#315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time

[0] The following is a conversation with Magnus Carlson, 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.

[1] The camera on Magnus died 20 minutes into the conversation.

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[44] I just drank one, actually.

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[47] I do a keto diet.

[48] I'm currently doing carnivore.

[49] I don't think of it as a diet.

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[95] And now, dear friends, here's Magnus Cawson.

[96] 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.

[97] So before chess, let's talk football and greatness.

[98] You're a Real Madrid fan, so let me ask you the ridiculous big question.

[99] Who do you think is the greatest football, aka soccer player of all time?

[100] Can you make the case for Messy?

[101] Can you make the case for Christiana Ronaldo, Pele, Mardona, does anybody jump to mind?

[102] I think it's pretty hard to make a case for anybody else than Messi for his all -round game.

[103] And frankly, like my Real Madrid fandom sort of predates the Ronaldo era, era, the second Ronaldo, not the first one.

[104] So I always liked Ronaldo, but I always kind of thought that Messi was better.

[105] And I went to quite a number of Madrid games, and they've always been super helpful to me down there.

[106] The only thing is that, like, they asked me, they were going to do an interview, and they were going to ask me who my favorite player was.

[107] And I said somebody else, I think I said Isko at that point, and I was like, okay, take two, now you say Ronaldo.

[108] So for them, it was very important, but it wasn't that huge to me. So Messi over Maradona.

[109] Yeah, but it's, I think just like with chess, it's hard to compare eras.

[110] Obviously, the improvements in football have been, like, in technique and such, have been even greater than they have been in chess.

[111] but it's always a weird discussion to have.

[112] But just as a fan, what do you think is beautiful about the game?

[113] What defines greatness?

[114] Is it, you know, with Messi, one, he's really good of finishing, two, very good at assist.

[115] Like three, there's just magic.

[116] It's just beautiful to see the play.

[117] So it's not just about the finishing.

[118] There's some, it's like Mardonne's hand of God.

[119] There's some creativity on the pitch.

[120] Is that important, or is it very important to get the World Cups and the big championships and that kind of stuff?

[121] I think the World Cup is pretty overrated, seeing as it's such a small sample size.

[122] So it sort of annoys me always when titles are always appreciated so much, even though that particular title can be a lot of luck or at least.

[123] at least some luck so I do appreciate statistics a bit and all the statistics say that mess is the best finisher of all time which I think helps a lot and then there's the intangibles as well the flip side of that is the small sample size is what really creates the magic it's so right it's just like the Olympics you you basically train your whole life for this you live your whole life for this and it's a rare moment one mistake and it's all over that's for some reason a lot of people either break under that pressure or rise up under that pressure you don't you don't admire the magic of that no i do i just think that like rising and through pressure and breaking under the pressure is often a really oversimplified like take on what's on what's happening we're yeah we do romanticize the game yeah well let me ask you another ridiculous question another you're also a fan of basketball yes let me ask the goat question the you know I'm biased because I went to high school in Chicago you know Chicago Bulls during the the Michael Jordan era let me ask the the Jordan versus LeBron James question let's let's continue on this thread of greatness.

[124] Which one do you pick?

[125] Or somebody else?

[126] So I'll give you a completely different answer.

[127] Uh -oh.

[128] 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.

[129] It's the quantum mechanical thing.

[130] Well, can you, what, again, what would, if you were to argue for either one, statistically, I think LeBron James is going to surpass Jordan.

[131] Yeah, no doubt.

[132] And so, again, there's a debate between...

[133] Unquantifiable greatness, no, that.

[134] I mean, that's the whole debate.

[135] Yes.

[136] So it's, well, it's quantifiable versus unquantifiable.

[137] Yeah.

[138] What's more important?

[139] And you're depending on mood all over the place.

[140] But what do you lean in general with these folks, with soccer, with anything in life, towards the unquantifiable more?

[141] No, definitely towards the quantifiable.

[142] so when you're unsure lean towards the numbers yeah but see like it's later generations there's something that's what people say about maradona is you know he took a arguably somewhat mediocre team to a world cup so there's that also uplifting nature of the player to be able to rise up the whole it is a team sport so are you gonna like are you gonna punish messy for taking a mediocre Argentine's squad to the to the final in 2014 and punish him because they lost to a great team very narrowly after they missed the internet does he set up like a great chance for iguan in the first half which he um which he fluffed and then yeah eventually they lost the game yeah they do criticize christiano rinaldo messy for being on really strong squads in terms of the club teams and saying yeah okay it's easy when you have like ronaldinia or whoever on your team it would be very interesting just if the league could make a decision yeah just random random allocation yeah um and just every single game just keep really relocating or maybe once a season um or every season you get random but let's say every 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 to let's say a bottom half team i bet you there's going to be so much corruption around that it'll be random obviously it wouldn't never happen or or work but i think it's you never know so on chess let's uh zoom out if you break down your approach to chess when you're at your best.

[143] What do you think contributes to that approach?

[144] Is it memory recalls, specific lines and positions?

[145] Is it intuition?

[146] How much of it is intuition?

[147] How much of it is pure calculation?

[148] How much of it is messing with the strategy of the opponent?

[149] So the game theory aspect in terms of what contributes to the highest level of play that you do?

[150] I think the answer differs a little bit now from what it did eight years ago, for instance.

[151] Like, I feel like I've had like two peaks in my career in 2014, well, 2013, 2014 and also in 2019.

[152] And in those years, I was very different in terms of my strength.

[153] Strengths, specifically in 2019, I benefited a lot from opening preparation.

[154] While in 2013, 2014, I mostly tried to avoid my opponent's preparation rather than that being a strength.

[155] So I'm mentioning that also because it's something you didn't mention.

[156] mention.

