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The following is a conversation with Magnus Carlsen, the number one ranked chess player in the world and widely considered to be one of, if not the greatest chess player of all time.
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The camera on Magnus died 20 minutes into the conversation.
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Most folks still just listen to the audio through a podcast player anyway, but if you re watching this on YouTube or Spotify, we did our best to still make it interesting by adding relevant image overlays.
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I mess things up sometimes, like in this case, but I m always working hard to improve.
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I hope you understand.
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Thank you for your patience and support along the way.
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I love you all.
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And now, a quick few second mention of each sponsor.
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Check them out in the description.
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It s the best way to support this podcast.
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We got Shopify for e-commerce.
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I think that s a new sponsor, but they ve been there for a while.
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Anyway, I ve always loved Shopify.
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I m gonna talk to the Shopify CEO soon.
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I hope, I think.
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Anyway, Athletic Greens for performance, Fundrise for investing, BetterHelp for mental health, and InsideTracker for longevity.
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Choose wisely, my friends.
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And now, onto the full ad reads.
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As always, no ads in the middle.
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I try to make this interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors.
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I enjoy their stuff.
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Maybe you will as well.
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This show is brought to you by Shopify.
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like I distracted you previously with, a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere, anything, whatever, with a great looking online store that brings your ideas to life and tools to manage day-to-day operation.
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A lot of people ask me to add some merch, like a t-shirt or a mug.
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What else can you do a merch of?
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It d be cool to do some super complicated merch, like a mini robot of some kind, like the butter robot,
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or maybe a piece of software that you can run.
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I think that s called a virus.
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Did I just try to sell you a virus?
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It s a good kind of virus, I swear.
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For a limited time, $9.99.
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No.
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You know, as a fan of different podcasts and different shows, I like merch.
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It s a good way to get, to wear something where you support the people and you re proud.
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And it also helps you find the other humans that support the same kind of thing.
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I don t know.
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It s pretty cool.
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As long as the shirt is not too flashy.
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If it s like subtle, clean.
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Yeah, it s definitely something I ll do in the future.
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Just for fun.
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Get a free trial and full access to Shopify s entire suite of features when you sign up at shopify.com slash lex.
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That s all lowercase.
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This show is also brought to you by Athletic Greens, and it s a G1 drink, which is an all-in-one drink to support better health and peak performance.
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I just drank one, actually, and that was the second time I drank today.
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So it s the first thing I drink every day to break my fast, and then I oftentimes drink it again to get even more nutrition when I do any kind of crazy exercise or fasting or all that kind of stuff.
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I do a keto diet.
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I m currently doing carnivore,
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I don t think of it as a diet, it s just a thing I m doing.
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It s not something I m doing religiously, it s just a thing that makes me feel good.
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I m very much a proponent of listening to my body, of studying my body, being like a scientist and running a study of N of one.
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So just trying to understand what makes you feel good and what doesn t make you feel good.
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doing more of the stuff that makes you feel good.
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And so carnivore is definitely something that makes me feel good.
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But it is a little bit restricting in terms of social life, in terms of a little bit of variety.
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But I m somebody who likes the boring stuff, so I love it.
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I m really happy.
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But of course, a little flavor is always fun.
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Some flavorful food with friends.
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Anyway, no matter what I m doing, it s good to have like a grounding in great nutrition, which is what Athletic Greens does for me.
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They ll give you a one month supply official when you sign up at athleticgreens.com slash flex.
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This episode is also sponsored by Fundrise, spelled F-U-N-D-R-I-S-E.
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It s a platform that allows you to invest in private real estate.
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There s all kinds of madness going on right now in the markets.
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I am barely paying attention.
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I don t really know what s going on in terms of crypto, in terms of the stock market.
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I really try to not pay close attention to the dynamics of the market because it really can pull you in in the way that any kind of fun gambling game can pull you in.
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So I try to think of what the wise long-term investment is that doesn t require me to check things every single day, that I can avoid the whole addictive aspect of investing.
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And for that, I think still diversification is a really powerful tool.
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So you should really invest in all kinds of things.
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And Fundrise makes it really easy to invest in private real estate.
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Over 150,000 investors use it.
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Check out Fundrise.
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It takes just a few minutes to get started at fundrise.com slash lex.
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This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp, spelled H-E-L-P, help.
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They figure out what you need and match you with a licensed professional therapist in under 48 hours.
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I m a huge fan of talk therapy.
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I just recently had a bunch of conversations about psychiatry, about talk therapy, about Colin Young, about Sigmund Freud.
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And of course, they were clinical psychologists or psychiatrists in part.
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They had patients, some patients they had for many years, and they ve used that personal interaction to develop theories of the human mind.
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And I think that personal interaction, just like in a podcast, is such a powerful tool to delve, to pull apart the different things that make up this beautiful complex mess that is the mind.
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looking into the memory, the recent memory, the deep memory, the trauma that you haven t really dealt with, the things that really bother you, I think talking through it, just trying to articulate the thing that bothers you still, I think the act of articulation to another human being that is a good listener, it somehow untangles that mess.
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I m a big believer in that, and so Better Hope is a thing that makes that easy, but in any aspect of life, you should do that kind of thing.
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even if it s just with a close friend.
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Have a deep conversation with or without a microphone.
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It helps.
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Check them out at betterhelp.com slash Lex and save on your first month.
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This show is also brought to you by InsideTracker, a service I use to track biological data.
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They have a bunch of plans, most of which include blood tests.
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They give you a bunch of kinds of data, so then you take these machine learning algorithms that incorporate the blood data, DNA data, fitness tracker data, all that stuff to give you
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a picture of what s going on inside, inside your body, not some kind of generic average population data about what s supposed to be going on in your body and then somehow from that inferring general kinds of patterns of lifestyle changes, you should be engaging it.
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No, this is from your own body.
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data-driven to tell you what the heck you should do.
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Now, this is obviously the future to me.
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It kind of bothers me that medicine is not based on long-term data that comes from your own body.
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It s kind of absurd.
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It puts way too much responsibility on the doctor to figure out what the heck s going on inside you.
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Now, of course, they ve gotten pretty damn good at that kind of thing, but why not make it much, much more powerful?
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I m a big supporter of Inside Tracker for pushing forward that kind of idea of being data-driven in recommending lifestyle changes, health changes, all that kind of stuff.
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Get special savings for a limited time when you go to insidetracker.com slash Lex.
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This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.
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To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.
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And now, dear friends, here s Magnus Carlson.
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You re considered by many to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, chess players of all time, but you re also one of the best fantasy football, aka soccer, competitors in the world, plus recently picking up poker and competing at a world-class level.
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So before chess, let s talk football and greatness.
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You re a Real Madrid fan, so let me ask you the ridiculous big question.
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Who do you think is the greatest football
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a.k.a.
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soccer player of all time.
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Can you make the case for Messi?
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Can you make the case for Cristiano Ronaldo, Pele, Maradona?
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Does anybody jump to mind?
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I think it s pretty hard to make a case for anybody else than Messi for his all-around game.
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And frankly, my Real Madrid fandom sort of predates the Ronaldo era.
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The second Ronaldo, not the first one.
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So I always liked Ronaldo, but I always kind of thought that
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Messi was better.
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And I went to quite a number of Madrid games and they ve always been super helpful to me down there.
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The only thing is that they asked me, they were going to do an interview and they were going to ask me who my favorite player was.
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And
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I said somebody else, I think I said Isco at that point, and I was like, okay, take two, now you say Ronaldo.
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So for them, it was very important, but it wasn t that huge to me.
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So Messi over Maradona.
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Yeah, but I think just like with chess, it s hard to compare eras.
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Obviously, the improvements in football, in technique and such, have been even greater than they have been in chess, but it s always a weird discussion to have.
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But just as a fan, what do you think is beautiful about the game?
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What defines greatness?
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Is it, you know, with Messi, one, he s really good at finishing, two, very good at assist, like three, there s just magic.
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It s just beautiful to see the play.
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So it s not just about the finishing.
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There s some, it s like Maradona s hand of God.
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There s some creativity on the pitch.
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Is that important or is it very important to get the World Cups and the big championships and that kind of stuff?
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I think the World Cup is pretty overrated seeing as it s such a small sample size.
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It sort of annoys me always when titles are always appreciated so much, even though that particular title can be...
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It can be a lot of luck or at least some luck.
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So I do appreciate the statistics a bit and all the statistics say that Messi is the best finisher of all time, which I think helps a lot.
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And then there s the intangibles as well.
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The flip side of that is the small sample size is what
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really creates the magic.
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It s just like the Olympics.
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You basically train your whole life for this.
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You live your whole life for this, and it s a rare moment.
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One mistake, and it s all over.
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That s, for some reason, a lot of people either break under that pressure or rise up under that pressure.
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You don t admire the magic of that?
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No, I do.
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I just think that rising and
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Through pressure and breaking under the pressure is often a really oversimplified take on what s happening.
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Yeah, we do romanticize the game.
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Yeah.
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Well, let me ask you another ridiculous question.
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You re also a fan of basketball.
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Yes.
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Let me ask the goat question.
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I m biased because I went to high school in Chicago, Chicago Bulls during the Michael Jordan era.
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Let me ask the Jordan versus LeBron James question.
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Let s continue on this thread of greatness.
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Which one do you pick?
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Or somebody else?
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Matthew Johnson.
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So I ll give you a completely different answer.
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Uh-oh.
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depending on my mood and depending on whom I talk to, I pick one of the two, and then I try to argue for that.
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That s the quantum mechanical thing.
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Well, can you, what, again, what would, if you were to argue for either one?
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Statistically, I think LeBron James is going to surpass Jordan.
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Yeah, no doubt.
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And so again, there s a debate between... Unquantifiable greatness, no?
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I mean, that s the whole debate.
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Yes.
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So it s, well, it s quantifiable versus unquantifiable.
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Yeah.
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What s more important.
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And you re, depending on mood, all over the place.
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Yeah.
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But where do you lean in general with these folks, with soccer, with anything in life, towards the unquantifiable more?
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No, definitely towards the quantifiable.
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So when you re unsure, lean towards the numbers.
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But see like it s later generations.
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There s something that s what people say about Maradona is, you know, he took a arguably somewhat mediocre team to a World Cup.
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So there s that also uplifting nature of the player to be able to rise up the whole, it is a team sport.
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So are you going to punish Messi for taking a mediocre Argentine squad to the final in 2014 and punish him because they lost to a great team very narrowly after they missed
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He set up a great chance for Higuain in the first half, which he fluffed.
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And then, yeah, eventually they lost the game.
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Yeah, they do criticize Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi for being on really strong squads in terms of the club teams and saying, yeah, okay, it s easy when you have Ronaldinho or whoever on your team.
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SPEAKER_01
It would be very interesting just if the league could make a decision.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, just random allocation.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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And just every single game, just keep reallocating, or maybe once a season, or every season you get random.
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But let s say every player, if let s say they sign a five-year contract for a team, like one of them, you re going to get randomly allocated to, let s say, a bottom half team.
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I bet you there s gonna be so much corruption around that.
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It could be random.
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Obviously it wouldn t ever happen or work, but I think it s interesting to think about.
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So on chess, let s zoom out.
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If you break down your approach to chess, when you re at your best, what do you think,
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What do you think contributes to that approach?
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Is it memory recall of specific lines and positions?
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Is it intuition?
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How much of it is intuition?
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How much of it is pure calculation?
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How much of it is messing with the strategy of the opponent?
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So the game theory aspect in terms of what contributes to the highest level of play that you do.
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I think the answer differs a little bit now from what it did eight years ago.
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For instance, I feel like I ve had two peaks in my career in 2014.
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Well, 2013, 2014, and also in 2019.
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And in those years, I was very different in terms of my strength.
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Specifically in 2019, I benefited a lot from opening preparation.
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While in 2013-2014 I mostly tried to avoid my opponent s preparation rather than that being a strength.
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So I m mentioning that also because it s something you didn t mention.
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I think my intuitive understanding of chess has over those years
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always been a little bit better than the others, even though it has evolved as
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well.
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Certainly, there are things that I understand now that I didn t understand back then, but that s not only for me, that s for others as well.
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I was younger back then, so I played with more energy, which meant that I could play better in long drawn out games.
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Which was also a necessity for me because I couldn t beat people in the openings.
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But in terms of calculation, that s always been a weird issue for me.
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SPEAKER_00
I ve always been really, really bad at solving exercises in chess.
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That s been...
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like a blind spot for me.
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First of all, I found it hard to concentrate on them.
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And to look
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to look deep enough.
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So this is like a puzzle, a position, mate in X. I mean, one thing is mate, but find the best move.
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SPEAKER_00
That s generally the exercise, like find the best move, find the best line.
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SPEAKER_00
You just don t connect with it.
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SPEAKER_00
Usually, like you have to look deep.
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SPEAKER_00
And then when I get these lines during the game, I very often find the right solution, even though
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even though it s not still the best part of my game to calculate very, very deeply.
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SPEAKER_00
But it doesn t feel like calculation, you re saying?
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SPEAKER_00
No, it does sometimes, but for me, it s more like I m at the board trying to find the solution and I understand the training.
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SPEAKER_00
At home, it s like trying a little bit to replicate that, like you give somebody half an hour in a position like in this instance, you might have thought for half an hour if you play the game.
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SPEAKER_00
I just cannot do it.
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One thing I know that I am good at, though, is calculating short lines, because I calculate them well.
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I m good at seeing little details.
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And I m also much better than most at evaluating, which I think is something that sets me apart from others.
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SPEAKER_01
So evaluating specific position, if I make this move and the position changes in this way, is this a step in the right direction, like in a big picture way?
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, like you calculate a few moves ahead and then you evaluate because a lot of time
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SPEAKER_00
A lot of the times you cannot, the branches become so big that you cannot calculate everything.
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SPEAKER_00
So you have to- Like a fog.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
So you have to make valuations based on, you know, based mostly on knowledge and intuition.
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SPEAKER_00
And somehow I seem to do that pretty well.
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SPEAKER_01
When you say you re good at short lines, what s that?
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SPEAKER_01
What s short?
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SPEAKER_00
That s usually like lines of,
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two to four moves each.
1
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so that s directly applicable to even faster games like Blitz, Chess, and so on.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, Blitz is a lot about calculating force lines.
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SPEAKER_00
So those
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SPEAKER_00
You can see pretty clearly that the players who struggle at Blitz, who are great at classical, are those who rely on deep calculating ability.
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SPEAKER_00
Because you simply don t have time for that in Blitz.
1
SPEAKER_00
You have to calculate quickly and rely a lot on intuition.
1
SPEAKER_01
Can you try to, I know it s really difficult, can you try to talk through what s actually being visualized in your head?
1
SPEAKER_01
Is there a visual component?
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, no, I just visualize the board.
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SPEAKER_00
I mean, the board is in my head.
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SPEAKER_01
Two-dimensional?
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SPEAKER_00
My interpretation is that it is two-dimensional.
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SPEAKER_01
What colors?
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SPEAKER_01
Is it brown tinted?
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SPEAKER_01
Is it black?
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SPEAKER_01
What s the theme?
1
SPEAKER_01
Is it a big board, a small board?
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SPEAKER_01
What do the pawns look like?
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SPEAKER_01
Or is it more in the space of concepts?
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, there aren t a lot of colors, it s mostly... So what is it, Queen s Gambit on the ceiling?
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SPEAKER_00
I m trying to find one now to imagine it.
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SPEAKER_01
What about when you do the branching, when you have multiple boards and so on, how does that look?
1
SPEAKER_00
No, but it s only one at a time.
1
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One position at a time.
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SPEAKER_00
One position at a time, so then I go back.
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SPEAKER_00
And that s what, when people play...
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SPEAKER_00
Or at least that s what I do when I play blindfold chess against several people, then it s just always one board at a time and the rest are stored away somewhere.
1
SPEAKER_01
But how do you store them away?
1
SPEAKER_01
So like you went down one branch, you re like, all right, that s I got that.
1
SPEAKER_01
I understand that there s some good there, there s some bad there.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now let me go down another branch.
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SPEAKER_01
Like how do you store away the information you just put on a shelf kind of?
1
SPEAKER_00
I try and store it away.
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SPEAKER_00
Sometimes I have to sort of repeat it because I forget.
1
SPEAKER_00
And it does happen frequently in games that...
1
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you re thinking for, especially if you re thinking for long, let s say a half an hour, or even more than that, that you play a move and then your opponent plays a move, then you play a move and they play a move again and you realize, oh, I actually calculated that, I just forgot about it.
1
SPEAKER_00
So that s obviously what happens when you store the information and you cannot retrieve it.
