Russian chess legend Garry Kasparov doesn't consider the upcoming World Championship match between India's D Gukesh and China's Ding Liren as a contest between the world's top two players in the absence of five-time champion Magnus Carlsen. Kasparov believes with Carlsen, who hails from Norway, opting out of defending his title last year, the long line of world champions has come to an end.
"My hottest take is that I don't treat this as a World Championship match. For me, a World Championship match was always a match for the title of the best player in the world," Kasparov said on a YouTube show for the St Louis Chess Club.
"I think the history of the World Championship matches started here in St Louis when Steinitz faced Zukertort (when Wilhelm Steinitz faced Johannes Zukertort in the 1886 World Chess Championship match) and ended with Magnus Carlsen.
"There were 16 World Champions. You could call them, at every given moment, the best players in the world. They took the title by beating the best players (in the world at that time)," Kasparov added.
Kasparov, however, feels Gukesh is clear favourite going into the contest.
"With all due respect, Ding Liren playing Gukesh is an important event. It's a FIDE event. I think Gukesh is favourite, because the way Ding Liren has been playing lately, it's kind of a shadow of the old Ding Liren we all remember.
"If he can recover miraculously, then it will be an interesting fight. But, in any case, it's an event that has nothing to do with the main idea of the World Championship match, to decide, to find the best player on the planet," he said.
Kasparov, who held the record for being the youngest world championship contender before Gukesh broke the record as a 17-year-old by winning this year's Candidates tournament, supported Carlsen's decision to forfeit his title.
"These days, with chess getting faster and faster, with our lives getting faster, to keep an antiquated system of qualification that takes 18 months or longer to select a challenger, it's not adequate.
"I think Magnus' decision, though probably I would have acted differently was the correct one. You can see that he's enjoying himself now. He's playing better chess than before. It's a tough decision that he has made," the Russian legend said.
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