[157] I think like my intuitive understanding of chess has over those years always been a little bit better than the others, even though it has evolved as well.

[158] 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.

[159] I was younger back then, so I played with more energy, which meant that I could play better in long drawn -out games, which was also a necessity for me because I couldn't beat people in the openings.

[160] But in terms of calculation, that's always been a weird issue for me. I've always been really, really bad at solving exercises in chess.

[161] like a blind spot for me. First of all, I found it hard to concentrate on them and to look deep enough.

[162] So this is like a puzzle, a position, mate in X. I mean, one thing is made, but find the best move.

[163] That's generally the exercise.

[164] Like, find the best move, find the best line.

[165] You just don't connect with it.

[166] Usually, like, you have to look deep.

[167] And then when I get these lines during the game, I very often find the right solution, even though it's not still the best part of my game to calculate very deeply.

[168] But it doesn't feel that calculation you're saying in terms of...

[169] No, it does sometimes, but for me, it's more like I'm at the board trying to find, trying to find the solution and I understand like the training at home is like trying a little bit to replicate that.

[170] 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.

[171] I just, I just cannot do it.

[172] One thing I know that I am good at though is calculating short lines because I calculate them, them well, I'm good at seeing little details and I'm also much better than most at evaluating, which I think is something that sets me, sets me apart from others.

[173] 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?

[174] Yeah, like you calculate a few moves ahead and then you evaluate because a lot of time, a lot of the times you cannot, the branches become so big that you cannot calculate everything.

[175] Like a fog.

[176] Yeah.

[177] So you have to, you have to make evaluations based on, you know, based mostly on knowledge and intuition.

[178] And somehow I seem to do that pretty well.

[179] When you say you're good at short lines, what's that?

[180] What's short?

[181] that's usually like lines of two to four moves each okay so that that's directly applicable to even faster games like blitz chess and so on yeah um blitz is a lot about calculating force lines so those 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 because you simply don't have time for that in Blitz.

[182] You have to calculate quickly and rely a lot on interaction.

[183] Can you try to, I know it's really difficult, can you try to talk through what's actually being visualized in your head?

[184] Is there a visual component?

[185] Yeah, no, I just visualized the board.

[186] I mean, the board is in, it's in, is in my head.

[187] Two -dimensional?

[188] My interpretation is that it's, it is two -dimensional.

[189] Like what colors?

[190] Is it brown tinted?

[191] Is it black?

[192] is it like what's the theme is it a big board small board are the what do the pawns look like or is it more in the space of concepts like yeah there aren't a lot of colors it's it's mostly so what is it queen's gambit on the ceiling whatever now to to imagine it what about when you do the branching when you have multiple boards and so on what how does that look are you it's only one at a time so One position at a time.

[193] One position at a time, so then I go back.

[194] And that's what when people play, or at least that's what I do.

[195] When I play blindfold chess against several people, then it's just always one border at a time and the rest are stored away somewhere.

[196] But how do you store them away?

[197] So like you went down one branch, you're like, all right, that's, I got that.

[198] I understand that there's some good there, there's some bad there.

[199] Now let me go down another branch.

[200] Like, how do you store away the information?

[201] You just put it on the shelf kind of.

[202] I try and store it away.

[203] Sometimes I have to sort of repeat it because I forget.

[204] And it does happen frequently in games that 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.

[205] I just forgot about it.

[206] So that's obviously what happens when you store the information and you cannot retrieve it.

[207] When you think about a move for 20, 30 minutes, like, how do you break that down?

[208] Can you describe what, like, what's the algorithm here that takes 30 minutes to run?

[209] 30 minutes is, at least for me, it's usually a waste.

[210] 30 minutes usually means that I don't know what to do.

[211] And I'm trying.

[212] You're just running into the wall over.

[213] Yeah, I'm trying to find something that isn't there.

[214] I think 10 to 15 minutes things in complicated positions can be really, really helpful.

[215] Then you can spend your time pretty efficiently.

[216] It just means that the branches are getting wide.

[217] There's a lot to run through both in terms of calculation and lots you have to evaluate as well.

[218] And then based on that 10 to 15 minutes, think you have a pretty good idea what to do.

[219] I mean, it's very rare that I would think for half an hour and I would have a eureka moment during the game.

[220] Like, if I haven't seen it in 10 minutes, I'm probably not going to see it at all.

[221] You're going to different branches.

[222] Yeah.

[223] And like after 15 minutes, it's like.

[224] But it mainly to the middle game.

[225] Because when you get to the end game, it's usually brute force.

[226] that makes you spend so much time.

[227] So middle game is normally, it's a complicated mix of brute force calculation and like creativity and evaluation.

[228] So endgame, it's easier in that sense.

[229] Well, you're good at every aspect of chess, but also your end game is legendary.

[230] It baffles experts.

[231] so can you linger on that then try to explain what the heck is going on there like if you look at game six of the previous world championship uh the longest game ever played in chess it was uh i think uh his queen versus your rook knight in two pawns yeah there's so many options there it's such an interesting little little dance and it's kind of not obvious that it wouldn't be a draw so how do you escape the it not being a draw draw and you win that match.

[232] 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.

[233] So people watching online, they can just check it.

[234] They can check and they can check a so -called table base and they just going to spit out win for white, win for black or a draw.

[235] And also I knew that.

[236] I knew that, didn't know that position specifically, but I knew that it had to be a draw.

[237] So for me, it was about staying alert, first of all, trying to look for the best way to put my pieces.

[238] But, yeah, those end games are a bit, they're a bit unusual.

[239] They don't happen too often.

[240] So what I'm usually 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...

[241] Even for the endgame, short variations matter?

[242] Yes, it does matter in some simpler endgames, yeah.