1
SPEAKER_01
When you think about a move for 20, 30 minutes, like how do you break that down?
1
SPEAKER_01
Can you describe what,
1
SPEAKER_01
Like, what s the algorithm here that takes 30 minutes to run?
1
SPEAKER_00
30 minutes is, at least for me, it s usually a waste.
1
SPEAKER_00
30 minutes usually means that I don t know what to do.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I m just running into the wall over and over.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I m trying to find something that isn t there.
1
SPEAKER_00
I think
1
SPEAKER_00
10 to 15 minutes things in complicated positions can be really, really helpful.
1
SPEAKER_00
Then you can spend your time pretty efficiently.
1
SPEAKER_00
Just means that the branches are getting wide.
1
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot to run through both in terms of calculation and lots you have to evaluate as well.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then based on
1
SPEAKER_00
based on that 10 to 15 minute think, you have a pretty good idea what to do.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s very rare that I would think for half an hour and I would have a eureka moment during the game.
1
SPEAKER_00
Like if I haven t seen it in 10 minutes, I m probably not going to see it at all.
1
SPEAKER_01
You re going through different branches.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
And like after 15 minutes, it s like.
1
SPEAKER_00
But it mainly to the middle game, because when you get to the end game, it s usually brute force calculation that makes you spend so much time.
1
SPEAKER_00
So middle game is normally it s, it s, it s a complicated mix of brute force calculation and, and, uh, and, um, like creativity and evaluation.
1
SPEAKER_00
So end game, it s, it s, it s more, it s, it s easier in that sense.
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, you re good at every aspect of chess, but you re also your endgame is legendary.
1
SPEAKER_01
It baffles experts.
1
SPEAKER_01
So can you linger on that then try to explain what the heck is going on there?
1
SPEAKER_01
Like if you look at game six of the previous world championship, the longest game ever
1
SPEAKER_01
played in chess.
1
SPEAKER_01
It was, I think, his queen versus your rook, knight in two pawns.
1
SPEAKER_01
There s so many options there.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s such an interesting little dance and it s kind of non-obvious that it wouldn t be a draw.
1
SPEAKER_01
So how do you escape it not being a draw and you win that match?
1
SPEAKER_00
No, I knew that for most of the time it was a theoretical draw since chess with seven or less pieces on the board is solved.
1
SPEAKER_00
So you can, like people watching online, they can just check it.
1
SPEAKER_00
They can check and they can check a so-called table base and they, it just going to spit out win for white, win for black or a draw.
1
SPEAKER_00
So.
1
SPEAKER_00
And also, I didn t know that position specifically, but I knew that it had to be a draw.
1
SPEAKER_00
So for me, it was about staying alert, first of all, trying to look for the best way to put my pieces.
1
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, those endgames are a bit unusual.
1
SPEAKER_00
They don t happen too often.
1
SPEAKER_00
So what I m usually...
1
SPEAKER_00
good at is I m using my strengths that I also use in middle games is that I evaluate well and I calculate short variations quite... Even for the endgame, short variations matter?
1
SPEAKER_00
Yes, it does matter in some simpler endgames.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but also like there are these theoretical endgames with very few pieces like Rook-Knights and 2-Pawns versus Queens.
1
SPEAKER_00
But a lot of endgames are simply defined by the Queens being exchanged.
1
SPEAKER_00
And there are a lot of other pieces left.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then it s usually not brute force.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s usually more of understanding and evaluation.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then I can use my strengths very well.
1
SPEAKER_01
Why are you so damn good at the endgame?
1
SPEAKER_01
Isn t there a lot of moves from when the endgame starts to when the endgame finishes and you have a few pieces and you have to figure out, it s like a sequence of little games that happens, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
Like little pattern, like how does being able to evaluate a single position lead you to evaluate a long sequence of positions that eventually lead to a checkmate?
1
SPEAKER_00
Well, I think if you evaluate well at the start, you know what plans to go for, and then usually the play from there is often pretty simple.
1
SPEAKER_00
Let s say you understand how to arrange your pieces and often also how to arrange your pawns early in the endgame, then that makes all the difference.
1
SPEAKER_00
After that is what we call technique very often.
1
SPEAKER_00
Technique basically just means that the moves are simple and these are moves that a lot of players could make.
1
SPEAKER_00
Not only the very strongest ones, these are moves that are kind of understood and known.
1
SPEAKER_01
So with the evaluation, you re just constantly improving a little bit, and that just leads to suffocating the position, and then eventually to the win.
1
SPEAKER_01
As long as you re doing the evaluation well, one step at a time.
1
SPEAKER_00
To some extent.
1
SPEAKER_00
Also, yeah, as I said, if you evaluated better and thus accumulated some small advantages, then you can often make your life pretty easy towards the end of the endgame.
1
SPEAKER_01
So you said in 2019 is sort of the second phase of why you re so damn good.
1
SPEAKER_01
You did a lot of opening preparation.
1
SPEAKER_01
What s the goal for you of the opening game of chess?
1
SPEAKER_01
Is it to throw the opponent off from any prepared lines?
1
SPEAKER_01
Is there something you could put into words about why you re so damn good at the openings?
1
SPEAKER_00
Again, these things have changed a lot over time.
1
SPEAKER_00
Back in Kasparov s days, for instance, he very often got huge advantages from the opening as White.
1
SPEAKER_00
Can you explain why?
1
SPEAKER_00
There were several reasons for that.
1
SPEAKER_00
First of all, he worked harder.
1
SPEAKER_00
He was more creative in finding ideas.
1
SPEAKER_00
He was able to look places others didn t.
1
SPEAKER_00
Also, he had a very strong team of people who had specific strengths in openings that he could use.
1
SPEAKER_00
So they will come up with ideas and he would integrate those ideas into- Yeah, and he would also very often come up with them himself.
1
SPEAKER_00
Also, at the start, he had some of the first computer engines to work for him to find his ideas, to look deeper, to verify his ideas.
1
SPEAKER_00
He was better at using them.
1
SPEAKER_00
than a lot of others.
1
SPEAKER_00
Now I feel like the playing field is a lot more level.
1
SPEAKER_00
There are both computer engines, neural networks, and hybrid engines available to practically anybody.
1
SPEAKER_00
So it s much harder to
1
SPEAKER_00
find ideas now that actually give you an advantage with the white pieces.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, people don t expect to find those ideas anymore.
1
SPEAKER_00
Now it s all about finding ideas that are missed by the engines.
1
SPEAKER_00
Either they re missed entirely or they re missed at low depth.
1
SPEAKER_00
and using them to, you know, gain some advantage in the sense that you have more knowledge.
1
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, it s also good to know that usually these are not complete bluffs.
1
SPEAKER_00
These are like semi-bluffs so that you know that even if your opponent makes all the right moves, you can still make a draw.
1
SPEAKER_00
And also at the start of 2019, neural networks had just started to be a thing in chess.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I m not entirely sure, but there were at least some players, even in the top events, who you could see did not use them or did not use them in the right way.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then you could gain
1
SPEAKER_00
a huge advantage because a lot of positions, they were being evaluated differently by the neural networks than traditional chess engines because they simply think about chess in a very, very different way.
1
SPEAKER_00
So short answer is these days, it s all about surprising your opponent and taking it into a position where you have more knowledge.
1
SPEAKER_01
So is there some sense in which it s okay to make suboptimal quote-unquote moves?
1
SPEAKER_00
No, but you have to.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, you have to because the best moves have been analyzed to death mostly.
1
SPEAKER_01
So that s a kind of, when you say semi-bluff, that s a kind of sacrifice.
1
SPEAKER_01
You re sacrificing the optimal move, the optimal position so that you can take the opponent.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, that s a game theoretic sense.
1
SPEAKER_01
You take the opponent to something they didn t prepare well.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but you could also look at it another way that regardless, like if you turn on whatever engine you turn on, like if you try to analyze either from the starting position or the starting position of some popular opening, like if you analyze long enough, it s always going to end up in a draw.
1
SPEAKER_00
So in that sense, you may not be going for like the objective
1
SPEAKER_00
the tries that are objectively the most difficult to draw against.
1
SPEAKER_00
But, you know, you are trying to look at least at the less obvious paths.
1
SPEAKER_01
How much do you use engines?
1
SPEAKER_01
Do you use Leela, Stockfish in your preparations?
1
SPEAKER_00
My team does.
1
SPEAKER_00
Personally, I try not to use them too much on my own, because I know that when I play, you obviously cannot have help from engines.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I feel like often having imperfect
1
SPEAKER_00
or knowledge about a position, or some engine knowledge can be a lot worse than having no knowledge.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I try to look at engines as little as possible.
1
SPEAKER_01
So yeah, so your team uses them for research, for a generation of ideas.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
But you are relying primarily on your human resources.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, for sure.
1
SPEAKER_01
You can evaluate well, you don t lean.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I can evaluate as a human, I can know what they find unpleasant and so on.
1
SPEAKER_00
And it s very often the case, for me to some extent, but a lot for others that you arrive in a position
1
SPEAKER_00
And your opponent plays a move that you didn t expect.
1
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, if you didn t expect it, you know, that is probably not a great move since it hasn t been expected by the engine.
1
SPEAKER_00
But if it s not, if it s not obvious why it s not a good move, it s usually
2
SPEAKER_00
very, very hard to figure it out.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so then looking at the engines doesn t necessarily help because at that point, like you re facing a human, you have to sort of think as a human.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was chatting with Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind, a couple days ago, and he asked me to ask you about what you first felt when you saw the play of AlphaZero.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like, interesting ideas, any creativity?
2
SPEAKER_01
Did you feel fear that the machine is taking over?
2
SPEAKER_01
Were you inspired?
2
SPEAKER_00
What was going on in your mind and heart?
2
SPEAKER_00
Funny thing about Demis is he doesn t play chess at all like an AI.
2
SPEAKER_00
He plays in a very, very human way.
2
SPEAKER_00
No, I was hugely inspired when I saw the games at first.
2
SPEAKER_00
And in terms of man versus machine, I mean, that battle was kind of lost for humans even before I
2
SPEAKER_00
entered top level chess.
2
SPEAKER_00
So that s never been an issue for me.
2
SPEAKER_00
I never, never liked playing as computers much anyway.
2
SPEAKER_00
So, so that s completely fine, but it was amazing to see how they quote unquote thought about chess and in such a different way and in a way that you could mistake for creativity.
2
SPEAKER_01
Mistake for creating strong words.
2
SPEAKER_01
Is it wild to you how many sacrifices it s willing to make that like sacrifice pieces and then wait for prolonged periods of time before doing anything with that?
2
SPEAKER_01
Is that weird to you that that s part of chess?
2
SPEAKER_00
No, it s one of the things that s hardest to replicate as a human as well, or at least for my playing style, that usually when I sacrifice, I feel like I m, you know,
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t do it unless I feel like I m getting something tangible in return.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like a few moves down the line.
2
SPEAKER_00
A few moves down the line, you can see that you can either retrieve the material or you can put your opponent s king under pressure or have some very concrete positional advantage that sort of compensates for it.
2
SPEAKER_00
For instance,
2
SPEAKER_00
in chess, so bishops and knights are fairly equivalent.
2
SPEAKER_00
We both give them three points, but bishops are a little bit better, and especially a bishop pair is a lot better than a bishop and a knight, or especially two knights.
2
SPEAKER_00
Depends on the position, but
2
SPEAKER_00
like on average they are.
2
SPEAKER_00
So like sacrificing a pawn in order to get a bishop pair that s one of the most common sacrifices in chess.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh you re okay making that sacrifice?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah I mean it depends on the situation but generally that s fine and there are a lot of openings that are based on that, that you sacrifice
2
SPEAKER_00
a pawn for the bishop pair, and then eventually it s some sort of positional equality.
2
SPEAKER_00
So that s fine.
2
SPEAKER_00
But the way AlphaZero would sacrifice a knight or sometimes two pawns, three pawns,
2
SPEAKER_00
And you could see that it s looking for some sort of positional domination, but it s hard to understand.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it was really fascinating to see.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, in 2019, I was sacrificing a lot of pawns, especially, and it was a great joy.
2
SPEAKER_00
Unfortunately, it s not so easy to continue to do that.
2
SPEAKER_00
people have found more solid opening lines since that don t allow me to do that as often.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m still trying both to get those positions and still trying to learn the art of sacrificing pieces.
2
SPEAKER_01
So Demis also
2
SPEAKER_01
made a comment that was interesting to my new chess brain, which is one of the reasons that chess is fun is because of the, quote, creative tension between the bishop and the knight.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you re talking about this interesting difference between the two pieces, that there s some kind of, how would you convert that?
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, that s like a poetic statement about chess.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think he said that, why has chess been played for such a long time?
2
SPEAKER_01
Why is it so fun to play at every level?
2
SPEAKER_01
That if you can reduce it to one thing, it s the bishop and the knight, some kind of weird dynamics that they create in chess.
2
SPEAKER_01
Is there any truth to that?
2
SPEAKER_00
It sounds very good.
2
SPEAKER_00
I haven t tried a lot of other games, but I tried to play a little bit of shogi.
2
SPEAKER_00
And for my noob shogi brain, comparing it to chess, what annoyed me about that game is how much the pieces suck.
2
SPEAKER_00
Basically, you have one rook and you have one bishop that move like in chess, and the rest of the pieces are really not very powerful.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I think that s one of the...
2
SPEAKER_00
attractions of chess, like how powerful, especially the queen is, which interesting, I kind of think makes it makes a lot of fun.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you you think power is more fun than like variety?
2
SPEAKER_00
No, there is a variety in chess as well, though, but not much more so than like, no, no, no, no, no, that s for
2
SPEAKER_01
So like night, I mean, they all move in different ways.
2
SPEAKER_01
They re all like weird.
2
SPEAKER_01
There s just all these weird patterns and positions that can emerge.
2
SPEAKER_01
The difference in the pieces create all kinds of interesting dynamics, I guess is what I m trying to say.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I guess it is quite fascinating that all those years ago they created
2
SPEAKER_00
The Knight and the Bishop without probably realizing that they would be almost equally strong with such different qualities.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s crazy that this, you know, like when you design computer games, it s like an art form.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s science and an art to balance it.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, you talk about Starcraft and all those games.
2
SPEAKER_01
like so that you can have competitive play at the highest level with all those different units.
2
SPEAKER_01
And in the case of chess, it s different pieces.
2
SPEAKER_01
And they somehow designed a game that was super competitive.
2
SPEAKER_01
But there s probably some kind of natural selection that the chess just wouldn t last if it was designed poorly.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and I think the rules have changed over time a little bit.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I would be, I mean, speaking of games and all that, I m also interested to play other games like Chess 960 or Fisher Random, as they call it, like that you have 960 maps instead of one.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so for people who don t know, a fissure, random chess, chess 960s... Yeah, that basically just means that the pawns are in the same way and the major pieces are distributed randomly on the last rank.
2
SPEAKER_00
Only that there have to be obviously bishops of opposite color and the king has to be in between the rooks so that you can castle both ways.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, you can still castle and you can still castle, but it makes it interesting.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you still have, it s still castles in the same way.
2
SPEAKER_00
So let s say the King is like, yeah, what happens in that case?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Let s say the King is in the corner.
2
SPEAKER_00
Um, so to, to castle this side, you have, you have to clear a whole lot of pieces.
2
SPEAKER_00
Uh, what would it look like though?
2
SPEAKER_00
No, the King would go here and the Rick would go there.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, okay.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s happened in my games as well.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, I forgot about castling.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I ve been like, attacking a king over here.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then all of a sudden, it escapes to the other side.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think, I think Fischer chess is
2
SPEAKER_00
It s good that it s the maps will generally be worse than regular chess.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like I think the starting position is as close to ideal for creating a competitive game as possible, but they will still be like interesting and diverse enough that you can play very, very interesting games.
2
SPEAKER_01
So when you say maps, there s 960 different options and like what fraction of that creates interesting games at the highest level?
2
SPEAKER_01
This is something that a lot of people are curious about because when you challenge a great chess player like yourself to
2
SPEAKER_01
to look at a random starting position, that feels like it pushes you to play pure chess versus memorizing lines and all that kind of stuff.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah, for sure.
2
SPEAKER_00
For sure.
2
SPEAKER_00
But that s the whole idea.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s what you want.
2
SPEAKER_01
How hard is it to play?
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, can you talk about what it feels like to you to play with a random starting position?
2
SPEAKER_01
Is there some intuition you ve been building up?
2
SPEAKER_00
It s very, very different.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I mean, understandably, engines have an even greater advantage in 960 than they have in classical chess.
