At 43, is it too late for Ivanchuk?

[David Hirst]

Despite the fact that Vassily Ivanchuk recently won the Capablanca Memorial tournament, he is playing tournament chess less and less. Now at 43 have we seen the best of the Ukranian? never to be crowned a chess champion. Some of his games show a kind of imagination few could ever possess. Take a look at this article Ivanchuk's Invention that includes the ridiculous Qg7 move against Shirov. Has there ever been any player as talented to never become world champion?

[Andrew Zigmond]

Ivanchuk was considered the most talented of the `new wave` of players in the late eighties (he briefly pushed Karpov down to 3 in the rankings in 1989) but in the world championship that followed he surprisingly lost in the quarter final playoffs to Artur Yusopov despite being the favourite. He did not compete in the split cycles of three years later and the absence of a proper qualifying cycle in the next decade probably robbed him of his chance although his form was erratic anyway.

Most talented player never to become world champion - take your pick from;

Tarrasch (could possibly have beaten Lasker had they played at the turn of the century)
Rubinstein (was too modest to attract sponsors to challenge Lasker)
Bronstein (drew his one title match and never got a second chance - in terms of his originality of play he may have been the Ivanchuk of his day)
Keres (the runner up in four candidates cycles - winner on tie break of one of the strongest tournaments ever held)
Korchnoi (in terms of results and consistency probably the strongest player never to lift the title)
Timman (probably the third best player of the eighties, how might we remember him if Karpov and Kasparov had never lived)
and too early to tell but ...
Carlsen (the first chess superstar to grow up without a proper world championship cycle to aspire to. Does he actually want the title?)

[Matt Mackenzie]

To answer your last query - I have not the slightest doubt that yes, he does. As we will likely see in the not too distant future

[JustinHorton]

Carlsen (the first chess superstar to grow up without a proper world championship cycle to aspire to

in fact this could probably be said of any of the players who reached world class between 1993 and the middle of the last decade.

[Andrew Zigmond]

Carlsen (the first chess superstar to grow up without a proper world championship cycle to aspire to

in fact this could probably be said of any of the players who reached world class between 1993 and the middle of the last decade.

I suppose my point is that Carlsen is too young even to remember a proper title match.

[AustinElliott]

Bronstein definitely seems the best 'parallel' for Ivanchuk amongst the post-war players in Andrew Z's list, as Andrew notes himself.

Incidentally, Ivanchuk is nine months younger than Gelfand.