[243] But also, like, there are these theoretical endgames with very few pieces like rook knights and two pawns versus queens, but a lot of endgames.

[244] games are simply defined by the queens being exchanged and there are a lot of other pieces left and then it's usually not brute force it's usually more of understanding and evaluation and then i can use my strengths very well why are you so damn good at the end game isn't there a lot of moves from when the end game starts to when the end game finishes and you have a few pieces and you have to figure out it's like a sequence of little games that happens right Like little pattern.

[245] How does it being able to evaluate a single position lead you to evaluate a long sequence of position that eventually lead to a checkmate?

[246] Well, I think if you evaluate well at the start, you know what plans to go for.

[247] And then usually the play from there is often pretty simple.

[248] Let's say you understand how to arrange your pieces and often also how.

[249] how to arrange your pawns early in the end game, then that makes all the difference.

[250] And after that, just like what we call technique very often, that it's technique basically just means that the moves are simple and these are moves that, you know, a lot of players could make, not only the very strongest ones, these are moves that are.

[251] I kind of understood and known.

[252] 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.

[253] As long as you're doing the evaluation, well, one step at a time.

[254] To some extent.

[255] Also, yeah, as I said, like, if you evaluated it better and thus accumulated some small advantages, then you can often make your life pretty easy towards the end of the end game.

[256] So you said in 2019, sort of the second phase of why you're so damn good.

[257] You did a lot of opening preparation.

[258] What's the goal for you of the opening game of chess?

[259] Is it to throw the opponent off from any prepared lines?

[260] Is there something you could put into words about why you're so dim good at the openings?

[261] Again, these things have changed a lot over time.

[262] Back in Kasparo's days, for instance, he very often got huge advantages from the opening as white.

[263] Can you explain why?

[264] There were several reasons for that.

[265] First of all, he worked harder.

[266] He was more creative and finding ideas.

[267] He was able to look places others didn't.

[268] Also, he had a very strong team of people who had specific strengths in open.

[269] openings that he could use.

[270] So they would come up with ideas and he would integrate those ideas into...

[271] Yeah, and he would also very often come up with them himself.

[272] 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.

[273] He was better at using them than a lot of others.

[274] Now I feel like the playing field is a lot more level.

[275] There are both computer engines, neural networks, and hybrid engines available to practically anybody.

[276] So it's much harder to find ideas now that actually give you an advantage with the white pieces.

[277] I mean, people don't expect to find those ideas anymore.

[278] Now it's all about finding ideas that are missed by the engines, either they're missed entirely or they're missed at low depth and using them to, you know, gain some advantage in the sense that you have more knowledge.

[279] And, you know, it's also good to know that usually these are not complete bluffs.

[280] These are like semi -bluffs.

[281] So that.

[282] you know that even if your opponent makes all the right moves, you can still make a draw.

[283] And also at the start of 2019, neural networks had just started to be a thing in chess.

[284] 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.

[285] And then you could gain 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.

[286] So short answer is these days it's all about surprising your opponent and taking it into position where you have more knowledge.

[287] So is there some sense in which it's okay to make suboptimal quote -unquote moves?

[288] No, but you have to.

[289] I mean, you have to.

[290] Because the best moves have been analyzed to death, mostly.

[291] So that's a kind of, when you say Sammy Bluff, that's a kind of sacrifice.

[292] You're sacrificing the optimal move, the optimal position so that you can take the opponent.

[293] I mean, that's a game theoretics sense.

[294] You take the opponent into something they didn't prepare well.

[295] 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.

[296] So in that sense, you may not be going for like the objective, the tries that are objectively the most difficult to draw against.

[297] But, you know, you are trying to look at least at the less obvious paths.

[298] How much do you use engines?

[299] Do you use Lila, stockfish, in your preparations?

[300] My team does.

[301] 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.

[302] And I feel like often having imperfect or knowledge about a position or some engine knowledge can be a lot worse than having no knowledge.

[303] So I try to look at engines as little as possible.

[304] So, yeah, so your team uses them for research for a generation of ideas.

[305] Yeah.

[306] But you are relying primarily in your human resources.

[307] Yeah, for sure.

[308] You can evaluate well.

[309] You don't lean.

[310] Yeah, I can evaluate as a human.

[311] I can know what they find unpleasant and so on.

[312] And it's very often the case, for me to some extent, but a lot for others that you arrive in a position and your opponent plays a move that you didn't expect.

[313] And, you know, if you didn't expect it, you know that it's probably not a great move since it hasn't been expected by the engine.

[314] But if it's not obvious, why it's not a good move, it's usually very, very hard to figure it out.

[315] 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.

[316] I was chatting with the Demas Sasaabe's CEO of Deep Mind a couple of days ago and he asked me to ask you about what you first felt when you saw the play of Alpha Zero.

[317] Like interesting ideas, any creativity.

[318] Did you feel fear that the machine is taking over?

[319] Were you inspired?

[320] and what was going on in your mind and heart funny thing about demos is he he doesn't play chess at all like like an AI he plays in a very very human way no I was hugely inspired when I saw the games at first and in terms of man versus machine I mean that battle was was kind of lost for humans even before I entered top -level chess.

[321] So that's never been an issue for me. I never liked playing against computers much anyway.

[322] So that's completely fine.

[323] But it was amazing to see how they quote -unquote thought about chess in such a different way and in a way that you could mistake for creativity.

[324] Mistake for strong words.