2
SPEAKER_00
No, it s super interesting.
2
SPEAKER_00
And
2
SPEAKER_00
That s why also, I really wish that we played more classical chess, like long games, four to seven hours and in fish random chess, chess 960, because then you really need
2
SPEAKER_00
You really need that time, even on the first moves.
2
SPEAKER_00
What usually happens is that you get 15 minutes before the game, you re getting told the position 15 minutes before the game, and then you can think about it a little bit, even check the computer, but that s all the time you have.
2
SPEAKER_00
But then you really need to figure it out.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like some of the positions obviously are a lot more interesting than the others.
2
SPEAKER_00
In some of them, it appears that like, if you don t play symmetrically at the start, then you re probably going to be in a pretty bad, bad position.
2
SPEAKER_00
What do you mean with the pawns?
2
SPEAKER_00
With the pawns, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
So that s the thing about chess though.
2
SPEAKER_00
So let s say white opens with e4, which is, which has always been the most played move.
2
SPEAKER_00
There are many ways to meet that, but the most solid ways of playing has always been the symmetrical response with E5 and then there s the Relopes, there s the Petrov opening and so on.
2
SPEAKER_00
And
2
SPEAKER_00
If you just ban symmetry on the first move in chess, you would get more interesting games.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, interesting.
2
SPEAKER_00
Or you d get more decisive games.
2
SPEAKER_00
So that s the good thing about chess is that we ve played it so long that we ve actually devised non-symmetrical openings that are also fairly equal.
2
SPEAKER_00
But symmetry is a good default.
2
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, symmetry is a good default.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s a problem that by playing symmetrical armed with good preparation in regular chess, it s just a little bit too easy.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s a little bit too dry.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I guess if you analyze a lot in chess 960, then the
2
SPEAKER_00
a lot of the positions would end up being pretty drawish as well.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because the random starting point is so shitty, you re forced to... You re actually forced to play symmetrically.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like you cannot actually try and play in a more sort of interesting manner.
2
SPEAKER_00
Is there any other kind of variations that are interesting to you?
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, there are several.
2
SPEAKER_00
So no castling chess has been promoted by former world champion Vladimir Kramnik.
2
SPEAKER_00
There have been a few tournaments with that, not any that I ve participated in, though.
2
SPEAKER_00
I kind of like it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Also, my coach uses non-castling engines quite a bit to analyze regular positions just to get a different
2
SPEAKER_00
different perspective.
2
SPEAKER_01
So castling is like a defensive thing.
2
SPEAKER_01
So if you remove castling, it forces you to be more offensive.
2
SPEAKER_01
Is that why?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, for sure.
2
SPEAKER_00
It seems like a tiny little difference.
2
SPEAKER_00
No castling probably forces you to be a little bit more defensive at the start, or I would guess so, because you cannot suddenly escape with the kings.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s going to make the game a bit slower at the start, but I feel like eventually it s going to...
2
SPEAKER_00
It s going to make the games more, well, less drawish for sure.
2
SPEAKER_00
Then you have some weirder variants, like where the pawns can move both diagonally and forward.
2
SPEAKER_00
And also you have self-capture chess, which is quite interesting.
2
SPEAKER_00
So the pawns can... Commit suicide?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, people can... Why would that be a good move?
2
SPEAKER_00
No, sometimes one of your pieces occupy a square.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, let me just set up a position.
2
SPEAKER_00
Let s put it like this, for instance, like here.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, there are a lot of ways to checkmate.
2
SPEAKER_00
for white like this, for instance, or there are several ways.
2
SPEAKER_00
But like this would be, would be... Oh, cool.
2
SPEAKER_01
For people who are just listening, yeah, basically, you bring in a knight close to the whole, the king, the queen, and so on, and you replace the knight with a queen.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s interesting.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you can have like a front of pieces, and then you just replace them with the second,
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that could be interesting.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think also maybe sometimes it s just clearance, basically.
2
SPEAKER_00
It adds an extra element of clearance.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think there are many different variants.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t think any of them are better than the one that has been played for at least a thousand years, but it s certainly interesting to...
2
SPEAKER_01
to see.
2
SPEAKER_01
So one of your goals is to reach the FIDEA ELO chest rating of 2900.
2
SPEAKER_01
Maybe you can comment on how is this rating calculated and what does it take to get there?
2
SPEAKER_01
Is it possible for a human being to get there?
2
SPEAKER_00
Basically, you play with a factor of 10, which means that if I were to play against an opponent who s rated the same as me, I would be expected to score 50%, obviously, and that means that I would win five points with a win, lose five points with a draw, and then equal if I draw.
2
SPEAKER_00
If your opponent is 200 points lower rated, you re expected to score 75% and so on.
2
SPEAKER_01
And you establish that rating by playing a lot of people and then it slowly converges towards an estimate of how likely you are to win or lose against different people.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and my rating is obviously carried through thousands of games.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right now, my rating is 2861.
2
SPEAKER_00
which is decent, like I think that pretty much corresponds to the level I have at the moment, which means in order to reach 2900, I would have to either get better at chess, which I think is fairly hard to do, at least considerably better.
2
SPEAKER_00
So what I would need to do is
2
SPEAKER_00
try and optimize even more in terms of the matchups, the preparations, everything, but not necessarily like selecting tournaments and so on, but like just optimizing in terms of preparation, like making sure I never have any bad days.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you basically can t lose
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I basically can t fuck up ever if I want to reach that goal.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so I think reaching 2900 is pretty unlikely.
2
SPEAKER_00
The reason I ve set the goal is to have something to play for, to have a motivation to actually try and be at my best when I play.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because otherwise, I m playing to some extent mostly for fun these days, in that I love to play, I love to try and win, but I don t have a lot to prove or anything.
2
SPEAKER_00
But that gives me at least the motivation to try and
2
SPEAKER_00
I try and be at my best all the time, which I think is something to aim for.
2
SPEAKER_00
So at the moment, I m quite enjoying that process of trying to optimize.
2
SPEAKER_01
What would you say motivates you in this now and in the years leading up to now?
2
SPEAKER_01
The love of winning or the fear of losing?
3
SPEAKER_01
For the World Championship, it s been fair of losing for sure.
3
SPEAKER_01
Other tournaments, love of winning is a great, great factor.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that s why I also get more joy from winning most tournaments than I do for winning the World Championship, because then it s mostly been a relief.
3
SPEAKER_01
I also think I enjoy winning more now than I did before, because I feel like I m a little bit more relaxed now.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I also know that it s not going to last forever.
3
SPEAKER_01
So every little win, I appreciate a lot more now.
3
SPEAKER_01
And in terms of fear of losing, that s a huge reason why I m not going to play the World Championship, because it really didn t give me a lot of joy.
3
SPEAKER_01
It really was all about avoiding losing.
3
SPEAKER_00
Why is it that the world championship really makes you feel this way?
3
SPEAKER_00
The anxiety.
3
SPEAKER_00
So, and when you say losing, do you mean not just the match, but like every single position, like the fear of a blunder?
3
SPEAKER_01
No, I mean, the blunder is okay.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like, when I sit down at the board, then it s mostly been fine, because then I m focused on... Got it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Then I m focused on the game, and then I know that I can play the game.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s a time, like, in between, like, knowing that, you know, I feel like losing is not an option, because it s the World Championship, and because in a World Championship, there are two players.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s a winner and a loser.
3
SPEAKER_01
If I don t win a random tournament that I play,
3
SPEAKER_01
Then, you know, I m usually, it depends on the tournament.
3
SPEAKER_01
I might be disappointed for sure.
3
SPEAKER_01
Might even be pretty pissed, but ultimately, you know, you go on to the next one.
3
SPEAKER_01
With a world championship, you don t go on to the next one.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like, it s years.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it also has been like, it s been a core part of my identity for a while now that I am world champion.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so there s not an option of
3
SPEAKER_01
of losing that.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you re gonna have to at least for a couple of years carry the weight of having lost.
3
SPEAKER_00
You re the former world champion now, if you lose, versus the current world champion.
3
SPEAKER_00
There are certain sports that
3
SPEAKER_00
create that anxiety and others that don t.
3
SPEAKER_00
For example, I think UFC makes martial arts are a little better with losing.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s understood, like everybody loses.
3
SPEAKER_00
But there s- Not everybody though.
3
SPEAKER_00
Not everybody, not everybody, not everybody.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
Khabib entered the chat.
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SPEAKER_00
But in boxing, there is like that extra pressure of like maintaining the championship.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, maybe you could say the same thing about the UFC as well.
3
SPEAKER_00
So for you personally, for a person who loves chess, the first time you won a world championship, that was the thing that was fun.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then everything after is like stressful.
3
SPEAKER_01
Essentially.
3
SPEAKER_01
There was certainly stress involved the first time as well, but it was nothing compared to the others.
3
SPEAKER_01
So the only world championship after that that I really enjoyed was the one in 2018 against the American Fabiano Caruana.
3
SPEAKER_01
And what made that different is that I d been kind of slumping for a bit, and he d been on the rise.
3
SPEAKER_01
So our ratings were very, very similar.
3
SPEAKER_01
They were so close that if at any point during the match, I d lost the game,
3
SPEAKER_01
He would have been ranked as number one in the world.
3
SPEAKER_01
Our ratings were so close that for each draw, they didn t move.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the game itself was close.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, the games themselves were very close.
3
SPEAKER_01
I had a winning position in the first game that I couldn t really get anywhere for a lot of games.
3
SPEAKER_01
Then he had a couple of games where he could potentially have won.
3
SPEAKER_01
Then in the last game, I was a little bit better.
3
SPEAKER_01
And eventually, they were all drawn.
3
SPEAKER_01
But I felt like all the way that this is an interesting match against an opponent who is, at this position, at this point, equal to me.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so losing that would not have been a disaster.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because in all the other matches, I would know that I would have lost against somebody who I know I m much better than.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that would be a lot harder for me to take.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, that s fascinating and beautiful that the stress isn t from losing.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because you have fun.
3
SPEAKER_00
You enjoy playing against somebody who s as good as you, maybe better than you.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s exciting to you.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s losing at this high stakes thing that only happens rarely to a person who s not as good as you.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and that s why it s also been incredibly frustrating in other matches, like when I know, when we play draw after draw, and I can just, I know that I m better.
3
SPEAKER_01
I can sense during the game that I understand it better than them, but I cannot, you know, I cannot get over the hump.
3
SPEAKER_00
So you are the best chess player in the world, and you not playing the World Championship really makes the World Championship not seem important.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, there s an argument to be made for that.
3
SPEAKER_00
Is there anything you would like to see for you to change about the World Championship that would make it more fun for you?
3
SPEAKER_00
And better for the game of chess, period, for everybody involved?
3
SPEAKER_01
So I think 12 games or now 14 games that there is for the World Championship is a fairly low sample size.
3
SPEAKER_01
If you want to determine who the best player is, or at least the best player in that particular matchup, you need more games.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think to some extent,
3
SPEAKER_01
If you re going to have a world champion and call them the best player, you ve got to make sure that the format increases the chance of finding the best player.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I think having more games, and if you re going to have a lot more games, then you need to decrease the time control a bit, which in turn, I think is also a good thing because
3
SPEAKER_01
in very long time controls with deep preparation, you can sort of mask a lot of your deficiencies as a chess player because you have a lot of time to think and to defend.
3
SPEAKER_01
And also, yeah, you have deep preparation.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I think those would be, for me to play, those would be
3
SPEAKER_01
the main things, more games and less time.
3
SPEAKER_00
So you want to see more games and rules that emphasize pure chess.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but already less time emphasizes pure chess because defensive techniques are much harder to execute with a little time.
3
SPEAKER_00
What do you think?
3
SPEAKER_00
Is there a sweet spot in terms of, are we talking about Blitz?
3
SPEAKER_00
How many minutes?
3
SPEAKER_01
I think Blitz is a bit too fast.
3
SPEAKER_01
To their credit, this was suggested by Fida as well.
3
SPEAKER_01
for a start to have two games per day, and let s say you have 45 minutes a game plus 15 or 30 seconds per move, that means that each session will probably be about, or a little less than two hours.
3
SPEAKER_01
That would be a start.
3
SPEAKER_01
Also, what we re playing in the tournament that I m playing here in Miami, which is four games a day with 15 minutes plus 10 seconds per move,
3
SPEAKER_01
Those would be more interesting than the one there is now.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I understand that there are a lot of traditions.
3
SPEAKER_01
People don t want to change the world championship.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s all fine.
3
SPEAKER_01
I just think that the world championship should do a better job of trying to reflect who s the best overall chess player.
3
SPEAKER_00
So would you say like...
3
SPEAKER_00
If it s faster games, you d probably be able to get a sample size of like over 20 games, 20, 30, 40.
3
SPEAKER_00
Do you think there s a number that s good over a long period of time?
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, I would prefer as many as possible.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like a hundred?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but let s say you play 12 days, two games a day.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, that s 24.
3
SPEAKER_01
I feel like that s already quite a bit better.
3
SPEAKER_01
You play like one black game, one white game each day.
3
SPEAKER_00
Endurance wise, that s OK?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think that s fine.
3
SPEAKER_01
You will have free days as well.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I don t think that will be a problem.
3
SPEAKER_01
And also, you have to prepare two sets of openings for each day, which makes it more difficult for the teams preparing, which I think is also good.
3
SPEAKER_00
Let me ask you a fun question.
3
SPEAKER_00
If Hikaru and Nakamura was one of the two people, I guess, I apologize.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, he could have finished second.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
So he lost the last round of the candidates.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you, maybe you can explain to me, internet speak, copium is something you tweeted.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
But if he got second, would you, just despite him still play the world championship?
3
SPEAKER_00
That s internet question.
3
SPEAKER_00
And when the internet asks, I must abide, I do abide.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, sure.
3
SPEAKER_01
Thank you, internet.
3
SPEAKER_01
So after the last match, I did an interview
3
SPEAKER_01
Right after where I talked about the fact that I was unlikely to play the next one, I d spoken privately to both family, friends, and of course also my chess team that this was likely going to be the last match.
3
SPEAKER_01
What happened was that right before the world championship match, there was this young player, Alireza Firouzha.
3
SPEAKER_01
He had a dramatic rise.
3
SPEAKER_01
He rose to second in the world rankings.
3
SPEAKER_01
He was 18 then, he s 19 now.
3
SPEAKER_01
He qualified for the candidates.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it felt like there was at least a half realistic possibility that
3
SPEAKER_01
he could be the challenger for the next world championship.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that sort of lit a fire under me.
3
SPEAKER_01
Do you like that?
3
SPEAKER_01
I like that.
3
SPEAKER_01
I like that a lot.
3
SPEAKER_01
I love the idea of, of playing him in the next world championship.
3
SPEAKER_01
And originally I just, I was sure that I wanted to announce right after the tournament, the match that this was it.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m done.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m not playing the next one, but this lit a fire under me.
3
SPEAKER_01
So that made me think, you know,
3
SPEAKER_01
This actually motivates me.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I just wanted to get it out there for several reasons, to create more hype about the candidates, to like sort of motivate myself a little bit, maybe motivate him.
3
SPEAKER_01
Also, obviously, I wanted to give people a heads up for the candidates that you might be playing for more than
3
SPEAKER_01
more than first place.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like normally the candidates is first place or best.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like the world championship.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then, so Nakamura was one of many people who just didn t believe me, which is fair because I ve talked before about not necessarily wanting to defend again, but I never like talked as concretely or was as serious as this time.
3
SPEAKER_01
So he simply didn t believe me.
3
SPEAKER_01
And he was very vocal about that.
3
SPEAKER_01
And he said, nobody believed me, none of the players who may or may not have been true.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then, yeah, he lost the last game and he didn t qualify.
3
SPEAKER_01
But to answer the question, no, I d already at that point decided that I wouldn t play.
3
SPEAKER_01
I would have liked it less.
3
SPEAKER_01
If he had not lost the last round.
3
SPEAKER_01
But the decision was already made.
3
SPEAKER_00
Does it break your heart a little bit that you re walking away from it?
3
SPEAKER_00
In all the ways that you mentioned, that it s just not fun.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s a bunch of ways that it doesn t seem to bring out the best kind of chess.
3
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t bring out the best out of you and the particular opponents involved.
3
SPEAKER_00
Does it just break your heart a little bit?
3
SPEAKER_00
Like you re walking away from something or maybe the entire chess community is walking away from a kind of a historic event that was so important in the 20th century at least.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I won the championship in 2013.
3
SPEAKER_01
I said no to the candidates in 2011.
3
SPEAKER_01
I didn t particularly like the format.
