Carlsen: 'Bord Standard Chess'

Carlsen has recently lost his standard chess motivation, as his Elo 2,900 goal seems increasingly distant. The 33-year-old player also gave up the title of Chess King, which he held for nearly 10 years, due to the format of the world finals with only standard chess. Carlsen also hesitated a lot before deciding to attend this year's Chess World Cup, because he had repeatedly dropped out of this tournament and had never won.

After beating Vincent Keymer in game two to put his opponent into a tie-break in round four, Carlsen said he still doesn't feel more excited. "From day one, I asked myself why am I playing this tournament," said the Norwegian player. "Why do I spend so much time playing standard chess, which is stressful and boring. But I still have to be determined to win to avoid humiliation."

The format of each match at the World Cup as usual consists of two standard games, and a lightning fast chess tie-break. In each standard game, the player has 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, and 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with an additional 30 seconds after each move. Therefore, each game usually lasts more than four hours, not to mention the time to prepare for the opening.

Carlsen is a five-time standard chess world champion, but he is just motivated to play fast (10 minutes to 30 minutes), lightning (3 minutes to 5 minutes), even super lightning (2 minutes or less) . He is the reigning world champion in fast chess and blitz chess, but just lost to Hikaru Nakamura in the final of the world's strongest super blitz chess tournament. At the end of last year, Carlsen also lost to Nakamura himself in the final of the Speed ​​Chess Championship - a tournament that combines chess and super lightning. Despite the defeat, Carlsen said that the format was interesting, providing interesting games.

Blitz chess tournaments also attract more spectators than standard chess. The Final of Speed ​​Chess Championship 2022 attracts tens of thousands of viewers online, while the Chess World Cup only has a few hundred to several thousand concurrent viewers. FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich also said that blitz chess is the future of chess.

One reason fast chess attracts more viewers is that the players are prone to mistakes because they don't have as much time to think as standard chess. The rate of winning and losing in fast chess is also higher, because at the peak of standard chess, there are more and more draws with the rate of moves coinciding with the computer about 99%.