[325] 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 is that is that weird to you that that's part of chess no it's one of the things that's hardest to replicate as a human as well or at least for my playing playing style that usually when i sacrifice i feel like i'm you know i don't do it unless i feel like i'm getting something like tantam in return and like a few moves down the line a few moves down the line you can see that you can either retrieve the material or you can put your opponents king under pressure or have some very like very concrete positional advantage this sort of compensates for it for instance in chess so bishops and knights are fairly equivalent we both give them three points but bishops are really little bit better and especially a bishop pair is a lot better than than a bishop and a knight so or especially two knights depends on the position but like on average they are so like sacrificing a pawn in order to get a bishop pair that's one of the most common sacrifices in general you're okay making that sacrifice 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 a pawn for the bishop pair, and then eventually it's some sort of positional equality.

[326] So that's fine.

[327] But the way Alpha Zero would sacrifice a knight or sometimes two ponds, three ponds, and you could see that it's looking for some sort of positional domination, but it's hard to understand.

[328] And it was really fascinating to see.

[329] Yeah, in 2019, I was sacrificing a lot of ponds, especially, and it was a great joy.

[330] Unfortunately, it's not so easy to continue to do that.

[331] People have found more solid opening lines since that don't allow me to do that as often.

[332] I'm still trying both to get those positions and still trying to learn the art of sacrificing pieces.

[333] So Demis also 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.

[334] So you're talking about this interesting difference between the two pieces, that there's some kind of, how would you convert that?

[335] I mean, that's like a poetic statement about chess.

[336] I think he said that why has chess been played for such a long time?

[337] why is it so fun to play at every level that if you can reduce it to one thing is it's the bishop and the knight some kind of weird dynamics that they create in chess is there any truth to that it sounds very good i haven't tried a lot of other games but i tried to play a little bit of shogi and for my new shogi brain um comparing it to chess what annoyed me about that game is how much the pieces suck basically you have one of rook and you have one bishop that move like in chess and the rest of the pieces are really not very powerful so i think that's one of the attractions of chess like how powerful especially the queen is which interesting i kind of think makes it makes a lot of fun you you you think power is more fun than like variety no there is variety in chess as well though to but not much more so than, like, go or something.

[338] No, no, no, no, that's for.

[339] So, like, night, I mean, they all move in different ways.

[340] They're all, like, weird.

[341] There's just all these weird patterns and positions that can emerge.

[342] The difference in the pieces create all kinds of interesting dynamics, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.

[343] Yeah.

[344] And I guess it is quite fascinating that all those years ago, they created the knights and the bishop without probably realizing that they would be almost, equally strong with such different qualities.

[345] That's crazy that this, you know, like when you design computer games, it's like an art form.

[346] It's science and an art to balance it.

[347] You know, you talk about Starcraft and all those games, like so that you can have competitive play at the highest level with all those different units.

[348] In case of chess, it's different pieces.

[349] And they somehow designed a game that was super competitive.

[350] But there's probably some kind of natural.

[351] selection that the chess just wouldn't last if it was designed poorly.

[352] Yeah, and I think the rules have changed over time a little, a little bit.

[353] 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 yeah so for people who don't know a fisher random chest chest 960s yeah that basically just means that the pawns are in the same way and the major pieces are distributed randomly on the on the last rank only that there have to be obviously bishops of opposite color and the king has to be in between the rook so that you can castle both ways oh you can still castle and you can still castle but it makes it's interesting so you still have it still castles in the same way so let's say the king is like yeah what happens in that case yeah let's say the king is in the corner um so to to castle this side you have you have to clear a whole lot of pieces what would casting look like though no the king would go here and the rook would go there oh okay um and that's happened in my games as well like I forgot about castling and I've been like attacking a king over here and then all of a sudden it escapes to the other side.

[354] I think Fisher chess is good that it's the maps will generally be worse than regular chess.

[355] I think the starting position is as close to ideal for creating a competitive game as possible, but they will still be interesting and diverse enough that you can play very interesting games.

[356] So when you say maps, there's 960 different options and like what fraction of that creates interesting games at the highest level?

[357] This is something that a lot of people are curious about because when you challenge a great chess player like yourself to look at a random starting position, that feels.

[358] like it pushes you to play pure chess versus memorizing life.

[359] Oh, yeah, for sure.

[360] For sure, but that's the whole idea.

[361] Yeah.

[362] That's what you want.

[363] How hard is it to play?

[364] Can you talk about what it feels like to you to play with a random starting position?

[365] Is there some intuition you've been building up?

[366] It's very, very different.

[367] And I mean, understandably, engines have an even greater advantage in 960 than they have in classical chess.

[368] No, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's super interesting.

[369] And that's why I also, I really wish that we played more classical chess, like long games, four to seven hours in fish random chess, chess 960, because then you really need that time, even on the first moves.

[370] 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, you know, check the computer, but that's all the time you have.

[371] But then you really need to figure it out.

[372] And like some of the positions obviously are a lot more interesting than the others.

[373] 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 position.

[374] What do you mean with the pawns?

[375] With the pawns, yeah.

[376] So that's the thing.

[377] about that's the thing about chess though so let's say why it opens with e4 which is which has always been the most played move there are many ways to meet that but the most solid ways of playing has always been the symmetrical response yeah uh with e5 and then there's the duly lopez there's the there's the petroff opening and and so on and if you just banned symmetry on the first move in chess you would get more interesting games.

[378] Oh, interesting.

[379] Or you get more decisive, decisive games.

[380] 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.

[381] But symmetry is a good default.

[382] But yeah, symmetry is a good default.

[383] And it's a problem that by playing symmetrical armed with good preparation in regular chess, it's just a little bit too easy to uh it's a little bit to to drawish and um i guess if you analyzed if you analyzed a lot in in just 960 then um the um a lot of the position would end up being um pretty drawish as well um because the random starting point is so shitty you're forced to you're actually forced to play symmetrically like you cannot actually try and play in a more sort of interesting, uh, interesting manner.

[384] Uh, is there any other kind of variations that are interesting to you?

[385] Oh, yeah, there are, there are several.