3
SPEAKER_01
I also wasn t, I was just not in the mood.
3
SPEAKER_01
I didn t want the pressure
3
SPEAKER_01
that was connected with the World Championship.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I was perfectly content at the time to play the tournaments that I did play.
3
SPEAKER_01
Also, to be ranked number one in the world, I was comfortable with the fact that I knew that I was the best and I didn t need a title to show others.
3
SPEAKER_01
And what happened later is I suddenly decided to play.
3
SPEAKER_01
In 2013, they changed the format.
3
SPEAKER_01
I liked it better.
3
SPEAKER_01
I just decided, you know, it could be interesting.
3
SPEAKER_01
Let s try and get this.
3
SPEAKER_01
There really wasn t more than that to it.
3
SPEAKER_01
It wasn t like fulfilling a lifelong dream or anything.
3
SPEAKER_01
I just thought, you know, let s play.
3
SPEAKER_01
So it s just a cool tournament?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s a cool tournament.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s a good challenge, you know.
3
SPEAKER_01
Why not?
3
SPEAKER_01
It s something that could be a motivation.
3
SPEAKER_01
It motivated me to get in the best shape of my life that I had been until then.
3
SPEAKER_01
So it was a good thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the 2013 match brought me a lot of joy as well.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I m very, very happy that I
3
SPEAKER_01
that I did that, but I never had any thoughts that I m going to keep the title for a long time.
3
SPEAKER_01
Immediately after the match in 2013, I mean, also before the match, I d spoken against the fact that the champion is seeded into the final, which I thought was unfair.
3
SPEAKER_01
After the match, I made a proposal that we have a different system where the champion doesn t have these privileges.
3
SPEAKER_01
And people s reaction, both players and chess community, was generally like, OK, we re good.
3
SPEAKER_01
We don t want that.
3
SPEAKER_01
You keep your privileges.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was like, OK, whatever.
3
SPEAKER_01
So you want to fight for it every time?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
I want that.
3
SPEAKER_00
I have to ask, just in case you have an opinion, if you can, maybe from a fantasy chess perspective, analyze Ding versus Nepo, who wins?
3
SPEAKER_00
The current, the two people that would play if you re not playing.
3
SPEAKER_01
Generally, I would consider that Ding has a slightly better overall chest strength.
3
SPEAKER_00
What are the strengths and weaknesses of each if you can kind of summarize it?
3
SPEAKER_01
So Nepo, his
3
SPEAKER_01
even better at calculating short lines than I am.
3
SPEAKER_01
But he can sometimes lack a little bit of depth.
3
SPEAKER_01
In short lines, he s an absolute calculation monster.
3
SPEAKER_01
He s extremely quick, but he can sometimes lack a bit of depth.
3
SPEAKER_01
Also recently, he s improved his openings quite a bit.
3
SPEAKER_01
So now he has a lot of good ideas and he s very, very
3
SPEAKER_01
solid.
3
SPEAKER_01
Ding is not quite as well prepared, but he has an excellent understanding of dynamics and imbalances in chess, I would say.
3
SPEAKER_01
What do you mean by imbalances?
3
SPEAKER_01
Imbalances like bishops against knights and material imbalances.
3
SPEAKER_01
He can take advantage of those.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yes, I would say he s very, very good at that and understanding the dynamic factors, as we call them, like material versus time, especially.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think Nepo got the better of him and the candidates.
3
SPEAKER_00
So what s your sense why Ding has an edge in the championship?
3
SPEAKER_01
I feel like individual past results hasn t necessarily been a great indicator of World Championship results.
3
SPEAKER_01
I feel like overall strength is more important.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, to be fair, I only think Ding has a very small edge.
3
SPEAKER_01
The difference is not big at all.
3
SPEAKER_01
But our individual head-to-head record was probably the main reason that a lot of people thought Nepo had a good chance against me as well.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was like 4-1 in his favor before the match, but that was just another example of why that may not necessarily mean anything.
4
SPEAKER_00
Also, in our case, it was a very low sample size.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think about the size of the match in total, 14 games, and that generally doesn t mean much.
4
SPEAKER_01
How close were those games, would you say, in your mind for the previous championship?
4
SPEAKER_01
So that game six was a turning point where you won.
4
SPEAKER_01
Was there any doubt in your mind that, you know, like if you do a much larger sample size, that you ll get the better of Nepo?
4
SPEAKER_00
No, no, larger sample size is always good for me.
4
SPEAKER_00
So World Championship, it s a great parallel to football because it s a low scoring game.
4
SPEAKER_00
And if the better player or the better team scores, they win.
4
SPEAKER_00
most of the time.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, that s generally for, for big, for championships or in general?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
For, for championships.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like they generally, generally win, uh, because the other slightly weaker team, they re good enough to defend, to make it very, very difficult.
4
SPEAKER_00
for the others, but when they actually have to create the chances, then they have no chance.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then it very often ends with a blowout as it did in our match.
4
SPEAKER_00
If I hadn t won game six, it probably would have been very, very close.
4
SPEAKER_00
He might have edged it.
4
SPEAKER_00
there s obviously a bigger chance that I would have edged it.
4
SPEAKER_00
But this is just what happens a lot in chess, but also in football, that matches are close and then they... Somebody scores.
4
SPEAKER_00
Somebody scores and then things change.
4
SPEAKER_00
And this gives people the illusion that the matchup was very close.
4
SPEAKER_00
Which, well, actually it just means that the nature of the game makes
4
SPEAKER_00
the matches close very often, but it s always much more likely that one of the teams is going to, or one of the players is going to break away than the others.
4
SPEAKER_00
And in other matches as well, even though a lot of people before the match in 2016 against, against Karjakin, there were people who thought before the match that I was massively overrated as, as, as a favorite and that
4
SPEAKER_00
Essentially, the match was pretty, pretty close, like whatever, 60-40, or some people even say like 55-45.
4
SPEAKER_00
And what I felt was that match went very, very wrong for me, and I still won.
4
SPEAKER_00
And some people saw that as an indication that the pre-match probabilities were probably a bit closer than people thought.
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, I would look at it in the way that everything went wrong, and I still won, which probably means that I was
4
SPEAKER_00
Pretty big favorite to begin with.
4
SPEAKER_01
I do have a question to you about that match, but first, so Sergei Karyakin was originally a qualifier for the candidate tournament, but was disqualified for breaching the Fedya Code of Ethics after publicly expressing approval for the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
4
SPEAKER_01
When you look at the Cold War and some of the US versus Russian games of the past, does politics,
4
SPEAKER_01
that some of this geopolitics, politics ever creep its way into the game?
4
SPEAKER_01
Do you feel the pressure, the immensity of that as it does sometimes for the Olympics, you know, these big nations playing each other, competing against each other, almost like fighting out in a friendly way, the battles, the tensions that they have in the space of geopolitics?
4
SPEAKER_00
I think it still does.
4
SPEAKER_00
So the president of the World Chess Federation who was just reelected is a Russian.
4
SPEAKER_00
I like him personally, for sure.
4
SPEAKER_00
But he is quite connected to the Kremlin.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it s quite clear that the Kremlin considers it at least a semi-important goal to bring the chess crown home to Russia.
4
SPEAKER_00
So it s still
4
SPEAKER_00
It s still definitely a factor.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I mean, I can answer for in the karaoke case, like, I don t have a strong opinion on whether he should have been banned or not.
4
SPEAKER_00
Obviously, I don t agree with anything that he says.
4
SPEAKER_00
But in principle, I think that you should ban either no Russians or all Russians.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m generally not particularly against either, but I don t love banning wrong opinions, even if they are as reprehensible as his have been.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, there s something about the World Chess Championships or the Olympics where it feels like banning is counterproductive to the alleviating some of the conflicts.
4
SPEAKER_00
We don t know.
4
SPEAKER_00
This is the thing, though.
4
SPEAKER_00
We really don t know about the long term conflicts.
4
SPEAKER_00
And a lot of people try to do the right thing in this sense, which I don t really blame at all.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s just that we don t know.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I guess sometimes there are other ways you want to try and help as well.
4
SPEAKER_01
See, like within the competition, within some of those battles of US versus Russia or so on of the past, there s also between the individuals, maybe you ll disagree with this, but from a spectator perspective, there s still a camaraderie.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like at the end of the day, there s a thing that unites you, which is this like appreciation of the fight over the chessboard.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s even if you hate each other.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, for sure.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think for
4
SPEAKER_00
every match that s been, you would briefly discuss the game with your opponent after the game, no matter how much you hate each other.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s lovely.
4
SPEAKER_00
And Kasparov, I mean, he was quoted, like when somebody in his team asked him, like, why are you talking to Karpov after the game?
4
SPEAKER_00
Like, you hate that guy.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he s like,
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, sure, but he s the only one who understands.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, the only one who understands.
4
SPEAKER_00
So that s, no, I think that s really lovely.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I would love to see that in other areas as well, that you can, regardless of what happens, you can have a good chat about the game.
4
SPEAKER_00
You can just talk about the ideas with people who understand what you understand.
4
SPEAKER_01
So if you re not playing the World Championships, there s a lot of people
4
SPEAKER_01
who are saying that perhaps the world championships don t matter anymore.
4
SPEAKER_01
Do you think there s some truth to that?
4
SPEAKER_00
I said that back a long time ago as well, that for me, I don t know if it never happened, so I don t know what would have happened, but I was thinking like the moment
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that I realized that I m not the best player in the world.
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I felt like morally I have to renounce the World Championship title, you know?
4
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Because it doesn t mean anything as long as you re not the best player.
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So the ratings really tell a bigger, a clearer story.
4
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I think so, at least over time.
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I m a lot more proud of
4
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my streak of being rated number one in the world, which is now since I think the summer of 2011.
4
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I m a lot more proud of that than the world championships.
4
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How much anxiety or even fear do you have before making a difficult decision on the chessboard?
4
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So when it s a high stakes game,
4
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How nervous do you get?
4
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How much anxiety do you have in all that calculations?
4
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You re sitting there for 10, 15 minutes because you re in a fog.
4
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There s always the possibility of a blunder, of a mistake.
4
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Are you anxious about it?
4
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Are you afraid of it?
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Really depends.
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I have been at times.
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I think the most nervous I ve ever been was
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game 10 of the world championships in 2018.
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That was just a thrilling game.
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I was black.
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I basically abandoned the queen side at some point to attack him on the king side.
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And I knew that
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my attack.
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If it doesn t work, I m going to lose.
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But I had so much adrenaline.
4
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So that was that was fine.
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I thought I was going to win.
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Then at some point, I realized that it s not so clear.
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And my time was ticking.
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And I was just getting so nervous.
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I still remember
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what happened, like, we played this time trouble phase where he had very little time, but I had even less.
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And I just remember, I can t remember much of it, just that when it was over, I was just so relieved because then it was clear that the position was probably gonna peer out in a draw.
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Otherwise, I m often nervous before games, but when I get there,
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It s all business.
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And especially when I m playing well, I m never afraid of losing when I play because I trust my instincts, I trust my skills.
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How much psychological intimidation is there from you to the other person, from the other person to you?
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I think people would play a lot better if they played
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against an anonymous me.
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I would love to.
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Oh, people are scared of you.
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I would love to have a tournament online where let s say you play 10 of the best players in the world and you don t for each round, you don t know who you re playing.
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That s an interesting question.
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SPEAKER_01
You know, like, there s these, like, videos where people eat McDonald s or Burger King or Diet Coke versus Diet Pepsi.
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Would people be able to tell they re playing you, like, from the style of play, do you think?
4
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Or from the strength of play?
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If there was a decent sample size, sure.
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And what about you?
4
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Would you be able to tell others?
4
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In just one game?
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Very unlikely.
4
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What sample size would you need to tell accurately?
4
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I feel like it s a science.
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Yeah, I think 20 games would help a lot.
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Per person.
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Yeah.
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But I know that they ve already developed AI bots that are pretty good at recognizing somebody s style.
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Okay.
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Which is quite fascinating.
4
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And it d be fascinating if those bots were able to summarize the style somehow.
4
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Maybe great attacking chess, like some of the same characteristics you ve been describing, like great at short line calculations, all that kind of stuff.
4
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Or just talk shit.
4
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No, but really all the best chess players, there are basically just two camps.
4
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People who are good at longer lines or shorter lines.
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It s the hare and the tortoise, basically.
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And sometimes, you know, I feel like I m the closest you can get to a hybrid of those.
4
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Because you re good in every position, so the middle game and the end game.
4
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Yeah, and also I can think to some extent both rapidly and deeply, which a lot of people, they can t do both.
4
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But to answer your question from before, I think, yeah, I sometimes can get a little bit intimidated by my opponent.
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It s mostly if there s something unknown.
4
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It s mostly if it s something that I don t understand fully.
4
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And I do think, especially when I m playing well, people, they just play more timidly against me than they do against each other, sometimes without even realizing it.
4
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And I certainly use that to my advantage.
4
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If I sense that my opponent is apprehensive, if I sense that
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they re not going to necessarily take all their chances.
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It just means that I can take more risk.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I always try and find that balance.
4
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To shake them up a little bit.
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Yeah.
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What s been the toughest loss of your career that you remember?
4
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Would that be the...
4
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the World Championship match?
4
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Oh yeah, for sure.
4
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Game 8 in 2016.
4
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And who was it against?
4
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Against Karjakin in New York.
4
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Can you take it through the story of that game?
4
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Where were you before that game in terms of Game 1 through 7?
4
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Yeah, so game one and two, not much happened.
4
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Game three and four, I was winning in both of them.
4
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And normally, I should definitely have converted both.
4
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I couldn t, partly due to
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good defense on his part, but mostly because I just, I messed up.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then after that games five, six and seven, not much happened.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was getting impatient at that point.
4
SPEAKER_00
So for
4
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Game eight, I was probably ready to take a little bit more risks than I had before, which I guess was insane because I knew that he couldn t beat me unless I beat myself.
4
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Like he wasn t strong enough to outplay me.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that was leading to impatience somehow and impatience.
4
SPEAKER_00
No, because I knew that I was better.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
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I knew that I was better.
4
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I knew that I just needed to win one game and then the match is over.
4
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Yeah.
4
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That s what happened in 2021 as well.
4
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Like when I won the first game against Napo, I knew that the match was over unless I like fuck up royally, then he s not going to be able to beat me.
4
SPEAKER_00
So what happened was that I played a kind of innocuous opening as White, just trying to get a game, trying to get him out of book as soon as possible.
4
SPEAKER_00
Then... Can you elaborate innocuous, get him out of the book?
4
SPEAKER_00
No, but basically I set up pretty defensively as White.
4
SPEAKER_00
I wasn t really crossing into his half at the start at all.
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SPEAKER_00
I was just, I played more like a system more than like a concrete openings.
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SPEAKER_00
It was like, I m going to set up my pieces this way.
4
SPEAKER_00
You can set them up however you want.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then later we re sort of, the armies are going to meet.
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I m not going to try and bother you at the start.
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SPEAKER_01
And that means you can have with as many pieces as possible, kind of pure chess in the middle game without any of the lines, the extended lines in the opening.
4
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so there was at some point, a couple of exchanges, then some maneuvering, flip a little bit better.
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SPEAKER_00
Then he was sort of equalizing.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then I started to take too many risks and I was still sort of fine.
4
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But
4
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Then at some point, I realized that I d gone a bit too far and I had to be really careful.
4
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Then I just froze.
4
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I just completely froze.
4
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Mentally?
4
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Yeah, mentally.
4
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What happened?
4
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I realized that, I mean, all the thoughts of
4
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I might lose this, what have I done?
4
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Why did I take so many risks?
4
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I knew that I could have drawn at any moment.
4
SPEAKER_00
Just be patient, don t give him these opportunities.
4
SPEAKER_00
What triggered that face transition in your mind?
4
SPEAKER_00
No, it was just a position on the board, like realizing there was one particular move he played that I missed, and then I realized this could potentially not go my way.
4
SPEAKER_00
So then I made another couple of mistakes and he, to his credit, once he realized he had the chance, he knew that this was his one chance.
4
SPEAKER_00
He had to take it.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so he did.
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SPEAKER_00
And yeah, that s the worst I ve ever felt after a chess game.
4
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I realized that I m probably going to lose my title against somebody who s not even close to my level.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I ve done it because of my own stupidity, most of all.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that was...
4
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Really, really.
4
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At the time, I was all in my own head.
4
SPEAKER_00
That was hard to deal with.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I felt like I didn t really recover too much for the next game.
4
SPEAKER_00
So what I did, there was a free day after the eighth game.
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So I did something that I never did at any other World Championship.
