I doubt that he's taking much career advice from Kasparov at this moment. Actually, his decision to opt out of this World Championship cycle does serve Kasparov (or Kasparov's legacy)--albeit in an oblique manner. After all, Carlsen would have had serious chances to eclipse Kasparov's own feat of being the Youngest ever World Champ in chess. (OK, discounting Ponomariov's Title as not having been won in a Classical Match) Magnus has decided to forego that opportunity.
Carlsen's objections about FIDE and the organization of the Cycle are all valid, but it doesn't seem convincing. The overarching Principle of chessplayers is self-interest. Maybe he and his handlers took a look at his prospects for success in progressing through 3 rounds of short matches against Elite rivals, and decided that he had more to lose than to gain. In these 4 or 6 game matches, a single loss would be liable to be decisive. Even though he would be the favorite in each individual match, the actual odds were probably less than 50% that he would win all through. And then he would face the prospect of a match with Anand.
There is also a bit of history arrayed against him, in that more times than not (at least since the advent of the FIDE WC Match era in 1950), a player who has eventually won the WC Title has more often than not failed in one or more cycles prior to succeeding. Smyslov failed to win the 1954 match vs. Botvinnik. Tal was a juggernaut, but Petrosian was already a veteran by the time he won in 1963. Same with Spassky in 1969, and Fischer, for whom the 1960s was practically a lost decade.
Karpov succeeded on his first try (it didn't hurt that he won the Title by forfeit), and Kasparov only avoided a crushing defeat in the Moscow Marathon by cynically exploited the open ended match clause. Kramnik and Anand needed multiple attempts to even earn Title matches....
Carlsen would probably have to taste defeat in his first *serious* run at the title. By opting out, he is staking much on success the next time out...It will probably be another 5 years before he can hope to sit for a title match, and if he falters, we are looking at 2018--assuming that FIDE could keep to any schedule. By then, he'd be nearing 30, almost certainly have peaked, and the chess world would be all agog at some 17 year old phenom.
"This decision of Carlsen backing out when it was the most challenging for him (everybody was looking forward to see whether it is in him to win the candidates) will be remembered as an act of a coward whether he becomes a champion later or not."
Exactly right...although there is no guarantee that future Candidates tournaments will be any easier than the 2011 tournament.