[386] So no castling chess has been, uh, has been promoted by former world champion Vladimir Kramnik.

[387] There have been a few tournaments with that, not any that I've participated in, though.

[388] Um, I kind of like it.

[389] Also, my coach uses, like non -castling engines quite a bit to analyze regular positions just to get a different perspective so castling is like a defensive thing so if you remove castling it forces you to be more offensive is that why yeah it just yeah for for for sure it seems like a I think it's different 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.

[390] It's going to make the game a bit slower at the start, but I feel like eventually it's going to make the games more, well, less droish for sure.

[391] Then you have some weirder variants like where the ponds can move both diagonally and forward.

[392] And also you have self -capture chess, which is quite interesting.

[393] So that pawns can or...

[394] Could commit suicide?

[395] Yeah, people can...

[396] Why would that be a good move?

[397] No, sometimes one of your pieces occupy a square.

[398] I mean, let me just set up a position.

[399] Let's put it like this.

[400] For instance, like here, I mean, there are a lot of ways to checkmates for white like this, for instance.

[401] sorry there are several ways um but like this would be uh would be uh oh cool for people who are just listening yeah basically you're bringing in a night close to the the the whole the king the queen and so on and you replace the knight with a queen yeah that's interesting so you have like a a front of of uh pieces and then you just replace them with the with the second yeah uh that's cool i mean that could be interesting i think also maybe sometimes and it's just clearance basically it adds an extra element of clearance so i think there are many um many different variants i don't think any of them are better than the one that has been played for uh at least a thousand years but um it's certainly interesting to um to see so one of your goals is to reach the fidea elo chess rating of 2 ,900 maybe you can comment on how is this rating calculated and what does it take to get there?

[402] Is it possible for a human being to get there?

[403] 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.

[404] Well, if your opponent is 200 points lower rated, you're expected to score 75 % and so on.

[405] 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.

[406] Yeah, and my rating is obviously carried through thousands of games.

[407] Right now, my rating is 2861, which is decent.

[408] I think that pretty much corresponds to the level I have at the moment, which means in order to reach 2 ,900, I would have to either get better at chess, which I think is fairly hard to do, at least considerably better.

[409] So what I would need to do is try and optimize even more in terms of preparations.

[410] the matchups, the game.

[411] Preparations, everything.

[412] Not necessarily like selecting tournaments and so on, but like just optimizing in terms of preparation, like making sure I'm, I never have any bad days.

[413] So you basically can't lose?

[414] Yeah, I basically can't fuck up ever if I want to, if I want to reach that goal.

[415] And so I think reaching 2 ,900 is pretty unlikely.

[416] the reason I've set the goal is to have something to play for to have like to have a motivation to actually try and be at my best when I play 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 like a lot to, I don't have a lot to prove or anything.

[417] But that gives me at least the motivation to try and try and be at my best all the time, which I think is something to aim for.

[418] So at the moment, I'm quite enjoying that process of trying to, yeah, trying to optimize.

[419] What would you say motivates you in this now and in the years leading up to now?

[420] love of winning or the fear of losing so for the world championship it's been a fear of losing for sure other tournaments love of winning is a great great factor 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 a relief I also think I enjoy winning more now than I did before because I feel like I'm a little bit more relaxed now and I also know that it's not going to last forever so every little win I appreciate a lot more now and yeah in terms of fear for losing like 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 it really was all about avoiding losing why is it the world championship really makes you feel this way the anxiety so and when you say losing do you mean not just a match but like every single position like the fear of a blunder no i mean the blunder is okay like when i sit down at the board then it's it's mostly been fine because then i'm focused on got it then i'm focused on the game and i know i know that i can play the game 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 there's a there's a winner and a loser if I don't win a random tournament that I play then you know I'm usually it depends on a tournament I might be disappointed for sure might even be pretty pissed but ultimately you know you go on to the next one With the world championship, you don't go on to the next one.

[421] It's like, it's years.

[422] Yeah.

[423] And it also has been, like, it's been a core part of my identity for a while now, that I am world champion.

[424] And so there's not an option of losing that.

[425] Yeah.

[426] Yeah, there's, you're going to have to, at least for a couple of years, carry the weight of having lost.

[427] you're the former world champion now if you lose versus the current world champion there are certain sports that create that anxiety and others that don't for example I think UFC like mixed martial arts are a little better with losing it's understood like everybody loses but there's not everybody though not everybody not everybody could be went to the chat but in boxing there is like that extra pressure of like maintaining the championship.

[428] I mean, maybe you could say the same thing about the UFC as well.

[429] So for you personally, for a person who loves chess, the first time you won the World Championship, that was the big, that was the thing that was fun.

[430] Yeah.

[431] And then everything after is like stressful.

[432] Yeah.

[433] There was certainly stress involved the first time as well, but it was nothing compared to the others.

[434] So the only World Championship after that that I really enjoyed was the one in 2018 against the American Fabiano Caruana.

[435] And what that made that different is that I'd been kind of slumping for a bit and he'd been on the rise.

[436] So our ratings were very, very similar.

[437] They were so close that if at any point during the match, I'd lost.

[438] the game he would have been ranked as number one in world like our ratings were so close that for each draw they didn't move and and the game itself was close yeah the games themselves were very close uh i i had a winning position in in the first game that i couldn't really get anywhere for a lot of games and he he had a couple of games where he could potentially have won then in the last game I was a little bit better and eventually they were all they were all drawn 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 and so losing that would not have been disaster because in all the other matches I would know that I would have lost against somebody who I know I'm much better than and that would be would it would be a lot harder for me to take.

[439] Well, that's fascinating and beautiful, that the stress isn't from losing.

[440] Because you have fun, you enjoy playing against somebody who's as good as you, may be better than you.