4
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After game eight, I just... I got drunk with my team.
4
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That s not a standard procedure.
4
SPEAKER_00
No, no, that s the only time that s happened in the World Championship during the match.
4
SPEAKER_00
So yeah, I just tried to forget.
4
SPEAKER_00
But still, before Game 9, I was a little bit more relaxed, but I was still a bit nervous.
4
SPEAKER_00
Then Game 9, I was almost lost as well.
4
SPEAKER_00
Then only Game 10.
4
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Game 10, I wasn t in a great mood.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was really, really tense.
5
SPEAKER_01
The opening was good.
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SPEAKER_01
I had some advantage.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was getting optimistic.
5
SPEAKER_01
Then I made one mistake.
5
SPEAKER_01
He could have forced a draw.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then all the negativity came back.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was thinking during the game, like, how am I going to play for a win with black in the next game?
5
SPEAKER_01
What am I doing?
5
SPEAKER_01
And then, you know, eventually it ended well.
5
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He didn t find the right line.
5
SPEAKER_01
I ground him down.
5
SPEAKER_01
Actually, I played at some point pretty well in the endgame.
5
SPEAKER_01
And after that game, there was such a weight lifted.
5
SPEAKER_01
After that, there was no thought of losing the match whatsoever.
5
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I knew that I d basically gotten away with
5
SPEAKER_01
Not with murder, but gotten away with something.
5
SPEAKER_00
What can you say about the after game eight?
5
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Where are the places you ve gone in your mind?
5
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Do you go to some dark places?
5
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We re talking about like depression.
5
SPEAKER_00
Do you think about quitting at that point?
5
SPEAKER_01
No, I mean, I think about quitting every time I lose a classical game.
5
SPEAKER_01
Or at least I used to.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, like, especially if it s in a stupid way.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m thinking like, okay, if I m gonna, gonna play like this, if I m gonna do things that I know are wrong, then you know, I might as well quit.
5
SPEAKER_01
No, that s happened a bunch of times and I ve definitely gotten a bit more carefree about losing these days, which is not necessarily a good thing.
5
SPEAKER_01
My hatred of losing led to me not losing a lot and it also lit the fire under me that
5
SPEAKER_01
I think my performance after losses in classical chess over the last 10 years is like over 2,900.
5
SPEAKER_01
I really play well after a loss, even though it s really, really unpleasant.
5
SPEAKER_01
So apparently I
5
SPEAKER_01
I don t think the way that I dealt with them is particularly healthy, but it s worked.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s worked so far.
5
SPEAKER_00
But then you ve discovered now a love for winning to where ultimately, longevity-wise, creates more fun.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, for sure.
5
SPEAKER_00
What s the perfect day in the life of Magnus Carlsen on a day of a big chess match?
5
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It doesn t have to be World Championship, but if it s a chess match you care about, what time do you wake up?
5
SPEAKER_00
What do you eat?
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, it depends on when the game is.
5
SPEAKER_01
But let s say the game is at three.
5
SPEAKER_01
I ll probably wake up pretty late at about 11.
5
SPEAKER_01
Then I ll
5
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go for a walk, might listen to some podcasts.
5
SPEAKER_01
Maybe I ll spend a little bit of time looking at some NBA game from last night or whatever.
5
SPEAKER_01
So not chess related stuff?
5
SPEAKER_01
No, no, no, no.
5
SPEAKER_01
Then I ll
5
SPEAKER_01
I ll get back, I ll have a big lunch, like usually like a big omelette with a bunch of salad and stuff.
5
SPEAKER_01
Then go to the game, win like a very nice clean game.
5
SPEAKER_01
Perfect day.
5
SPEAKER_01
Just go back after, relax.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like the things that make me the happiest at tournaments is just having a good routine and feeling well.
5
SPEAKER_01
I don t like it when too much is happening around me.
5
SPEAKER_01
So the tournament that I came from now was the Chess Olympiad, which is a team event.
5
SPEAKER_01
So we were team Norway.
5
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We did horribly.
5
SPEAKER_01
I did okay, but the team in general did horribly.
5
SPEAKER_00
Who won that, Italy?
5
SPEAKER_01
No, Italy beat us, but Uzbekistan won in the end.
5
SPEAKER_01
They were this amazing team of young players.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was really impressive.
5
SPEAKER_01
But the thing is, we had a good camaraderie in the team.
5
SPEAKER_01
We had our meals together.
5
SPEAKER_01
We played a bit of football, went swimming.
5
SPEAKER_01
I couldn t understand why things went wrong, and I still don t understand.
5
SPEAKER_01
But the thing is, for me, it was all very nice.
5
SPEAKER_01
But now I m so happy to be on my own at a tournament, just to have my own routines, not see too many people.
5
SPEAKER_01
Otherwise, just have like a very small team of people that I see.
5
SPEAKER_00
You are a kind of celebrity now, so people within the chess tournament and outside recognize you, want to socialize, want to tell you about how much you mean to them, how much you inspire them, all that kind of stuff.
5
SPEAKER_00
Does that get in the way for you when you re trying to really focus on the match?
5
SPEAKER_00
Are you able to enjoy those little interactions and still keep your focus?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, most of the time that s fine, as long as it s not too much.
5
SPEAKER_01
But I have to admit, when I m at home in Norway, I rarely go out without big headphones and something.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, like a disguise?
5
SPEAKER_01
No, not a disguise, just to block out the world.
5
SPEAKER_01
Otherwise... Don t make eye contact.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so the thing is,
5
SPEAKER_01
People in general are nice.
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, people, they wish me well.
5
SPEAKER_01
And they don t like bother me.
5
SPEAKER_01
Also, when I have the headphones on, I don t notice as much people like turning around and all of that.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I can be more of in my own world.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I like that.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
What about in this perfect day after the game?
5
SPEAKER_00
Do you try to analyze what happened?
5
SPEAKER_00
Do you try to think through systematically or do you just kind of loosely think about like... No, I just loosely think about it.
5
SPEAKER_01
I ve never been very structured in that sense.
5
SPEAKER_01
I know that it was always recommended that you analyze your own games, but I generally felt that I mostly had a good idea about that.
5
SPEAKER_01
Nowadays, I will loosely see what the engine says at a certain point if I m curious about that.
5
SPEAKER_01
Otherwise, I usually move on to the next.
5
SPEAKER_00
What about diet?
5
SPEAKER_00
You said omelet and salad and so on.
5
SPEAKER_00
I heard in your conversation with the other Magnus, Magnus number two, about, you had like this bet about meat.
5
SPEAKER_00
One of you are gonna go vegan if you lose, I forget which bet.
5
SPEAKER_00
Vegetarian though.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, vegetarian, sorry.
5
SPEAKER_00
And you both have an admiration for meat.
5
SPEAKER_00
Is there,
5
SPEAKER_00
Is there some aspect about optimal performance that you look for in food?
5
SPEAKER_00
Like maybe eating only like once or twice a day or a particular kind of food, like meat heavy diet.
5
SPEAKER_00
Is there anything like that?
5
SPEAKER_00
Or are you just trying to have fun with the food?
5
SPEAKER_01
I think whenever I m at tournaments, like it s very natural to eat, at least for me to eat only twice a day.
5
SPEAKER_01
So usually I do that when I m at home as well.
5
SPEAKER_00
So you do eat before the tournament though?
5
SPEAKER_00
You don t play fasted?
5
SPEAKER_01
No, no, no.
5
SPEAKER_01
But I try not to eat too heavy before the game or in general to avoid sugary stuff to have a pretty stable blood sugar level.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because that s the easiest way to make a mistake that your energy levels just suddenly drop.
5
SPEAKER_01
And they don t necessarily need to be too high as long as they re pretty stable, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Have you ever tried playing fasted, like intermittent fasting, so playing without having eaten?
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, the reason I ask, especially when you do a low-carb diet, when I ve done, personally, a low-carb diet, I m able to fast for a long time, like eat once a day, maybe twice a day, but the mind is most focused on really difficult,
5
SPEAKER_00
thinking tasks when it s fasted.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s an interesting, and a lot of people kind of talk about that.
5
SPEAKER_00
You re able to kind of like zoom in, and if you re doing a low-carb diet, you don t have the energy stable.
5
SPEAKER_01
That is true.
5
SPEAKER_01
Maybe that will be interesting to try.
5
SPEAKER_01
So what s happened for me is I played a few tournaments where I ve had food poisoning.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then that generally means that you re both sleep deprived, then you have no energy.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
And what I ve found is that
5
SPEAKER_01
It makes me very calm, of course, because I don t have the energy.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it makes me super creative.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like being sleep deprived, I think in general, makes you creative.
5
SPEAKER_01
The first thing that goes away is the ability to do the simple things.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s what affects you the most.
5
SPEAKER_01
You cannot be precise.
5
SPEAKER_01
So that s the only thing I m worried about.
5
SPEAKER_01
If I m fasted, I won t be precise when I play.
5
SPEAKER_00
But you might be more creative.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s an interesting trade-off.
5
SPEAKER_00
Fasted, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Potentially.
5
SPEAKER_00
What about, you have been known to, on a rare occasion, play drunk.
5
SPEAKER_00
Is there a mathematical formula for, sort of, on the x-axis, how many drinks you had, and on the y-axis, your performance slash creativity?
5
SPEAKER_00
Is there, like, an optimal for, like, one of the, would you suggest, for the FIDIA World Championship, that people would be required to drink?
5
SPEAKER_00
Would that change things in interesting ways?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, not at all.
5
SPEAKER_01
Maybe for Rapid, but for Blitz, I think if you re playing Blitz, you re mostly playing on short calculation and intuition.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I think those are probably enhanced if you ve had a little bit to drink.
5
SPEAKER_00
Can you explain the physiology of why it s enhanced?
5
SPEAKER_01
You re thinking less, you re more confident.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yeah, I think, I think it s just confidence.
5
SPEAKER_01
I think also like a lot of people feel like they re better at
5
SPEAKER_01
speaking languages, for instance, if they ve drunk a little bit, it s just like removing these barriers.
5
SPEAKER_01
I think that it s a little bit of the same in chess.
5
SPEAKER_01
In 2012, I played the World Blitz Championship and then I was doing horribly for a long time.
5
SPEAKER_01
I also had food poisoning there.
5
SPEAKER_01
I couldn t play at all for three days.
5
SPEAKER_01
So before the last break, I was like in the middle of
5
SPEAKER_01
the pack like in, I don t know, 20th place or something.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so I decided like, as the last, last gasp, I m going to go to the minibar and just have a few drinks.
5
SPEAKER_01
And what happened is that I came back and I was suddenly relaxed.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I was playing fast and I was playing confident.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I thought I was playing so well.
5
SPEAKER_01
I wasn t playing nearly as well as I thought, but it still helped me, like I won my remaining eight games.
5
SPEAKER_01
And if there had been one more round, I probably would have won the whole thing, but finally I was second.
5
SPEAKER_01
So generally I wouldn t recommend that, but maybe as a last resort sometimes, like if you feel that you have the ability, like obviously none of this
5
SPEAKER_01
is remotely relevant if you don t feel like you have the ability to begin with.
5
SPEAKER_01
But if you feel like you have the ability, there are just factors that make it impossible for you to show it.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like, numbing your mind a bit can probably be a good thing.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, well, it s interesting, especially during training, you have all kinds of sports that have interacted with a lot of athletes and grappling sports.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s different when you train under extreme exhaustion.
5
SPEAKER_00
For example, you start to discover interesting things, you start being more creative.
5
SPEAKER_00
A lot of people, at least in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, they ll smoke weed.
5
SPEAKER_00
It creates this kind of anxiety and relaxation that kind of...
5
SPEAKER_00
enables that creative aspect.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s interesting for training.
5
SPEAKER_00
Of course, you can t rely on any one of those things too much, but it s cool to throw in a few drinks every once in a while to, yeah, one, first of all, to relax and have fun, and two, to try things differently, to unlock a different part of your brain.
5
SPEAKER_00
What about supplements?
5
SPEAKER_00
Are you a coffee guy?
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, no.
5
SPEAKER_01
I quite like the taste of coffee.
5
SPEAKER_01
But the thing is, I ve never had a job.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I ve never needed to wake up early.
5
SPEAKER_01
So my thought is basically that if I m tired, I m tired.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s fine.
5
SPEAKER_01
Then I ll, you know, then I ll work it out.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I don t want to ever make my brain get used to get used to coffee.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like if you see me drinking coffee, that s
5
SPEAKER_01
that probably means that I m massively, massively hungover, and I don t, I just want to try anything to make my brain work.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s interesting.
5
SPEAKER_00
But for a lot of people, like you said, taste of coffee, for a lot of people, coffee is part of a certain kind of ritual.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, for sure.
5
SPEAKER_00
That they enjoy, you know?
5
SPEAKER_00
So, hopefully you can have rituals without that.
5
SPEAKER_01
I know that I would enjoy it a lot.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Just so you don t want to rely on it.
5
SPEAKER_01
I also like the taste, so there s no problem there.
5
SPEAKER_00
What about exercise?
5
SPEAKER_00
A lot of people talk about the extreme stress that chess puts in your body, physically and mentally.
5
SPEAKER_00
How do you prepare for that to be physically and mentally?
5
SPEAKER_00
Is it just through playing chess, or do you do cardio and any of that kind of stuff?
5
SPEAKER_01
This has gone a bit up and down.
5
SPEAKER_01
As I said, in 2013, I was in great shape.
5
SPEAKER_01
Generally, I was exercising, doing sports every day, either playing football or tennis or even other sports.
5
SPEAKER_01
Otherwise, if I couldn t do that, I would try and take my bike for a ride.
5
SPEAKER_01
I had a few training camps and I played tennis against one of my seconds.
5
SPEAKER_01
He s not a super fit guy, but he s always been very good at tennis.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I never played in any organized way.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that was the perfect exercise because I was running around enough to make the games pretty competitive.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it meant that he had to run a bit less as well.
5
SPEAKER_01
But he was just, he said like,
5
SPEAKER_01
he was shocked that if we played like for two hours, I wouldn t flinch at all.
5
SPEAKER_01
Interesting.
5
SPEAKER_00
So like a combination of fun and the differential between skill result in good cardio.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but it s just that.
5
SPEAKER_01
So in those days, I was pretty fit in that sense.
5
SPEAKER_01
I ve always liked doing sports, but at times, you know,
5
SPEAKER_01
I think in winter especially, I never had a schedule.
5
SPEAKER_01
So at times I let myself go a little bit.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I ve always kind of done it more for fun than for a concrete benefit.
5
SPEAKER_01
But now, at least after the pandemic, I was not in great shape.
5
SPEAKER_01
So now I m trying to get back, get better habits and so on.
5
SPEAKER_01
I feel like I ve always been the poster boy for making being fit a big thing in chess.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I always felt that it was not really deserved because I never liked doing weights much at all.
5
SPEAKER_01
run a bit at times, but I never liked it too much.
5
SPEAKER_01
You just love playing sports.
5
SPEAKER_01
I just love playing sports.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I think people confuse that because I m not like massively athletic, but I am decent at sports and that s sort of how I built that.
5
SPEAKER_01
that perception, even though others who are top-level chess players, they re more fit.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like Carvana, for instance, he s really, really... His body is really, really strong.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s just that he doesn t... He goes to the gym and... Yeah, he doesn t play sports.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s the difference.
5
SPEAKER_00
And the thing about sports is also just...
5
SPEAKER_00
It s an escape.
5
SPEAKER_00
It helps you forget for a brief moment about the obsessions, the pursuits of the main thing, which is chess.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, for sure.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I think it also helps your main pursuit to feel that you re not mastering, but doing well in something else.
5
SPEAKER_01
I found that if I just juggle a ball, that makes me feel better.
6
SPEAKER_00
that I remember before a game.
6
SPEAKER_00
So a skilled activity.
6
SPEAKER_01
Like a juggle of football, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, skilled activity that you can improve on over time.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s like flexes the same kind of muscle, but another thing that you re much worse at.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
It focuses you, relaxes you, that s really interesting.
6
SPEAKER_00
What s the perfect day in the life of Magnus Carlsen when he s training?
6
SPEAKER_00
So what s a good training regimen in terms of daily kind of training that you have to put in across many days, months, and years to just keep yourself sharp in terms of chess?
6
SPEAKER_01
I would say when I m at home, I do very, very little deliberate practice.
6
SPEAKER_01
I ve never been that guy at all.
6
SPEAKER_01
I could never force myself to just sit down and work.
6
SPEAKER_00
So deliberate practice, just so maybe you can educate me, for some grandmasters, what would that look like?
