Carlsen is stressed, afraid of losing world chess crown: Ex-champ Karpov

Reigning world chess champion Magnus Carlsen is not afraid of his Russian challenger Sergey Karjakin but is fearful of losing his crown, former title holder Anatoly Karpov has said.

Norwegian Carlsen and Karjakin finished their 12th game of the World Chess Championship match here on Monday with a draw, reports Tass.

Their overall score after 12 games played is tied at 6-6 and both grandmasters will be playing a series of tie-break games late on Wednesday to determine the new world champion.

"We can see that Sergey Karjakin is calmer at the moment, while Carlsen is obviously stressed," Karpov said on Tuesday.

"I have not seen him (Carlsen) like that for a long time."

"He is afraid, but not of Sergey. He is afraid of losing the title of the world champion. Obviously he imagines how unpleasant it could be," Karpov added.

Karpov, the 12th world champion from 1975 to 1985, also said that the existing system of tie-break games in chess isn't ideal to determine the world chess champion.

"Upcoming developments during the tie-breaker have nothing to do with the game of chess," Karpov said.

"It is wrong to determine the new world champion this way."

"Rapid games are more or less suitable, but blitz and the possibly ensuing Armageddon (game) are stupid," Karpov stated.

"Such a system can only choose a neighbourhood champ, but never the world champion. This is a monstrous invention, which totally goes against all common sense."

"At the very least, the tie-breaker should have been either made up of six rapid games or played until the very first victory. In this case, it would look more like the game of chess," the 65-year-old added.

The tie-breaker between Carlsen and Karjakin will be only the third in the history of chess championships.

The first one was in 2006, when Russia's Vladimir Kramnik beat Bulgaria's Veselin Topalov and the second one was in 2012, when Israel's Boris Gelfand was defeated by India's Viswanathan Anand.

Both previously played tie-breakers were decided by a series of rapid games.

In any case, the 2016 world champion will be decided on November 30, when reigning champion Carlsen will also be celebrating his 26th birthday.

--IANS

sam/bg