Magnus Carlsen Ranks The Candidates Players! 🌶️

So the candidates are coming up and I'm here with Magnus Carlsen to ask his views on what's going to happen and maybe to make some predictions. Magnus, are you excited to watch the tournament? Yeah, I mean, I'm always excited to watch the candidates. Before we dive in with the specific players, what are your views? Is it going to be a close one? Is there going to be a runaway winner? That's very hard to say. There are usually more decisive games at the Candidates tournament than at other tournaments with similar level of players. And that's obviously because, at least usually, only first place matters. Makes the tournaments quite exciting. And it's one of the youngest candidates ever. Do you think that's going to play a role as well in the decisiveness of the event? I think there are a lot of very good players. But yeah, some of the youngsters are still fairly volatile. So yeah, I think it certainly matters. OK, so today we're going to be ranking the eight players in different categories, making some predictions along the way. You mentioned some of them yourself already. But here we go, Magnus. We have the eight players for you. We're going to start with Alireza Ferrugia. I quite like what I saw from Alireza and Tata this year. He did quite well, reached the final against me, forced a reset there in the final as well. And honestly, he was the closest to beat me in freestyle chess as well. So I am an Alireza true believer. But I think for now, we'll put him in the will-do-well category, which I think is reasonable considering the difficulties last time. Fair enough. And now it's the turn of Jan Nepomniachtchi. He's won the candidates twice in a row. Two-time world championship challenger. What do you make of his chances for third time lucky or three in a row? So Jan really hasn't shown much the last few years except for the candidates. He shows flashes here and there. At the moment, I'm not convinced. But I think he has enough pedigree to be in the top contender group considering he's won twice in a row. Okay, do you feel he saves his best for this specific tournament? I think he saves his best for sure. He's also had certain circumstances with him both times, which is fair enough. Okay, now it's one of the youngsters that you mentioned, Kokesh. What do you make of his first shot at the candidates? Is it going to go well? For Kokesh, it's very hard to say. I cannot imagine him winning, but I could see him being anywhere from plus two to minus five. I think he will certainly win at least a couple of good games, but have some fairly bad losses as well. So I don't think he will do poorly, but I don't think he will do too well either. I don't think he fits into either category, but I think he's not quite ready yet to make the lead. But I think it's probably more likely that he has a bad event than a good event. But good experience either way. Okay, so now it's the turn of Abbasov, maybe the surprise package qualified from the World Cup last year. He's the underdog Magnus. Do you think he can continue surprising a few people? Well, Abbasov obviously had an amazing tournament at the World Cup. Whether he can replicate it, it's very, very hard to believe. I think if he gets off to a good start, that can limit the damage severely. But overall, I think he's most likely going to suffer. You could see it with somebody like Warmadon at Tata, who started off extremely well. And then usually once you start losing, it's hard to stop the bleeding if you are a considerably weaker player than the others, which I think Abbasov unfortunately is. So I think, yeah, he will not have it easy. But I think it's really hard. Fair enough. And next, it's the turn of Pragnananda. I know you've been impressed by him in the past. Do you think this could be his year? I don't think Pragn is ready to win the tournament. But I also cannot see it going really poorly for him. He has weak moments, but he's fairly stable psychologically. And he has an improving repertoire. He's very serious. So I think Pragn is very unlikely to win the tournament, but I cannot see him having a really bad result either. Okay, and that brings us to Fabiano Caruana, another player who has won the candidates in the past. What do you think? Is this Fabi's turn to get back there to a world championship match? I think Fabi has a great chance to win. I mean, his pedigree is very strong. He seems to have regained some strength in classical chess as well after he had a little bit of a down. He's maybe not quite as good as he was at his best, which probably was in 2018. He has a better chance as any. So I think he definitely belongs and is likely to win. Okay, bold, Magnus. Very bold. Okay, now the turn of Vidit. I think Vidit has improved quite a lot, especially from more of a psychological point. He did really poorly in Prague, which is not a great time. It doesn't have to mean that much. I think Vidit is sort of in between tiers here. We'll do well and we'll do poorly. I'm sure he will be very serious, well-prepared. He will not win the tournament, although I do think he has the capacity to make a really good score if things go his way. I really like the way he plays, but I could also see him losing quite a few games. So he's also kind of in between categories, but I think he's more likely to make minus four than plus three. That brings us to Hikaru, many fans' favorite player. Do you think this is his year? He's been close in the past. I think Hikaru has never had a better chance to become world champion than this. I would say that him and Fabiano are co-favorites. Hikaru has been quite consistent recently in classical chess. I think he has an excellent chance, so I think he belongs in the first category. Wow, Magnus, good predictions. I'm actually inclined to agree with all of them. I'm slightly surprised you put Jan in the second category. I just haven't seen anything from Jan for a long time, and he didn't play that well in the world championship match either, so I'm yet to be completely convinced. But he's still in the top ten group. I would say the two first are 1A and then he's 1B, and then there's a very significant gap to the rest. So there we have it. Candidates starting in Toronto in April. You've heard Magnus' thoughts. We'll be watching. We hope you do too.