6
SPEAKER_00
Just doing puzzles kind of thing?
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, doing puzzles and opening analysis.
6
SPEAKER_01
That would be the main things.
6
SPEAKER_01
Studying games?
6
SPEAKER_01
To studying games, yeah, a little bit.
6
SPEAKER_01
But I feel like that s something that I do.
6
SPEAKER_01
But it s not deliberate.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s like reading an article or reading a book.
6
SPEAKER_01
Like I love chess books.
6
SPEAKER_01
I ll read just anything and I ll find something interesting.
6
SPEAKER_00
So chess books that are like on openings and stuff like that, or chess books that go over different games?
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, both.
6
SPEAKER_01
So there are three main categories.
6
SPEAKER_01
There are books on openings and there are books on strategy and there are books on chess history.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I find all of them very, very interesting.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like what fraction of the day would you say you have a chessboard floating somewhere in your head?
6
SPEAKER_00
Meaning like, you re thinking about it.
6
SPEAKER_01
Probably be a better question to ask how many hours a day I don t have a chessboard floating in my head.
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it could be just floating there and nothing s happening, but like... I often do it parallel to some other activity though.
6
SPEAKER_00
And what does that look like?
6
SPEAKER_00
Like, are you daydreaming like different...
6
SPEAKER_00
Is it actual positions you re just fucking around with, like fumbling with different pieces in your head?
6
SPEAKER_01
Often, I ve looked at a random game on my phone, for instance, or in a book, and then my brain just keeps going at the same position, analyzing it, and often it goes all the way, you know, to the end game.
6
SPEAKER_00
And those are actual games, or you conjure up, like, fake games?
6
SPEAKER_01
No, they were often based on real games.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then I m thinking like, oh, but it wouldn t be more interesting if the pieces were a little bit different.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then often I play it out from there.
6
SPEAKER_00
So you don t have a, like you don t sit behind a computer or a chess board and you lay out the pieces.
6
SPEAKER_01
No, I m not at all a poster boy for deliberate practice.
6
SPEAKER_01
I could never, I could never work that way.
6
SPEAKER_01
My first coach, he gave me some,
6
SPEAKER_01
exercises at home sometimes, but he realized at some point that wasn t going to work.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
Because I wouldn t do it really or enjoy it.
6
SPEAKER_01
So what he would do instead is that at the school where I had the trainings with him, there was
6
SPEAKER_01
this massive chess library.
6
SPEAKER_01
So he was just like, yeah, pick out books.
6
SPEAKER_01
You can have anything.
6
SPEAKER_01
You can have anything you want.
6
SPEAKER_01
Just pick out books you like, and then you give back the next time.
6
SPEAKER_01
So that s what I did instead.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I just absolutely raided.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then my next tournament, I will try out one of the openings from that book if it was an opening book and so on.
6
SPEAKER_00
Does it feel like a struggle, like challenging?
6
SPEAKER_00
Like to be thinking of those positions or is it fun and relaxing?
6
SPEAKER_01
No, it s completely fine.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t... Like if it s a difficult position to figure out, you know, like to calculate.
6
SPEAKER_01
Then I go on to something else.
6
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
6
SPEAKER_01
Like if I can t figure it out, then, you know, I go on.
6
SPEAKER_00
Change it so that it s easier to figure out.
6
SPEAKER_00
There was a point in your life where Kasparov was interested in being your coach or at least training with you.
6
SPEAKER_00
Why did you choose not to go with him?
6
SPEAKER_00
That s a pretty bold move.
6
SPEAKER_00
Was there a good reason for this?
6
SPEAKER_01
No.
6
SPEAKER_01
The first homework exercise he gave me was to analyze.
6
SPEAKER_01
He picked out, I think, three or four of my worst losses and he wanted me to analyze them and give him my thoughts.
6
SPEAKER_01
And it wasn t that there were painful losses or anything.
6
SPEAKER_01
that was a problem.
6
SPEAKER_01
I just didn t really enjoy that.
6
SPEAKER_01
Also, I felt that this whole structured approach and everything, I just felt like from the start, it was a hassle.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I loved the idea of being able to pick his brain.
6
SPEAKER_01
But everything else, I just, you know, couldn t see myself, couldn t see myself enjoying and
6
SPEAKER_01
At the end of the day, I did then and always have played for fun.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s always been my main reason.
6
SPEAKER_00
So it s great that you had the confidence to sort of basically turn down the approach of one of the greatest chess players of all time at that time, probably the greatest chess player of all time.
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t think I thought of it that way.
6
SPEAKER_01
I just thought this is not for me.
6
SPEAKER_01
I want to try another way.
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t think I was particularly thinking that this is my one opportunity or anything.
6
SPEAKER_01
It was just, yeah, I don t enjoy this.
6
SPEAKER_01
Let s try something else.
6
SPEAKER_00
When you were 13, you faced Kasparov and he wasn t able to beat you.
6
SPEAKER_00
Can you go through that match?
6
SPEAKER_00
What did that feel like?
6
SPEAKER_00
How important was that?
6
SPEAKER_00
How epic was that?
6
SPEAKER_00
We played three games.
6
SPEAKER_00
I lost two and I drew one.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right.
6
SPEAKER_00
But one draw.
6
SPEAKER_01
No, the one draw.
6
SPEAKER_00
But didn t you say that you kind of had a better position in that?
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I remember that day very well.
6
SPEAKER_01
There was a Blitz game.
6
SPEAKER_01
This was a Rapid tournament.
6
SPEAKER_01
And there was a Blitz tournament the day before, which determined the pairings for the Rapids.
6
SPEAKER_00
And for people who don t know, super short games are called Bullet.
6
SPEAKER_00
Kind of short games are called Blitz.
6
SPEAKER_00
Semi-short games are called Rapid.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
And Classic Chess, I guess, is like very super long.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, basically, bullet is never played over the board.
6
SPEAKER_01
So in terms of over the board chess, blitz is the shortest.
6
SPEAKER_01
Rapid is like a hybrid between classical and blitz.
6
SPEAKER_01
You need to have the skills of both and then classical is like the blitz tournament, which
6
SPEAKER_01
didn t go so well.
6
SPEAKER_01
Like I got a couple of wins, but I was beaten badly in a lot of games, including by Gary.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so there was the pairing that I had to play him, which is pretty exciting.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I remember I was so tired after the Blitz tournament, like I slept for 12 hours or something that I woke up like, okay, I ll turn on my computer, I ll search chess space for Kasparov.
6
SPEAKER_00
And we ll go from there.
6
SPEAKER_01
So before that, I hadn t spent like a lot of time specifically studying his games.
6
SPEAKER_01
It was super intimidating because a lot of these openings I knew, I was like, oh, he was the first one to play that.
6
SPEAKER_01
Oh, that was his idea.
6
SPEAKER_01
I actually didn t know that.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I was a bit intimidated before we played.
6
SPEAKER_01
Then, of course, the first game, he arrived a bit late because they changed the time from the first day to the other, which was a bit strange, but everybody else had noticed it but him.
6
SPEAKER_01
Then he tried to surprise me in the opening.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think psychologically, the situation was not so easy for him.
6
SPEAKER_01
Clearly, it would be embarrassing for him if he didn t win both games against me.
6
SPEAKER_01
I was spending way too much time on my moves because I was playing Kasparov.
6
SPEAKER_01
I was double-checking everything too much.
6
SPEAKER_01
Normally, I would be playing pretty fast in those days.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then at some point, I calculated better than him.
6
SPEAKER_01
He missed a crucial detail and had a much better position.
6
SPEAKER_01
I couldn t convert it, though.
6
SPEAKER_01
I knew what line I had to go for in order to have a chance to win, but I thought, like, I ll play a bit more carefully.
6
SPEAKER_01
Maybe I can win still.
6
SPEAKER_01
I couldn t.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then I lost the second game pretty badly, which it wasn t majorly upsetting, but
6
SPEAKER_01
I felt that I had two black games against Kasparov, both in the Blitz and the Rapid, and I lost both of them without any fight whatsoever.
6
SPEAKER_01
I wasn t happy about that at all.
6
SPEAKER_01
That was like less than I thought I could be able to do.
6
SPEAKER_01
So to me, yeah, I was proud of that, but it was a gimmick.
6
SPEAKER_01
I was like a very strong IM that had GM strength.
6
SPEAKER_01
I was like,
6
SPEAKER_01
It can happen that a player of that strength makes a draw against Gary once in a while.
6
SPEAKER_01
But I mean, I understand I m 13, but like, still, I felt a bit more gimmicky than anything.
6
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I guess it s a good thing that made me noticed.
6
SPEAKER_00
But apart from that, it wasn t, you know.
6
SPEAKER_00
And for people who don t know, I am his international master and GM is grandmaster.
6
SPEAKER_00
And you were just on the, I guess, on the verge of becoming a youngest grandmaster ever.
6
SPEAKER_01
I was the second youngest ever.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think I m like the seventh youngest now.
6
SPEAKER_01
I mean, these kids these days.
6
SPEAKER_01
Kids these days.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
But I was the youngest grandmaster at the time in the world.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so there is a, you know, you say it s gimmicky, but there s a romantic notion, especially as things have turned out, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
Like... No, for sure.
6
SPEAKER_00
And have you talked to Gary since then about that?
6
SPEAKER_00
No, not really.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think he s embarrassed.
6
SPEAKER_01
He s still bitter, you think?
6
SPEAKER_01
No, I don t think he s bitter, but I think the game in itself was...
6
SPEAKER_01
was a bit embarrassing for him.
6
SPEAKER_01
Even he can t see past, like... No, no, no, I think he s completely fine with that.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think, like, in retrospect, it s a good story.
6
SPEAKER_01
He appreciates that.
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t think that s the problem, but it never made sense for me to broach the subject with him.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I just... It s funny, just having interacted with Gary, now having talked to you, there is a little thing you still hate losing.
6
SPEAKER_00
no matter how beautiful that moment is, because it s like, in a way it s a passing of the baton from one great champion to another, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
But you still just don t like the fact that you didn t play a good game from a Garry s perspective.
6
SPEAKER_00
He still is just annoyed probably that he could have played better.
6
SPEAKER_01
And we did, so we did work together in 2009 quite a lot.
6
SPEAKER_01
And that corporation ended early 2010.
6
SPEAKER_01
But we did play a lot of training games in 2009, which was interesting because he was still very, very strong.
6
SPEAKER_01
And at that time, it was fairly equal.
6
SPEAKER_01
He was outplaying me quite a bit, but I was fighting well.
6
SPEAKER_01
So it was pretty
6
SPEAKER_01
pretty even then.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I mean, I appreciate those games a lot more than some random game from when I was 13.
6
SPEAKER_01
And maybe I just don t know what I m talking about, but I ve always found it
6
SPEAKER_01
At least based on that game, you couldn t tell that I was going to take his spot.
6
SPEAKER_01
I made a horrible blunder and lost to an Uzbek kid in the World Rapid Championship in 2018.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I mean, granted, he was part of the team that now won gold in the Chess Olympiad, but he wasn t a crucial part.
6
SPEAKER_01
He barely played any games.
6
SPEAKER_01
It wasn t like I would think that he would become world champion because he beat me.
6
SPEAKER_01
I m always skeptical of those who said that they knew that I was going to be world champion after that game or at all at that time.
6
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it was easy to see that I would become a very, very strong player.
6
SPEAKER_01
Everybody could see that, but to be the best in the world or one of the best ever, it s hard to say.
6
SPEAKER_00
It is hard to say, but I do remember seeing Messi when he was 16 and 17.
6
SPEAKER_01
But hasn t that happened with other players though?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but I just had a personal experience.
6
SPEAKER_00
He did look different than...
6
SPEAKER_00
There s like magic there.
6
SPEAKER_00
Maybe you can t tell he would be one of the greatest ever, but there s still magic.
6
SPEAKER_00
But you re right, most of the time we re trying to project, we see a young kid being an older person and you start to think, okay, this could be the next great person.
6
SPEAKER_00
Then we forget when they don t become that.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, exactly.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s I think what happens.
6
SPEAKER_01
But when it does become- Or maybe some people are just,
6
SPEAKER_01
so good at seeing these patterns that they can actually see.
6
SPEAKER_00
Aren t you supposed to do that kind of thing with fantasy football, like see the long shot and bet on them and then they turn out to be good?
6
SPEAKER_00
No, you make a lot of long shot bets and then some of them come good.
6
SPEAKER_00
And then people call you a genius for making the bet.
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, let me ask you the goat question again, from fantasy perspective.
6
SPEAKER_00
Can you make the case for the greatest chess player of all time
6
SPEAKER_00
for each, yourself, Magnus Carlsen, for Garry Kasparov, I don t know who else, Bobby Fischer, Mikhail Tal, anyone else for Hikaru Nakamura?
6
SPEAKER_00
Just kidding.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think I can make a case for myself, for Garry and for Fischer.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I ll start with Fischer.
6
SPEAKER_01
For him, it s very, very simple.
6
SPEAKER_01
He was ahead of his time, but that s like intangible.
6
SPEAKER_01
You can say that about a lot of people, but he had a peak from 1970 to 72 when he was so much better than the others.
6
SPEAKER_01
He won 20 games in a row.
6
SPEAKER_01
Also the way that he played was so powerful and with so few mistakes that he just had no opposition there.
6
SPEAKER_01
So he had just a peak that s been.
6
SPEAKER_01
better than anybody.
6
SPEAKER_01
The gap between him and others was greater than it s ever been in history at any other time.
6
SPEAKER_01
And that would be the argument for him.
6
SPEAKER_01
For Gary, he s played in a very competitive era, and he s beaten several generations.
6
SPEAKER_01
He was the best
6
SPEAKER_01
Well, he was the consensus best player, I would say, for almost 20 years, which nobody else has done in, at least in recent time.
6
SPEAKER_01
So the longevity.
6
SPEAKER_01
The longevity, for sure.
6
SPEAKER_01
Also at his peak.
6
SPEAKER_01
He was not quite the level of Fischer in terms of the gap, but it was similar to or I think even a little bit better than mine.
6
SPEAKER_01
As for me, I m, of course, unbeaten as a world champion in five tries.
6
SPEAKER_01
I ve been world number one for 11 years straight.
6
SPEAKER_01
in an even more competitive era than Gary.
6
SPEAKER_01
I have the highest chess rating of all time.
6
SPEAKER_01
I have the longest streak ever without losing a game.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think for me, the main argument would be about the era where the engines have leveled the playing field so much that it s harder to dominate and still
6
SPEAKER_01
I haven t always been a clear number one, but I ve always, I ve been number one for 11 years.
6
SPEAKER_01
And for a lot of the time, the gap has been pretty big.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I think there are decent arguments for all of them.
6
SPEAKER_01
I ve said before, and I haven t changed my mind that Gary generally edges it because of the longevity in the competitive era.
6
SPEAKER_00
There are arguments, but people also talk about you in terms of the style of play.
6
SPEAKER_00
So it s not just about dominance or the height or the it s like just the creative genius of it.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but I m not interested.
6
SPEAKER_01
In terms of greatest of all time, I m not interested in questions of style.
6
SPEAKER_00
So for Messi, you don t give credit for the style, for the stylistic.
6
SPEAKER_00
I like, no, I like watching it.
6
SPEAKER_00
But you re not gonna give points for the, so Messi gets best ever because of the finishing.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s the... No, it s not because of the finishing, it s because of his overall impact on the game.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s higher than anybody else s.
6
SPEAKER_01
He contributes.
6
SPEAKER_01
He just contributes more to winning than anybody else does.
6
SPEAKER_00
So you re somebody who was advocated for and has done
7
SPEAKER_01
in quite a bit of study of classic games.
7
SPEAKER_01
What would you say is, I mean, maybe the number one or maybe top three games of chess ever played?
7
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t interest me at all.
7
SPEAKER_01
You don t think of them as rankings?
7
SPEAKER_00
No, I don t think of it.
7
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I try to, I find the games interesting.
7
SPEAKER_00
I try to learn from them, but like trying to, to rank them has never interested me.
7
SPEAKER_01
What, what, what games pop out to you as like super interesting then?
7
SPEAKER_01
Is there, is there things like where idea, like old school games where there was like interesting ideas that, uh, um, that you go back or like you, you find surprising and pretty cool that, that, that those ideas were developed like that.
7
SPEAKER_00
Is there something that jumps to mind?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, there are several games of young Kasparov, like before he became world champion.
7
SPEAKER_00
If you re going to ask for like my favorite player or favorite style, that s probably... Young Kasparov.
7
SPEAKER_01
Young Kasparov.
