World Chess Championship 2023: Matchups and Odds
With GM Ian Nepomniachtchi clinching the 2022 Candidates tournament with a round to spare, the chess world knows one participant in the upcoming 2023 World Chess Championship. And although it is GM Magnus Carlsen's right to defend his title, there has been speculation- fueled by GM Carlsen himself!- that the champion will decline to do so.
That leaves the chess world waiting and speculating- who will be GM Nepomniachtchi's opponent? Lucky for you, I've broken down the possibilities here.
5:1 GM Ding Liren (2806 FIDE, World #2).
As the second-highest rated player on the FIDE list, Ding would be a credible replacement for Magnus. Ding is also a lock to remain highly rated with his huge reserve of Elo in the form of GM Wang Hao. FIDE might be hoping that Ding could draw interest from the huge Chinese market, thereby staving off the low ratings of a Magnus-less championship match.
5:1 GM Hikaru Nakamura (2760 FIDE, World #11)
FIDE must be burning offerings to every god and devil they can think of, hoping that Hikaru comes in second at the Candidates. Hikaru would bring massive interest from the United States and the streaming community. The only danger is that Hikaru might actually win the championship match, in which case GM Benjamin Finegold would probably move to Mars.
10:1 GM Sergey Karjakin (2747 FIDE, World #16)
The first surprise contender on the list, GM Sergey Karjakin has been outspoken in support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. How would his participation in the championship match be justified? Who knows! But with Arkady Dvorkovich at the helm of FIDE, an all-Russian final can't be ruled out.
35:1 PlayMagnus, age 31 (Unranked)
FIDE might decide that Magnus will play for the championship, whether he wants to or not. Magnus-the-machine would have no issues with motivation and therefore probably retain its title. But in 2025 would Magnus-the-human play Magnus-the-machine for the World Championship?
100:1 AlphaZero (Unranked)
Why not? We'd get beautiful games, and anyway Nepo has about the same chance of beating A0 as of beating Magnus. (Those odds are roughly equal to someone unplugging A0 from its power source in 7 of 12 games.) And this match markets itself: Neural Network, Artificial Intelligence, DeepMind, Man vs. Machine. The only downside would be that we'd have to suffer through hundreds of commercials for Bitcoin, which by the 2023 match will have spiked and crashed about 20 more times.
1000:1 Pasquales, aka Nigel Short's Dog (Unranked)
If Pasquales could become a grandmaster, why could he not play for the World Championship? Pasquales is a longshot: not only is he a dog, but he also has yet to play a rated game. But one should never underestimate the power of hard work and Eastern European tournaments.
10000:1 Alireza Firouzja (2793 FIDE, World #3)
Just kidding. FIDE would never give us a match we actually want to see. The true odds of this are "when hell freezes over."
1:2 GM Magnus Carlsen (2864 FIDE, World #1).
Let's face it, Magnus will probably play. The only real question is if he respects Nepo enough to not open the match with a Bongcloud.
