Too weak, too slow.
Magnus Carlsen is talented, confident, and -- arrogant. And he knows it.
The thing is, I’m so arrogant that even when he was mating me I didn’t realize it.
When asked who his greatest rival in chess was.
He said: No one.
Writing on X: What am I supposed to do? Make stuff up?
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He did list his second-greatest rival as American chess grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura
We’re simply better at chess than the others and so we can make good
moves more quickly, so they need to spend time.
Carlsen is so confident in his abilities that,
with time ticking away at a world championship event, he literally took a sip of water!
And then…he spent more time adjusting his chess pieces!
But beneath the bravado lies a child prodigy.
By the age of two, he completed a 50-piece jigsaw puzzle.
When he was four, he had memorized the names of most of his native Norway’s 356 municipalities.
By eight, chess had become his life.
Initially, he really just wanted to beat his oldest sister.
And then he was hooked, devouring chess strategy books in his dad’s library.
It took him only a year to beat his dad Henrik for the first time.
He credits skiing as his secret weapon to winning, helping him mentally reset:
You went in the morning for skiing. Frankly, I don’t think I would have won today if I
hadn’t done that because I was just sick of the hotels and terrible air everywhere.
Apart from skiing, soccer, and yoga help him keep
in peak physical and mental shape to handle the rigorous demands of chess tournaments.
He says most chess games hinge on the final hours, where mistakes are made due to fatigue.
The number of possible moves in chess is greater than the
number of atoms in the universe!
Most of the time I know what to do. I don’t have to figure it out.
He’s been called the Mozart of chess.
Much like the composer’s inexplicable genius, Carlsen’s skills seem otherworldly.
In 2004, when Carlson was just 13, he stunned the world by beating former
champion Anatoly Karpov at a tournament in Reykjavik.
The following day, Carlsen came close to beating the number one ranked player, Gary Kasparov.
Kasparov barely managed to escape with a draw in the first game and then won the second.
The match had a profound effect on Carlsen who, a month later, became a grandmaster - the
highest title awarded to chess players by the International Chess Federation.
Kasparov briefly became his coach a few years down the road.
Paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for training was a good
investment because Carlsen reached world No. 1 at the age of 19.
He has been ranked number one non-stop since 2011.
The International Chess Federation recognizes him
as “arguably the best player in the history of chess.”
He has a peak Elo rating of 2882 – the highest ever recorded in the system used
in competitive chess to rate how good you are based on tournament results.
Chess.com lists him as the second greatest player of all time,
behind Gary Kasparov. Do you agree? Let me know in the comments.
Even those who aren’t avid followers of the game recognize Carlsen’s name.
He's achieved celebrity status. That was quick!
One of Carlsen’s biggest assets is his remarkable memory.
60 Minutes once produced a segment in which he played ten opponents at the
same time while not looking at the chess boards.
He had to memorize the positions on all the boards and keep track of them in his
mind as they changed. He won all ten games.
A good memory is a tremendous asset in chess as it lets you
navigate the early game with confidence, recalling countless opening strategies.
It's like having a playbook in your mind, ready to deploy any game plan on the spot.
But perhaps his biggest strength is his versatility.
Grandmaster Vishy Anand said “He can be tactical. He can be positional. He can be many things.”
Kind of like a dancer who can gracefully glide
from ballet and burst into the spirited moves of salsa.
He defeated Anand to become the World Chess Champion for the first time in 2013.
Unbelievable. Magnus Carlsen! Champion of the world.
This signaled the rise of a new era of players who grew up in the age of online chess.
Although Carlsen has benefitted from competing against players online and
getting access to instant game analysis advantages legends like Bobby Fischer never
had - he’s been pretty clear that computers themselves are boring to play against.
He refused to play the chess engine Mittens, calling it "a soulless” computer.
Yet the might of machines is undeniable.
Kasparov famously lost against the IBM
supercomputer Deep Blue in a series of matches in 1997.
In the final game, he was crushed in just over an hour.
So, while computers stand as formidable opponents in the realm of chess,
does any human stand a chance against the might of Magnus Carlsen?
Chess players are believed to peak between 35 and 45 years old.
Carlsen is 32 going on 33 at the time of this video.
It’s hard to believe he may not have reached his prime.
Even harder to believe is that he may be tired of playing the game.
He decided not to defend his title at the World Chess Championship in 2023,
explaining in his podcast:
I am not motivated to play another match. I simply feel that I don’t
have a lot to gain. I don’t particularly like it.
For the five-time Champion, it was akin to abdicating his crown.
I don’t rule out a return in the future. But I wouldn’t particularly count on it.
He’s also taken a liking to poker though he says he has no grand ambitions there.
For someone who likes to win above everything, don’t count him quite out of chess just yet.
Trying to guess your opponent's next move while
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Thanks for watching. For Newsthink, I'm Cindy Pom.