[441] That's exciting to you.

[442] It's losing at this high stakes thing that only happens rarely to a person who's not as good as you.

[443] Yeah, and that's why it's also been incredibly frustrating in other matches, just like when I know, when we play draw after draw, and I can just, I know that I'm better, I can sense during the game that I understand it better than them, but I cannot, you know, I cannot get over the hump.

[444] 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.

[445] Or, I mean, there's an argument to be made for that.

[446] Is there anything, you would like to see if you'd change about the World Championship that will make it more fun for you and better for the game of chess, period, for everybody involved.

[447] So I think 12 games or now 14 games that there is for the World Championship is a fairly low sample size.

[448] If you want to determine who the best player is or at least the best player in that particular matchup, you need more games.

[449] And I think to some extent, And if you're going to have a world champion and call them the best players, best player, you've got to make sure that the format increases the chance of finding the best players.

[450] So I think having more games.

[451] 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 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.

[452] And also, yeah, you have depreparation.

[453] So I think those would be for me to play, those would be the main things, more games and less time.

[454] So you want to see more games and rules that emphasize pure chess.

[455] Yeah, but already less time emphasizes pure chess because defensive techniques are much harder to execute with a little time.

[456] What do you think?

[457] Is there a sweet spot in terms of, are we talking about Blitz?

[458] I think Blitz is a bit too fast.

[459] To their credit, this was suggested by Fita as well.

[460] For a start, you have two games per day, let's say you have 45 minutes a game plus 15 or 30 seconds per move.

[461] That means that each sessions will probably be about or a little less than two hours.

[462] That would be a start.

[463] 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, those would be more interesting than, than the one there is now.

[464] And I understand that there are a lot of traditions.

[465] People don't want to change the world championship.

[466] That's all fine.

[467] I just think that the world championship should do a better job of trying to reflect who's the best overall chess player.

[468] So would you say like if it's faster games, you'd probably be able to get a sample size of like over 20 games, 20, 30, 40, you think there's a number that's good over a long period of time well i would prefer as many as possible so like a hundred um yeah but let's say you play 12 days to games a day you know that's 24 yeah i feel like that's already quite a bit better you play like one black game one white game each day endurance wise that's okay yeah i think that's fine like you will have three days as well so i don't think that will be will be a problem um and also you have to prepare two sets of openings for each day day which makes it more difficult for the teams preparing yeah i think is also good let me ask you a fun question if uh hikaro and nakamura uh was one of the two people uh what i guess i apologize yeah he could have he could have finished second yeah so he lost the last round of the candidates yeah and you uh put maybe you can explain to me internet speak copium is something you tweeted yeah but if he if he got second would you uh would you uh would you uh would you uh would you Would you just despite him still play the World Championship?

[469] That's internet question.

[470] And when the internet asks, I must abide, the dude abides.

[471] Yeah, sure.

[472] Thank you, internet.

[473] So after the last match, I did an interview right after where I talked about the fact that I was unlikely to play the next one.

[474] 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.

[475] What happened was that right before the World Championship match, there was this young player, Alvarez of Eurasia.

[476] He had a dramatic rise.

[477] He rose to second in the world rankings.

[478] He was 18 then, he's 19 now.

[479] He qualified for the candidates.

[480] and they felt like there was like at least a half realistic possibility that he could be the challenger for the next world championship and that sort of lit a fire under me. Do you like that?

[481] I like that a lot.

[482] I love the idea of playing him in the next world championship.

[483] And originally I was sure that I wanted to announce right after the tournament, the match that this was it.

[484] I'm done.

[485] I'm not playing the next one.

[486] But this lit a fire under me. So that made me think, you know, this actually motivates me. 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.

[487] Also, obviously, I wanted to give people and people a heads up for the candidates that you might be playing for more than more than first place.

[488] Like normally the candidates is first place or bust.

[489] It's like the world championship.

[490] And then, so Nakamura was one of many people who just didn't believe me, which is fair.

[491] Because I've talked before about not necessarily wanting to defend again.

[492] But I never talked as concretely or was as serious as this time.

[493] simply didn't believe me and he was very vocal about that and he said nobody believe me no other players which may or may i'm not have been true and then yeah he lost he lost the last game and he didn't didn't qualify but to answer the question no i'd already at that point decided that i wouldn't wouldn't play i would have liked it less if he had if he had not lost the last round but the decision was but the decision was already was already made does it uh does it break your heart a little bit that you're walking away from it in all the ways that you mentioned that it's just not fun there's a bunch of ways that it doesn't seem to bring out the best kind of chess it doesn't bring out the best out of you in the particular opponents involved does it just break your heart a little bit like you're walking away from something or maybe the entire chess communities walking away from a kind of a historic event that was so important in the 20th century at least.

[494] So I won the championship in 2013.

[495] I said no to the candidates in 2011.

[496] I didn't particularly like the format.

[497] I also wasn't, I was just not in the mood.

[498] I didn't want the pressure that was connected with the World Championship.

[499] And I was perfectly concerned.

[500] at the time to play the tournaments that I did play.

[501] 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.

[502] And what happened later is I suddenly decided to play.

[503] In 2013, I liked, they changed the format.

[504] I liked it better.

[505] I just decided, you know, it could be interesting.

[506] let's try and get this um there were there really wasn't more than more than that to it it wasn't like fulfilling life -long dream or anything i just thought you know let's let's play um so it's just a cool tournament a good challenge yeah it's a cool tournament it's a good challenge you know why not it's it's something that's could be a motivation it motivated me to get in the in the best shape of my life that had been until then.

[507] So it was a good thing.

[508] And 2013 match brought me a lot of joy as well.

[509] So I'm very, very happy that I did that.

