The Dream World Chess Championship

I'll get straight to the point: The current format of the World Chess Championship, while functional, is not the best. We can do better.

What's wrong with the current format?

There are a few things.

Fairness

As the current situation has demonstrated, the standing champion has quite the advantage over the challenger.

Not only does Magnus Carlsen not need to expend his energy playing in the candidates, he only needs to prepare against one opponent, while Nepo needs to both play in the candidates and prepare against two potential opponents until Magnus declares whether or not he will play. Not to mention that Magnus gets see fresh information on how Nepo plays classically, whereas Nepo gets no new information.

Well rounded challenge

Part of the reason that not playing in the candidates is a huge advantage for the current champion is that they are guaranteed to be in the final championship match, despite the fact that they may not actually be better than all of the players in the candidates.

If Magnus is, hypothetically, weak against Firouzja, but strong against Nepo, is it fair that Magnus only needs to play against Nepo to prove his dominance? Certainly not.

Time control

These days, chess tends to be played in a wide variety of time controls. The skills that make a great bullet player are vastly different from the skills that make a great classical player. At the highest levels of play, ALL of these skills should be put to the test.

Entertainment

Last but not least, the current format is simply hard to sit through for most people.

It's the World Championship! It should be exciting! It should have drama and surprises! It should be aimed at far more than just the most hardcore chess players!

What we have instead is many hours of incredibly slow, difficult to parse commentary, and a series of completely unsurprising moves. This isn't helped by the fact that most are following with an engine anyway, so either an expected move gets played, or it basically loses the game.

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To solve these issues, here is my suggestion:

The Dream Format

The Candidates

All candidates and the current world champion (totaling 12 players) will compete together in a series of 4 round robin matches.

The four matches are bullet, blitz, rapid, and classical, in that order. Each sequential match has less rounds.

At the end of each match, the two players with the fewest points in that match are eliminated.

Match 1) 12 players - 8 rounds of 1+2 bullet

Match 2) 10 players - 6 rounds of 5+3 blitz

Match 3) 8 players - 4 rounds of 20+5 rapid

Match 4) 6 players - 2 rounds of standard classical

At the end of the 4th match, the two players with the greatest number of points among the remaining players will move on to the championship.

Tie-breaks are determined by totaling the points from all four matches. If there is still a tie, then matches of 2 rounds of round robin 5+3 blitz until there are clear victors.

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The Championship

The two winning candidates will compete in a similar format to the candidates. Four matches of bullet, blitz, rapid, and classical, in that order.

Match 1) 20 games of 1+2 bullet (1 point/game)

Match 2) 16 games of 5+3 blitz (2 points/game)

Match 3) 12 games of 20+5 rapid (3 points/game)

Match 4) 8 games of standard classical (5 points/game)

The player with the most points at the end of the tournament is the World Champion.

A tie is broken by playing two rapid games, then two blitz games, then as many bullet games as it takes until one player is 2 points ahead of the other.

Conclusion

I believe this format solves, to some degree, all of the major issues I have with the existing championship format.

All players start with the same advantage. All players face the same well rounded challenge. A wide variety of time controls is tested, testing both calculation and intuition.

And last, but not least, it's exciting. The escalating stakes of each sequential match increase the intensity, even as the time controls slow down. Even those uninterested in watching classical chess will be invested in the games and players long before the classical games come around.

Though this is only one of many potential suggestions. There's a whole world of possibilities out there.

And while the current format definitely needs some major improvement, I'll still be following every game of the upcoming championship with my own chess board set up on the coffee table.

- Dane