THE TRUE Chess World Champions are the holders of the traditional title that originated with Wilhelm Steinitz and passed on in faithful succession to Emanuel Lasker, Jose Raul Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine, Max Euwe, Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal, Tigran Petrosian, Boris Spassky, Robert Fischer, Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand, Magnus Carlsen, Ding Liren, and Dommaraju Dukesh.
Regarding the last three, Carlsen abdicated. That is his right.
In the past when Fischer abdicated the title, it was then awarded to Karpov (in 1975) who won the 1974 Candidates, which was in a match format.
There was no sense in having Karpov play another match with the player he beat in the final 1974 Candidates match (Korchnoi).
After Carlsen’s abdication, the top two 2022 candidate-placers (in a tournament format) were Nepomniachtchi and Ding. In my opinion, there was sense in having them play a match, because they had not played a finals candidates match, traditionally played by the most qualified top two players in the world.
Ding won that match (the 2023 World Championship match) and thus won the WC title fair and square.
The sacredness of this title is what makes it so valuable. And how does one become the true Chess World Champion? In general, by beating the previous titleholder one on one in a match.
Matches are preferred over tournaments because of the tradition of the WC Succession and because the chance for pre-arranging a tournament result is more likely.
In case where the candidates and world champion participate in an event that all the participants agree to be a world championship event because of extraordinary circumstances, then the new titleholder is legitimate.
Thus, the 1948 World Championship Tournament (which Botvinnik won) was justifiable because of the death of the titleholder Alekhine.
Likewise, the 2007 WC tournament was justifiable under the extraordinary circumstances of the chessworld trying to heal its internal rift over the 1993 Kasparov Schism.
Anand himself became the World Champion in this 2007 Tournament and not in 2000 when he won a knock-out FIDE Tournament.
Caveat: Some chess fans deem the 2007 WC Tournament as illegitimate, considering that Anand became the world champion only in 2008, when he beat the previous Titleholder Kramnik in a WC match. From this perspective Anand only became the undisputed world champion in 2008.
Karpov lost his title to Kasparov in 1985, and never regained it in the 1990s events that FIDE labeled as ‘world championships’.
All solely FIDE champions that emerged outside WC traditional succession elaborated on above, strong as they were, were not true world champions (e.g., Bogolyubov 1928, Khalifman 1999, Ponomariov 2002, Kasimdzhanov 2004, Topalov 2005). (To be continued)/PN
