GM Magnus Carlsen will not defend his world championship title against GM Ian Nepomniachtchi next year. Carlsen said this in a podcast on Tuesday. According to current regulations, FIDE Candidates Tournament winner Nepomniachtchi will now play the world championship against Candidates runner-up GM Ding Liren.

“I’ve spoken to people in my team, I’ve spoken to FIDE, I spoke to Ian as well. The conclusion is very simple: I’m not motivated to play another match,” said Carlsen. “I don’t have a lot to gain, I don’t particularly like it and although I’m sure a match would be interesting for historical reasons, I don’t have any inclinations to play and I will simply not play the match.”

Carlsen thus confirmed the earlier doubts he had expressed on December 14, 2021 and later repeated: after playing five world championship matches, he is not enjoying them anymore. 

“It’s been an interesting ride since I decided to play the Candidates in 2013, which was to be honest on kind of a whim. I just decided it could be interesting and ever since the World Championship title has given me a lot and opened a lot of doors, and I’m happy about that. The matches themselves has been at times interesting, at times a little bit of fun.”

The Norwegian star leaves the door open to return for a match one day, but it’s not likely: “I don’t rule out participation in the future, but I also wouldn’t count on it.”

During the FIDE Candidates tournament, Carlsen had a meeting with FIDE’s President Arkady Dvorkovich and Director-General Emil Sutovsky, which apparently didn’t sorted enough effect to convince Carlsen to defend his title a fifth time. 

Talking about this meeting in Madrid, Carlsen said: “I did not have any demands or suggestions for that meeting. They did have a couple of suggestions, but the gist of it was that I was there to tell them that I would not defend my title in the next WCC match.”

Dvorkovich told Chess.com that he respects the world champion’s decision, and confirmed that according to the rules, there will now be a Ding-Nepomniachtchi match.

As it turned out, Carlsen never really changed his mind on a feeling he has had for a while. “Ultimately, the conclusion stands, one that I’m pretty comfortable with, one that I thought a lot about for a long time now,” he said. “I would say more than a year, probably a year and a half. Long before the last match.”

It didn’t help that Nepomniachtchi qualified for a second match with Carlsen, who had stated earlier that he preferred an opponent of the new generation, in particular GM Alireza Firouzja. “Four championships to five—it didn’t mean anything to me. It was nothing,” said Carlsen in yesterday’s podcast. “I was satisfied with the job I had done. I was happy I had not lost the match. But that was it.”

Carlsen also repeated once again that he intends to continue playing, just not matches: “Just so there is not ambiguity here: I’m not retiring from chess, I’m gonna be an active player, I’m leaving later today to go to Croatia to play the Grand Chess Tour. From there on I’m gonna go to Chennai to play the Olympiad, which is gonna be a lot of fun and the Norwegian team is seeded as number four there. And to Miami which is gonna be one of the real highlights of the year—the FTC Crypto Cup which is gonna be awesome. And right after that the Sinquefield Cup.”

The chess world has seen previous moments in history when the world champion did not defend his title. In 1946, GM Alexander Alekhine died as the reigning champion, when a world championship tournament was organized two years later, won by GM Mikhail Botvinnik. In 1975, GM Bobby Fischer could not agree with FIDE on the match format and lost his title to Candidates winner GM Anatoly Karpov.

In 1993, GM Garry Kasparov left FIDE and played a world championship under the Professional Chess Association instead. This led to a schism in the chess world that lasted until 2006, when GM Vladimir Kramnik won a reunification match with FIDE champion GM Veselin Topalov.

This story will be updated.