7
SPEAKER_01
Can you describe stylistically or in any other way what young Kasparov was like that you like?
7
SPEAKER_00
It was just an overflow of energy in his play.
7
SPEAKER_00
So aggressive attacking chess?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, extremely aggressive dynamic chess.
7
SPEAKER_00
It probably appeals to me a lot because these are the things that I cannot do as well, that it just feels very special to me.
7
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, in terms of games, I never, never thought about that too much.
7
SPEAKER_01
Is there memories, big or small, weird, surprising, just any kind of beautiful anecdote from your chess career?
7
SPEAKER_01
Like stuff that pops out that people might not know about?
7
SPEAKER_01
Just stuff when you look back, it just makes you smile.
7
SPEAKER_00
No, so I ll tell you about the most satisfying tournament victory of my career.
7
SPEAKER_00
So that was the Norwegian Championship Under-11 in 2000.
7
SPEAKER_00
Before that tournament, I was super anxious because I started kind of late at chess.
7
SPEAKER_00
I played my first tournament when I was eight and a half, and a lot of my competitors had already played for
7
SPEAKER_00
for a couple of years or even three, four years at that point.
7
SPEAKER_00
And the first time I, so I played the under 11 championship in 99.
7
SPEAKER_00
That was like a little over the middle of the pack.
7
SPEAKER_00
I d never played against any of them before, so I didn t know what to expect at all.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then over the next year, I was like edging a little bit closer.
7
SPEAKER_00
In each tournament, I felt like I was getting a little bit better.
7
SPEAKER_00
And when we had the championship, I knew that I was ready, that I was now at the same level of the best players.
7
SPEAKER_00
I was so anxious to show it.
7
SPEAKER_00
I remember I was just, the feeling of excitement and nervousness before the tournament was incredible.
7
SPEAKER_00
The tournament was weird, because I started out, I gave away a draw to a weaker player whom I shouldn t have drawn to.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then I drew against the other guy.
7
SPEAKER_00
who was clearly like the best or second best.
7
SPEAKER_00
And at that point, I thought it was over because I thought he wouldn t give away points to others.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then the very next day, he lost to somebody.
7
SPEAKER_00
So the rest of the tournament, it was just like, I was always like playing my game and watching his.
7
SPEAKER_00
And we both won the rest of our games, but it meant that I was half a point ahead.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like the feeling when I realized that I was going to win.
7
SPEAKER_00
That was just so amazing.
7
SPEAKER_00
It was like the first time that I was the best at my age.
7
SPEAKER_00
And at that point, you re hooked.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
At that point I realized, you know, this, I could actually be very good at this.
7
SPEAKER_01
So you, you, you kind of saw, what did you think your ceiling would be?
7
SPEAKER_01
Did you see that?
7
SPEAKER_01
Did you see that one day you could be the number one?
7
SPEAKER_00
No, I didn t.
7
SPEAKER_00
I didn t think that was possible at all.
7
SPEAKER_00
But I thought I could be the best in Norway.
7
SPEAKER_00
The best in Norway.
7
SPEAKER_00
At that point.
7
SPEAKER_00
Because I started relatively late.
7
SPEAKER_00
And also, I knew that I studied a lot more than the others.
7
SPEAKER_00
I knew that I had a passion that they didn t have.
7
SPEAKER_00
They saw chess as something like
7
SPEAKER_00
It was, you know, it was a hobby.
7
SPEAKER_00
It was like an activity.
7
SPEAKER_00
It was like, it was like going to, to football practice or any other sports.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like you go, you practice like once or twice a week, and then you play a tournament at the weekend.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s, that s what he did for me.
7
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t like that.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like I would,
7
SPEAKER_00
go with my books and my board every day after school.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I wouldn t, I would just constantly be trying to learn new things.
7
SPEAKER_00
I had like two hours of internet time on the computer each week and I would always spend them on jazz.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like, I think before I was
7
SPEAKER_00
13 or 14, I d never opened a browser for any other reason than to play chess.
7
SPEAKER_01
Would you describe that as love or as obsession or something in between?
7
SPEAKER_01
It s everything?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, everything.
7
SPEAKER_00
So, I mean, it wasn t hard for me to tell at that point that I had something that the other kids didn t because I was never the one to grasp something very, very quickly.
7
SPEAKER_00
But once I started, I always got hooked and then I never stopped learning.
7
SPEAKER_01
What would you say, you ve talked about the middle game as a place where you can play pure chess.
7
SPEAKER_01
What do you think is beautiful to you about chess?
7
SPEAKER_00
Like the thing when you were 11.
7
SPEAKER_00
What is beautiful to me is when your opponent can predict every single one of your moves and they still lose.
7
SPEAKER_00
How does that happen?
7
SPEAKER_00
No, like it means that at some point early, your planning, your evaluation has been better.
7
SPEAKER_00
So that you play just very simply, very clearly.
7
SPEAKER_00
It looks like you did nothing special and your opponent lost without a chance.
7
SPEAKER_01
So you re, how do you think about that, by the way?
7
SPEAKER_01
Are you basically narrowing down this gigantic tree of options to where your opponent has less and less and less options to win, to escape, and then they re trapped?
7
SPEAKER_00
That s it.
7
SPEAKER_01
Is there some aspect to the patterns themselves, to the positions, to the elegance of like,
7
SPEAKER_01
the dynamics of the game that you just find beautiful, where you forget about the opponent.
7
SPEAKER_00
In general, I try and create harmony on the board.
7
SPEAKER_00
What I would usually find harmonious is that the pieces work together, that they protect each other, and that there are no pieces that are suboptimally placed.
7
SPEAKER_00
Or if they are suboptimally placed, they can be improved pretty easily.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like, I hate when I have one piece that I know is badly placed and I cannot improve it.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, when you re thinking about the harmony of the pieces, when you re looking at the position, you re evaluating it.
7
SPEAKER_01
Are you looking at the whole board?
7
SPEAKER_01
Or is it like a bunch of groupings of pieces overlapping and like dancing together kind of thing?
7
SPEAKER_00
I would say it s more of the latter.
7
SPEAKER_00
That would be more precise that you look, I mean,
7
SPEAKER_00
I look mostly closer to the middle, but then I would focus on one, like there are usually like one grouping of pieces on one side and then some more closer to the other side.
7
SPEAKER_00
So I would, I would think of it a little bit that way.
7
SPEAKER_00
So, and everything s kind of gravitating to the middle.
7
SPEAKER_00
If it s going well, then yes.
7
SPEAKER_01
And in harmony.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, in harmony.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like if you can control the middle, you can more easily attack on both sides.
7
SPEAKER_00
That applies to pretty much any game.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s as simple as that.
7
SPEAKER_00
And like, attacking on one side without control of the middle would feel very non harmonious for for me.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like I talked about the 10th game.
7
SPEAKER_00
And
7
SPEAKER_00
in the World Championship, that s the time I was the most nervous.
7
SPEAKER_00
And it was because it was a kind of attack that I hate, where you just have to, you re abandoned one side and the attack has to work.
7
SPEAKER_00
There was one side and part of the middle as well, which I didn t control at all.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s like the opposite of harmony for me.
7
SPEAKER_01
What advice would you give to chess players of different levels how to improve in chess?
7
SPEAKER_01
Very beginner, complete beginner, I mean at every level.
7
SPEAKER_01
Is there something you can...
7
SPEAKER_00
It s very, very hard for me to say because I mean, the easiest way is like, love chess, be obsessed.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, that s a really important statement.
7
SPEAKER_00
But that doesn t work for everybody.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I feel like it can feel like a grind.
7
SPEAKER_01
So you re saying if the less it can feel like a grind, the better, the better.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, for sure.
7
SPEAKER_01
At least for you.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s for sure.
7
SPEAKER_00
But I m also very, very,
7
SPEAKER_00
skeptical about giving advice because I think, again, my way only works if you have some combination of talent and obsession.
7
SPEAKER_00
So I m not sure that I d generally recommend it.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like what I ve done doesn t go with what most coaches suggest for their kids.
7
SPEAKER_00
I ve been lucky that I ve had coaches from early on that have been very, very hands-off and just allowed me to do my thing, basically.
7
SPEAKER_01
Well, there s a lot to be said about cultivating the obsession, like really letting that flourish to where you spend a lot of hours like with the chessboard in your head and it doesn t feel like a struggle.
7
SPEAKER_00
No.
7
SPEAKER_00
So like,
7
SPEAKER_00
just letting me do my thing.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like if you give me a bunch of work, it will probably feel like a chore.
7
SPEAKER_00
And if you don t give me, I will spend all of that time on my own without thinking that it s work or without the thought that I m doing this to improve my chess.
7
SPEAKER_01
Well, in terms of learning stuff like books, there s one thing that s relatively novel from your perspective, people are starting now is there s YouTube.
7
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot of good YouTubers.
7
SPEAKER_01
You re a part-time YouTuber.
7
SPEAKER_01
You have stuff on YouTube, I guess.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but if you ve seen my YouTube, it s not high effort content.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but do you like any particular YouTubers?
7
SPEAKER_01
I could just recommend stuff I ve seen, so Agadmar, Gotham Chess, Botes Live.
7
SPEAKER_01
I really like St.
7
SPEAKER_01
Louis Chess Club.
7
SPEAKER_01
Daniel Naroditsky and John Bartholomew.
7
SPEAKER_01
Those are good channels, but is there something you can recommend?
7
SPEAKER_00
No, all of them are good.
7
SPEAKER_00
You know, the best recommendation I could give is Argon Mator.
7
SPEAKER_01
Purely... How much did he pay you to say that?
7
SPEAKER_00
No, so the thing about that is that I haven t really I have, so I can tell you, I ve never watched any of his videos from from start to finish.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m not like, I m not the target audience, obviously.
7
SPEAKER_00
But I think the only chess
7
SPEAKER_00
YouTube video that my dad has ever watched from start to finish is Agamotto.
7
SPEAKER_00
And he said, like, I watched one of his videos, I wanted to know what it was all about.
7
SPEAKER_00
Because I think Agamotto is like, the same strength as my father, or maybe just a little bit weaker, like 1900 or something.
7
SPEAKER_00
My father is probably about 2000.
7
SPEAKER_00
And my father has played chess his whole life.
7
SPEAKER_00
He loves, he absolutely loves the game.
7
SPEAKER_00
It was like, that s the only time he s actually sat through one of those videos.
7
SPEAKER_00
And he said like, yeah, I get it.
7
SPEAKER_00
I enjoy it.
7
SPEAKER_00
So that s the best recommendation I could give.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s the only channel that my father actually enjoys.
7
SPEAKER_01
This is hilarious.
7
SPEAKER_01
I talked to him before this to ask him if he has any questions for you.
7
SPEAKER_01
And he said, no, just do your thing.
7
SPEAKER_01
You know what you re doing.
7
SPEAKER_01
No, he s so careful.
7
SPEAKER_01
He wouldn t do that.
7
SPEAKER_01
He did mention jokingly about Evan s Gambit, I think.
7
SPEAKER_01
Is that a thing?
7
SPEAKER_01
Evan s Gambit?
7
SPEAKER_01
It s some weird thing he made up.
7
SPEAKER_01
It might be an inside joke.
7
SPEAKER_01
I don t know, but he asked me to.
7
SPEAKER_01
Well, anyway.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I don t even get...
7
SPEAKER_00
It s something he made up.
7
SPEAKER_00
I didn t even realize that he plays the Evans Gambit.
7
SPEAKER_00
He plays a lot of Gambits that are... Wait, Evans Gambit is a thing?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s a thing.
7
SPEAKER_00
That s an old opening from the 1800s.
7
SPEAKER_00
Captain Evans apparently invented it.
7
SPEAKER_00
Why would he mention that particular one?
7
SPEAKER_00
Is there something hilarious about that one?
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t think I ve ever faced the Evans Gambit in a game.
7
SPEAKER_01
I feel like both of you are trolling me right now.
7
SPEAKER_00
But I mean, he s, he s played a lot of other gambits.
7
SPEAKER_00
Maybe this is the one he wanted to, to mention.
7
SPEAKER_00
So this, maybe this is called the Evans gambit as well, but I just know it as like the two, two G4 gambits.
7
SPEAKER_00
Maybe this is the one, like this one he has, this one he has played a bunch.
7
SPEAKER_00
And he s been telling me a lot about his games in this line.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s like, oh, it s not so bad.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, yeah, but you re a pawn down.
7
SPEAKER_00
But I can sort of see it.
7
SPEAKER_00
I can sort of understand it.
7
SPEAKER_00
And he s proud of the fact that nobody told him to play this line or anything.
7
SPEAKER_00
He came up with it himself.
7
SPEAKER_00
And there s this, I ll tell you another story about my father.
7
SPEAKER_00
So there s this line that I call,
7
SPEAKER_00
that I called the Henry Carlson line.
7
SPEAKER_00
So at some point, you know, he never knew a lot of openings in chess, but I taught him a couple of openings as black.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s the
7
SPEAKER_00
It s the Sveshnikov Sicilian that I ve played a lot myself.
7
SPEAKER_00
Also during the world championship in 2018, I won a bunch of games in 2019 as well.
7
SPEAKER_00
So that s one opening and also taught him as black to play the Ragosin defense.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then, so the Ragosin defense goes like this.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s characterized by this Bishop move.
7
SPEAKER_00
Um, and so, uh, he would play those openings pretty, pretty exclusively and as black and the tournaments that it did play.
7
SPEAKER_00
And also the Sveshnikov Sicilian is like, that s the only two of my sisters play.
7
SPEAKER_00
I played a bunch of chess tournaments as well.
7
SPEAKER_00
And that s the only opening they know as well.
7
SPEAKER_00
So my, my family s repertoire is very narrow.
7
SPEAKER_00
So, so this is the, this is the system.
7
SPEAKER_00
Black goes here and then from white takes the pawn and black takes the pawn.
7
SPEAKER_00
So, at some point I was watching one of my father s online blitz game, and as white, he played this, this, so this is called the Karakan defense.
7
SPEAKER_00
He took the pawn, it was taken back, then he went with a knight, his opponent went here, and then he played a bishop here.
7
SPEAKER_00
So I, I d never seen this opening before.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I was like, wow, how on earth did he come up with that?
7
SPEAKER_00
And he said, no, I just played the Ragoseum with the different colors, because if the knight was here, it would be the same position.
7
SPEAKER_00
I was like, I never,
7
SPEAKER_00
I was like, how am I like one of the best players in the world?
7
SPEAKER_00
And I ve never thought about that.
7
SPEAKER_00
So I actually started playing.
7
SPEAKER_00
I started playing this line as wide with pretty decent results and it actually became kind of popular.
7
SPEAKER_00
And everybody who asked about the line, like I would always tell them, yeah, that s the Henry Carlson.
7
SPEAKER_00
I wouldn t necessarily explain why it was called that, I would just always call it that.
7
SPEAKER_00
So I really hope at some point, this line will find its rightful name.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it finds its way into the history books.
7
SPEAKER_01
What did you learn about life from your dad?
7
SPEAKER_01
What role has your dad played in your life?
7
SPEAKER_00
He s taught me a lot of things.
7
SPEAKER_00
But most of all,
8
SPEAKER_01
As long as you win a chess, then everything else is fine.
8
SPEAKER_01
I think my, especially my father, but my parents in general, they always wanted me to
8
SPEAKER_01
get a good education and find a job and so on.
8
SPEAKER_01
Even though my father loves chess and he wanted me to play chess, I don t think he had any plans for me to be professional.
8
SPEAKER_01
I think things changed at some point.
8
SPEAKER_01
I was less and less interested in school.
8
SPEAKER_01
And for a long time, we were kind of going back and forth fighting about that, especially my father, but also my mother a little bit.
8
SPEAKER_01
It was at times a little bit difficult.
8
SPEAKER_01
They wanted you to go to school.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, they sort of wanted me to do more school, to have more options.
8
SPEAKER_01
And then I think at some point,
8
SPEAKER_01
They just gave up.
8
SPEAKER_01
But I think that sort of coincided when I was actually starting to make real money off tournaments.
8
SPEAKER_01
And after that, you know, everything s been
8
SPEAKER_01
sort of easy and like in terms of the family, like they ve never put any pressure on me or they ve never put any demands on me.
8
SPEAKER_01
They re just, yeah, Magnus has to focus on chess.
8
SPEAKER_01
That s, that s, that s it.
8
SPEAKER_01
Like, I think they taught me in general to be
8
SPEAKER_01
curious about the world and to get a decent general education, not necessarily from school, but like just knowing about the world around you and knowing history and being, you know, just being interested in society.
