kidding? Nothing. This is his way of letting the organizers know that the prizes are too small for such a strong pressure. Not the first time.

Your @lighteye believes for a long time that the match as a way of determining the best chess player in the World has lost its meaning. All this has become a battle of teams that use the strongest computers to feed their title candidates. Matches inevitably cease to be a game and chess becomes a psychological outwit. How then to return to the chess as a game?

It’s easy, and the model already exists. Why don’t we determine the best player in the World as in tennis? There is a rating system, we know who is number 1, and if someone wants to earn and advance on the ELO list, they should play tournaments.

Therefore, let us not bully people by asking their opinions on this announcement by Magnus Carlsen. There is one much more interesting question than that. Namely…

It is not difficult to assume that Magnus will manage to achieve its goal relatively quickly – 2900 rating points. What then? What will be his next motive? Well, only to win something he has never won before – some of the exciting Hive Tournaments!

• On Fridays he has a Hivechess tournament here organized by our @stayoutoftherz and which uses the @lighteye’s Scoring and Rewarding System at Hive chess tournaments.

• On Saturday, our @schamangerbert is the host of the longest-running blitz tournament at Hive.

• On Sunday @chessbrotherspro team from Venezuela is organizing tournaments within the League of Chess Brothers (and Sisters), and this season will be called ‘Masters of Sacrifice’.

And there is our big question:

Would he dare to play with us with his 2900 rating?