[510] But I never had any thoughts that I'm going to like keep the title for for a long time.

[511] Immediately after the match in 2013, I mean, also before the match, I'd spoken against the fact that champion is seeded into the final, which I thought was unfair.

[512] after the match I made a proposal that we have a different system where the champion doesn't have these privileges and people's reaction both players and chess community was generally like okay we're good we don't want that you keep your privileges and I was like okay whatever so you want to fight for it every time yeah I want that I have to ask just case you have an opinion, if you can, maybe from a fantasy chess perspective, analyze Ding versus Nepo, who wins, the current, the two people that would play if you're not playing?

[513] Generally, I would consider that Ding has a slightly better overall chest strength.

[514] What are the strength and weaknesses of each, if you can kind of summarize it?

[515] Um, so Nepo, he's even better at calculating short lines than I am.

[516] Um, but he can sometimes like a little bit of, little bit of depth.

[517] Uh, like his, in short lines, he's an absolute calculation monster.

[518] He's extremely, uh, he's extremely quick, but he can sometimes like a bit of depth.

[519] Also recently, um, he's improved his openings quite a bit.

[520] So now he, um, he has, um, A lot of good ideas, and he's very, very solid.

[521] Ding is not quite as well prepared, but he has an excellent understanding of dynamics and imbalances in chess, I would say.

[522] What do you mean by imbalances?

[523] Imbalances like bishops against knights and material imbalances.

[524] He can take advantage of those.

[525] Yes, I would say.

[526] He's very, very good at that.

[527] and understanding the you know the dynamic factors as we call them like material versus time especially i think nepo got the better of him and the candidates so what's your sense why ding has an edge in the in the championship i feel like individual past results hasn't necessarily been a great indicator of world championship results uh i feel like overall stress strength is more more important.

[528] I mean, to be fair, I only think like Dink has a very small edge.

[529] Like, difference is not big at all.

[530] 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.

[531] It was like four to one in his favor before the match.

[532] But that was just another example of why that may not necessarily mean anything.

[533] Also in our case, it was a very, very, low sample size, I think about the size of the match in total 14 games.

[534] And that generally doesn't mean much.

[535] How close were those games, would you say, in your mind for the previous championship?

[536] So that game six was a turning point where you won.

[537] 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 NEPA?

[538] No, no, larger sample size is always good for me. World Championship is a great parallel to football because it's a low -scoring game.

[539] And if the better player or the better team scores, they win most of the time.

[540] Oh, that's generally for championships or in general?

[541] Yeah, for championships.

[542] Like, they generally win because the other slightly weaker team, they're good enough to defend to make it very, very difficult.

[543] for the others, but when they actually have to create the chances, then they have no chance.

[544] And then it very often ends with a blowout, as it did in our match.

[545] If I hadn't won game six, it probably would have been very, very close.

[546] He might have edged it.

[547] There's obviously a bigger chance that I would have edged it.

[548] But this is just what happens a lot in chess, but also in football that matches are close, and then they...

[549] Somebody scores.

[550] somebody scores and then things changed and this gives people the illusion that the matchup was very close yeah which well actually it just means that the nature of the game makes 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 and in other matches as well even though a lot of people before the match in 2016 against against Kariakin, there were people who thought before the match that I was massively overrated as as a favorite and that essentially the match was pretty close like whatever 60, 40 or some people even say it like 55, 45.

[551] And what I felt was that the match went very very wrong for me and I still won.

[552] And some people saw that as an indication that the pre -match probabilities were probably a bit closer than people thought, well, I would look at it in the way that everything went wrong, and I still won, which probably means that I was a pretty big favorite to begin with.

[553] I do have a question to you about that match, but first, so Sergei Karayakin was originally a qualifier for the candidate tournament, but was disqualified for breaching the Fidea Code of Ethics after publicly expressing approval for the 22 Russian invasion.

[554] in Ukraine.

[555] When you look at the Cold War and some of the U .S. versus Russian games of the past, does politics, some of this geopolitics, politics ever creep its way into the game?

[556] 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?

[557] still does.

[558] So the president of the World Chess Federation, who was just re -elected, is a Russian.

[559] Like, I like him personally, for sure.

[560] But he is quite connected to the Kremlin.

[561] And it's quite clear that the Kremlin considers it at least a semi -important goal to bring the chess crown home to to Russia.

[562] So it's still definitely a factor.

[563] And I mean, I can answer for in the Kariakin case, is like I don't have a strong opinion on on whether he should have been banned or not obviously I don't agree with anything that he he says but in principle I think that you should ban either no Russians or all Russians 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 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 we don't know this is the thing though yeah we really don't know about the the long -term conflicts and a lot of people try to do the right the right thing in this sense, which I don't really blame at all.

[564] It's just that we don't know.

[565] And I guess sometimes there are other ways you want to try and help as well.

[566] Like within the competition, within some of those battles of U .S. 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.

[567] Like, at the end of the day, there's a thing that unites you which which is this like appreciation of the fight over the chessboard it's um even if you hate each other yeah for sure i i think for every every match that's been you would briefly discuss the game with your opponent after after the game no matter how much you hate each other and i i think that's lovely and casparov i mean he was quoted like when somebody in his team asked him like why why are you talking to carp of after the game like he you hate that guy and he's yeah sure but he's the only one who understands yeah the only one who understands so that's uh no i think that's really lovely and i would love to see that in other in other areas was as well that you can regardless of what happens you can have you can have a good chat about the game you can you can just talk about the ideas with people who who understand what you what you understand So if you're not playing the world championships, there's a lot of people who are saying that perhaps the world championships don't matter anymore.

[568] Do you think there's some truth to that?

[569] 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.

