Fabiano Caruana shared his opinion on the new Total Chess World Championship Tour in a conversation with Cristian Chirila on the C-Squared Podcast. Caruana believes that if Magnus Carlsen does not win the tour, the winner will not be taken seriously. Fabiano notes that it is wrong to frame things based on predictions about the winner.

Fabiano Caruana

Fabiano Caruana

World's No. 3

“The weird thing is… We’re going to have these different World Championships, which are not the Classical one. And then if Magnus wins, we’re going to say: “This proves that the Classical World Championship is getting more obsolete”.

And if Magnus doesn’t win, then the winner of this new Championship is just an accident. The same way that people consider the Rapid chess Champion from various years or the Blitz chess Champion to be kind of an accident. You know, “They had a good run somehow”.

Which is a sort of paradoxical way of thinking about things. Because you can’t frame things based on how you think the winner should be. Right?”

The Total Chess World Championship Tour Pilot will take place from November 10 to 21 at the Anantara New York Palace Hotel in Budapest, Hungary. The event will serve as the pilot event for the new Total Chess World Championship Tour.

The Total Chess World Championship Tour is a new series created by Norway Chess and approved by FIDE combining Fast Classic, Rapid, and Blitz disciplines. The Tour aims to crown a unified World Combined Champion across all time controls. The main events of the first edition of the tour will begin in March 2027.

Credit: Lennart Ootes