2 min readUpdated: Apr 23, 2026 05:02 PM IST
Legendary Indian chess player Viswanathan Anand said he understands World no.1 Magnus Carlsen‘s decision to not take part in the championship cycle after stepping down as world champion in 2022. Anand said that he completely understood why Carlsen would take that decision due to the intense nature of preparation that went into the championship matches.
“I knew that after five titles, I mean after my fifth against Gelfund that even that Gelfund match, I kind of dragged myself into it. I had the feeling that FIDE was giving me a world championship match like almost every year and was getting tedious. I’d been struggling in my chess for a while and I thought this one I scraped through. I think even in the end when I lost I accepted I came to terms with the fact that look I deserve to lose at a sporting level I deserve to lose,” Anand said in an interview with Lichess.
“As for Magnus himself, I can see his point of view very easily. By the fifth match, I was getting bored with these matches. How many times to do it? Carlson I think after five titles, he was ready to walk away and he said I really don’t need to play these things. So I could understand the sense of just moving on. I mean maybe in another two matches, I would also just walked away. I don’t know because I was already getting hard to drag myself there,” he added.
Carlsen won five world chess championship titles — beating opponents like Anand (twice), Sergey Karjakin, Fabiano Caruana and Ian Nepomniachtchi — before walking away from the 2022 world championship battle, thus abdicating his throne. He first won the world title in 2013, then continued to defend it four times in 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2021.
After relinquishing the world title, Carlsen has often spoken about his lack of motivation to play in classical chess tournaments.
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