8
SPEAKER_01
I think in that sense, they ve done well.
8
SPEAKER_00
And he s been with you throughout your chess career.
8
SPEAKER_00
I mean, there s something to be said about just
8
SPEAKER_00
family support and love that you have.
8
SPEAKER_00
This world is a lonely place.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s good to have people around you that are like, that got your back kind of, you know?
8
SPEAKER_01
It s a cliche, but I think to some extent, all the people you surround yourself with,
8
SPEAKER_01
they can help you a lot.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s only family that only has their own interests at heart.
8
SPEAKER_01
And so for that reason, like my father s like the only one that s been like constantly in the team that, and that has always been around.
8
SPEAKER_01
And it s, it s for that reason that I know he has my back no matter what.
8
SPEAKER_00
Now there s a cliche question here.
8
SPEAKER_00
But let s try to actually get to some deep truth, perhaps.
8
SPEAKER_00
But people who don t know much about chess seem to like to use chess as a metaphor for everything in life.
8
SPEAKER_00
But there is some aspect to the decision making, to the kind of reasoning involved in chess that s transferable to other things.
8
SPEAKER_00
Can you speak to that in your own life and in general?
8
SPEAKER_00
the kind of reasoning involved with chess, how much of that does transfer to life out there?
8
SPEAKER_00
Off the board.
8
SPEAKER_01
It just helps you make decisions.
8
SPEAKER_01
Of all kinds.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that would be my main takeaway, that you learn to make informed guesses in a limited amount of time.
8
SPEAKER_00
I mean, does it frustrate you when you have geopolitical thinkers and leaders, you know, Henry Kissinger will often talk about geopolitics as a game of chess or 3D chess.
8
SPEAKER_00
Is that too oversimplified of a projection?
8
SPEAKER_00
Or do you think that the kind of deliberations you have on the world stage is similar to the kind of decision making you have on the chessboard?
8
SPEAKER_01
Well, I m never trying to get reelected when I play a game of chess.
8
SPEAKER_01
There s no special interest, you have to get happy.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that kind of helps.
8
SPEAKER_01
No, I can understand.
8
SPEAKER_01
That obviously for every action there s a reaction and you have to calculate far ahead.
8
SPEAKER_01
It probably would be a good thing if more big players on the international scene thought a little bit more like a chess player in that sense, like trying to make good decisions based on
8
SPEAKER_01
based on limited amounts of data rather than thinking about other factors, but it s so tough.
8
SPEAKER_01
But it does annoy me when people make moves that they know are wrong for different reasons.
8
SPEAKER_00
And they should know, if they did some calculation, they should know they re wrong.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, exactly, that they should know that are wrong.
8
SPEAKER_01
And so much politics is like, you re often asked to do something when you re
8
SPEAKER_01
when it would be much better to do nothing.
8
SPEAKER_01
No, but that happens in chess all the time.
8
SPEAKER_01
You have a choice.
8
SPEAKER_01
I often tell people that in certain situations you should not try and win, you should just let your opponent lose.
8
SPEAKER_01
And that happens in politics all the time.
8
SPEAKER_01
But yeah, just let your opponents continue whatever they re doing and then you ll win.
8
SPEAKER_01
Don t try to do something just to do something.
8
SPEAKER_01
Often they say in chess that having a bad plan is better than having no plan.
8
SPEAKER_01
It s absolute nonsense.
8
SPEAKER_00
I forget what General said, but it was like, don t interrupt your enemy when they re making a mistake.
8
SPEAKER_01
Also, Petrosian, the former world champion, said, when your opponent wants to play Dutch defense, don t stop them.
8
SPEAKER_01
I mean, chess players will know that it s the same thing.
8
SPEAKER_00
Actually, this reminds me.
8
SPEAKER_00
Is there something you found really impressive about Queen s Gambit, the TV show?
8
SPEAKER_00
You know, that s one of the things that really captivated the public imagination about chess.
8
SPEAKER_00
People who don t play chess became very curious about the game, about the beauty of the game, the drama of the game, all that kind of stuff.
8
SPEAKER_00
Is there, in terms of accuracy, in terms of the actual games played, that you found impressive?
8
SPEAKER_01
First of all, they did the chess well.
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SPEAKER_01
They did it accurately.
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And also, they found actual games and positions that I d never seen before.
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It really captivated me.
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SPEAKER_01
I would not follow the story at times.
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SPEAKER_01
I was just trying to...
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SPEAKER_01
Wow, where the hell did I find that game?
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I was trying to solve the positions.
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SPEAKER_00
So Beth Harmon, the main character, were you impressed by the play she was doing?
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SPEAKER_00
Was there a particular style that they developed consistently?
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SPEAKER_00
At the end, she was just totally universal.
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SPEAKER_01
Like at the start, she was probably a bit too aggressive, but no, she was absolutely universal.
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SPEAKER_01
Wait, what adjective are you using?
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SPEAKER_01
Universal in the sense that she could play in any style.
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SPEAKER_00
Oh, interesting.
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SPEAKER_00
And was dominant in a way.
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SPEAKER_00
Wow.
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SPEAKER_00
So there s a development in style too throughout the show.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, for sure.
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SPEAKER_00
It s really interesting they did that.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
And it actually happened with me a bit as well.
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SPEAKER_01
I started out really aggressive.
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Then I became probably too technical at some point, taking a little bit too few risks and not playing dynamic enough.
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SPEAKER_01
And then I started to get a little bit better at dynamics so that now I m, I would say, definitely the most universal player in terms of style.
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SPEAKER_00
Are there any skills in chess that are transferable to poker?
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SPEAKER_00
So as you re playing around with poker a little bit now, how fundamentally different of a game is it?
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SPEAKER_01
What I find the most transferable probably is not letting past decisions dictate future thinking.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
But in terms of the patterns in the betting strategies and all that kind of stuff, what about bluffing?
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SPEAKER_00
I bluff way too much.
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SPEAKER_00
It does seem you enjoy bluffing and Daniel Negreanu was saying that you re quite good at it.
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SPEAKER_01
But yeah, it has very little material to go by.
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SPEAKER_01
Sample size is small.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
No, I mean, I enjoy bluffing for the more of the gambling aspects, the thrill of.
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SPEAKER_00
So not the technical aspect of the bluffing like you would on the chessboard.
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SPEAKER_01
Not bluffing in the same sense, but there is some element.
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SPEAKER_01
But I do enjoy it on the chessboard.
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SPEAKER_01
If I know that I successfully scared away my opponent from making the best move, that s of course satisfying.
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SPEAKER_00
In that same way, it might be satisfying in poker, right?
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SPEAKER_00
That you represent something, you scare away your opponent in the same kind of way.
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SPEAKER_01
And also like you tell a story, you try and tell a story and then they believe it.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, tell a story with your betting, with all the different other cues.
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SPEAKER_00
Do you like the money aspect, the betting strategies?
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SPEAKER_00
So it s almost like another layer on top of it, right?
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SPEAKER_00
It s the uncertainty in the cards, but the betting, there s so much freedom to the betting.
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SPEAKER_01
I m not very good at that, so I cannot say that I understand it completely.
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SPEAKER_01
You know, when it comes to different sizing and all that, I just haven t studied it enough.
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SPEAKER_00
How much of luck is part of poker, would you say, from what you ve seen versus skill?
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SPEAKER_01
I mean, it s so different in the sense that you can be one of the best players in the world and lose two or three years in a row without that being like a massive outlier.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, the thing that more than one person told me that you re very good at is trash talking.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t think I am.
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SPEAKER_01
A lot of people who
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SPEAKER_01
make those observations about me, I think they just expect very, very little.
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SPEAKER_01
So they expect from the best chess player in the world, that just anything that s non-robotic is interesting.
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SPEAKER_01
Also, when it comes to trash talking, like I have the biggest advantage in the world that I m the best at what I m doing.
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SPEAKER_01
So trash talking becomes very, very, very easy because I can back it up.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but a lot of people that are extremely good at stuff don t trash talk, and they re not good at it.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t think I m very good at it.
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SPEAKER_01
It s just that I can back it up, which makes it seem that I m better.
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SPEAKER_00
You re even doing it now.
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SPEAKER_01
And also being non-robotic, or not completely robotic.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you re not trash talking, you re just stating facts, that s right.
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SPEAKER_00
Have you ever considered that there will be trash talking over the chessboard in some of the big tournaments?
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SPEAKER_00
Like adding that kind of component?
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SPEAKER_00
Or even talking, you know?
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SPEAKER_00
Would that completely distract from the game of chess?
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SPEAKER_01
No, I think it could be fun and...
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SPEAKER_01
When people play offline games, when they play Blitz games, people trash talk all the time.
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SPEAKER_01
It s a normal part of the game.
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SPEAKER_00
So you emphasize fun a lot.
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SPEAKER_00
Do you think we re living inside of a simulation that is trying to maximize fun?
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SPEAKER_01
But that s only happened for the last, you know, a hundred years or so.
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SPEAKER_00
No, that s like the fun has always been increasing, I think.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
Okay.
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SPEAKER_01
It s always been increasing, but I feel like it s been increasing exponentially.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean, or at least the importance of fun.
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SPEAKER_01
But I guess it depends on the society as well.
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SPEAKER_01
Like in the West, we ve had such a Christian influence.
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SPEAKER_01
And I mean, Christianity hasn t exactly embraced the concept of fun over time.
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SPEAKER_00
Well, actually, to push back, I think forbidding certain things kind of makes them more fun.
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SPEAKER_00
So sometimes I think you need to say, you re not allowed to do this.
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SPEAKER_00
And then a lot of people start doing it and then they have fun doing that because it s like it s doing a thing in the face of the resistance of the thing.
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SPEAKER_00
So whenever there s resistance, that does somehow make it more fun.
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SPEAKER_01
oppressive regimes has always been kind of good for comedy, no?
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SPEAKER_01
Supposedly, like in the Soviet Union, I don t know about fun, but supposedly comedy, like at least underground, it thrived.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, there s a, well, no, it permeates the entire culture.
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SPEAKER_00
There s a dark humor that sort of the cruelty, the absurdity of life really
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SPEAKER_00
really brings out the humor amongst the populace, plus vodka on top of that.
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SPEAKER_00
But this idea that, for example, Elon Musk has that the most entertaining outcome is the most likely.
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SPEAKER_00
that it seems like the most absurd, silly, funny thing seems to be the thing.
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SPEAKER_01
So it happens more often than it should.
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SPEAKER_00
And it somehow becomes viral in our modern connected world.
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SPEAKER_00
And so the fun stuff, the memes spread, and then we start to optimize for the fun meme that seems to be a fundamental property of the reality we live in.
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SPEAKER_00
And so emerges the fun maximizer in all walks of life, like in chess, in poker, in everything.
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SPEAKER_00
I think you re skeptical.
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SPEAKER_01
No, I m not skeptical.
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SPEAKER_01
I m just, I m just taking it all in.
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SPEAKER_01
But I find it interesting and not at all impossible.
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SPEAKER_01
Do you ever get lonely?
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SPEAKER_01
Oh yeah, for sure.
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SPEAKER_01
Like a chess player s life is by definition pretty lonely.
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SPEAKER_01
because you have nobody else to blame but yourself when you lose, or you don t achieve the results that you wanna achieve.
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SPEAKER_00
It s difficult for you to find comfort elsewhere.
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SPEAKER_00
It s in your own mind.
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SPEAKER_00
It s you versus yourself, really.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, really.
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SPEAKER_01
But it s, you know, it s part of the profession.
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SPEAKER_01
But I think any like sport or activity where it s just you and your own mind, it s just by definition lonely.
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SPEAKER_00
Are you worried that it destroys you?
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SPEAKER_01
Oh, not at all.
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SPEAKER_01
As long as I m aware of it, then it s fine.
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SPEAKER_01
And I don t think the inherent loneliness of my profession really affects the rest of my life in a major way.
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SPEAKER_00
What role does love play in the human condition, in your lonely life of calculation?
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SPEAKER_01
You know, I m like everybody else.
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SPEAKER_01
Trying, you know, trying to find love.
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SPEAKER_01
No, not necessarily like trying to find love.
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SPEAKER_01
Sometimes I am sometimes I m, I m not I m just trying to find my way.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
And my love for
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SPEAKER_01
For the game, obviously it comes and goes a little bit, but there s always at least some level of love.
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SPEAKER_01
So that doesn t go away.
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SPEAKER_01
But I think in other parts of life, I think it s just about doing things that make you happy, that give you joy, that also makes you more receptive to love in general.
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SPEAKER_01
So that has been my approach to love now for quite a while.
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SPEAKER_01
I m just trying to live my best life and then the love will come when it comes.
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SPEAKER_01
In terms of romantic love, it has come and gone in my life.
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SPEAKER_01
It s not there now, but I m not worried about
8
SPEAKER_01
that I m more worried about, you know, not worried, but more like trying to just be a good version of myself.
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SPEAKER_01
I cannot always be the best version of myself, but at least try to be good.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and keep your heart open.
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SPEAKER_00
What is this Daniel Johnson song?
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SPEAKER_00
True love will find you in the end.
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SPEAKER_01
No, it may or may not.
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SPEAKER_00
But it will only find you if, oh fuck, how does it go?
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SPEAKER_00
If you re looking, so like you have to be open to it.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it may or may not.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
And no matter what, you re gonna lose it in the end, because it all ends, the whole thing ends.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
So I don t think stressing over that, like, obviously, it s so human that you can t help it to some degree.
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SPEAKER_01
But I feel like stressing over love, that s the blueprint for whether whether you re looking or
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SPEAKER_00
you re not looking or you re in a relationship or marriage or anything, like stressing over it is like the blueprint for being unhappy.
9
SPEAKER_01
Just to clarify confusion, I have just a quick question.
9
SPEAKER_01
How does the night move?
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SPEAKER_00
So the knight moves in an L. And unlike in shogi, it can move both forwards and backwards.
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SPEAKER_00
It is quite a nimble piece.
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SPEAKER_00
It can jump over everything, but it s less happy in open position where it has to move from side to side quickly.
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SPEAKER_00
I am generally more of a bishops guy myself, for the old debate.
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SPEAKER_00
I just prefer quality over the intangibles.
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SPEAKER_00
But I can appreciate a good night once in a while.
9
SPEAKER_00
Last simple question, what s the meaning of life, Magnus Carlsen?
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SPEAKER_00
There is obviously no meaning to life.
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SPEAKER_00
Is that obvious?
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SPEAKER_00
I think we re here by accident.
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SPEAKER_00
There s no meaning.
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SPEAKER_00
It ends at some point, but it s still a great thing.
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SPEAKER_00
You can still have fun, even if there s no meaning.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you can still have fun.
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SPEAKER_00
You can try and pursue your goals, whatever they may be.
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SPEAKER_00
But I m pretty sure there s no special meaning.
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SPEAKER_00
Trying to find it also doesn t make a whole lot of sense to me.
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SPEAKER_00
For me, life is both meaningless and meaningful for just being here, trying to make, not necessarily the most of it, but the things that make you happy, both short term and also long term.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it seems to be full of cool stuff to enjoy.
9
SPEAKER_01
It certainly does.
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SPEAKER_01
And one of those is having a conversation with you, Magnus.
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SPEAKER_01
It s a huge honor to talk to you.
9
SPEAKER_01
Thank you so much for spending this time with me.
9
SPEAKER_01
I can t wait to see what you do in this world.
9
SPEAKER_01
And thank you for creating so much elegance and beauty on the chessboard and beyond.
9
SPEAKER_01
So thanks for talking today, brother.
9
SPEAKER_00
Thank you so much.
9
SPEAKER_00
Thanks for having me.
9
SPEAKER_00
I wanted to say this at the start, but I never really got the chance.
9
SPEAKER_00
I was always a bit apprehensive about doing this podcast because you are a very smart guy and your audience is very smart.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I always had a bit of imposter syndrome.
9
SPEAKER_00
So I ll tell you this now after the podcast.
9
SPEAKER_00
So please do judge me, but I hope you ve enjoyed it.
9
SPEAKER_01
I loved it, you re a brilliant man.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I love the fact that you have imposter syndrome, because a lot of us do.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so that s beautiful to see, even at the very top, you still feel like an imposter.
9
SPEAKER_01
Thank you, brother, thanks for talking to them.
9
SPEAKER_01
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Magnus Carlsen.
9
SPEAKER_01
To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description.
9
SPEAKER_01
And now, let me leave you with some words from Bobby Fischer.
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SPEAKER_01
Chess is a war over the board.
9
SPEAKER_01
The object is to crush the opponent s mind.
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SPEAKER_01
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.