[570] But I was thinking like the moment that I realized that I'm not the best player in the world, like I felt like morally I have to renounce the world title, you know, because it doesn't mean anything, as long as you're not the best player.

[571] So the ratings really tell a bigger, a clearer story?

[572] I think so, at least over time.

[573] Like, I'm a lot more proud of my streak of being rated number one in the world, which is now since I think the summer of 2011.

[574] I'm a lot more proud of that than the world championships.

[575] How much anxiety or even fear do you have before making a difficult decision on the chess board?

[576] So when it's a high -stakes game, how nervous do you get?

[577] How much anxiety do you have in all that calculations?

[578] You're sitting there for 10, 15 minutes because you're in a fog.

[579] There's always a possibility of a blunder of a mistake.

[580] Are you anxious about it?

[581] Are you afraid of it?

[582] Really depends.

[583] I have been at times.

[584] I think the most nervous I ever been was game 10 of the world championship in 2018 that was just a thrilling game I was black I basically abandoned the queen's side at some point to attack him on the king's side and I knew that my attack if it doesn't work I'm going to lose but I had so much adrenaline so that was that was fine I thought I was going to win then at some point I realized that it's not so clear and then my time was ticking and I was just getting so nervous I still remember what happened like we played this time trouble phase where he had a fair little time but I had even less and I just remember I cannot remember much of it just that when it was over I was just so relieved because then it was clear the position was probably gonna figure out in a draw otherwise I'm often nervous before games but when I get there it's all business and especially when I'm playing well I'm never afraid of of losing when I when I play because I trust my instincts I trust my my skills how much psychological intimidation is there from you to the other person from the other person to you I think people would play a lot better if they played Against an anonymous me. I would love to...

[585] People are scared of you.

[586] I would love to have a tournament online where, let's say, you play 10 of the best players in the world, and for each round, you don't know who you're playing.

[587] That's an interesting question.

[588] You know, like, there's these, like, videos where people eat McDonald's, a Burger King, or Diet Coke versus Diet Pepsi.

[589] Would people be able to tell they're playing you, like from the style of play do you think or from the strength of play if there was a decent sample size sure and what about you would you be able to tell others in just one game very unlikely what sample size would you need to tell accurately I feel like this is science yeah I think 20 games would help a lot for person yeah but I know that They've already developed AI bots that are pretty good at recognizing somebody's style.

[590] Okay.

[591] Which is quite fascinating.

[592] And they'd be fascinating if those bots were able to summarize the style somehow.

[593] 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.

[594] Or to just talk shit?

[595] No, but really all the best chess players, there are.

[596] basically just two camps people who are got out longer lines or or shorter lines it's the hair and the tortoise basically and sometimes you know i feel like i'm the closest you can get to a a hybrid of those because you got both the you're good in every position of the middle game and the end game yeah and also i can i can think to some extent both rapidly and deeply which a lot of people they can't do both but i mean to to answer your question from before i think yeah i sometimes can get a little bit intimidated by my opponent but it's mostly if there's something unknown if it's mostly if it's if it's something that i don't understand fully 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.

[597] And I certainly use that to my advantage.

[598] If I sense that my opponent is apprehensive, if I sense that they are not going to necessarily take all their chances, it just means that I can take more risk.

[599] And I always try and find that balance.

[600] To shake them up a little bit.

[601] Yeah.

[602] What's been the toughest loss of your career that you remember?

[603] Would that be the World Championship match?

[604] Oh, yeah, for sure.

[605] Game 8 in 2016.

[606] And who was it against?

[607] Against Kariakin in New York.

[608] Can you take it through the story of that game?

[609] Where were you before that game in terms of game 1 through 7?

[610] Yeah, so game 1 and 2, not much happened.

[611] Game 3 and 4, I was winning in both of them.

[612] and normally I should definitely have converted both.

[613] I couldn't partly due to good defense on his part, but mostly because I just, I messed up.

[614] And then after that, games five, six and seven, not much happened.

[615] I was getting impatient at that point.

[616] So for 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.

[617] Like he wasn't strong enough to outplay me. And that was leading to impatience somehow and impatience.

[618] No, because I knew that I was better.

[619] Yeah.

[620] I knew that I was better.

[621] I knew that I just needed to win one game.

[622] and then the match is over.

[623] That's what happened in 2021 as well.

[624] Like when I won the first game against Nepo, I knew that the match was over.

[625] Unless I like fuck up royally, then he's not going to be able to beat me. So what happened was that I played a kind of an innocuous opening as why it's just trying to get a game, trying to get him out of book as soon as possible.

[626] Then...

[627] Okay, can you elaborate innocuous, get him out of the book?

[628] No, but basically I set up...

[629] pretty defensively as wide.

[630] I wasn't really crossing into his half at the start at all.

[631] I was just, I played more like a system more than like a concrete opening.

[632] It was like, I'm going to set up my pieces this way.

[633] You can set them up however you want.

[634] And then later, we're sort of the armies are going to meet.

[635] I'm not going to try and bother you at the start.

[636] And that means you can have with as many pieces as possible kind of pure chest in the middle game without any of the lines, the standard lines in the opening.

[637] And so there was at some point a couple of exchanges, then some maneuvering, a little bit better.

[638] Then he was sort of equalizing, and then I started to take too many risks.

[639] And I was still sort of fine.

[640] But then at some point I realized that I'd gone a bit too far and I had to be really careful.

[641] Then I just froze.

[642] I just completely froze mentally yeah mentally what happened I realized that I mean all the thoughts of I might lose this what have I done why did I take so many risks I knew that I could have drawn at any moment just be patient don't give him these opportunities what triggered that like face transition in your mind no it was the one thing no it was just a position on the board like realizing like there was one particular move he played that i missed and then like then i realized that this could potentially not go go my way so then i made another couple of mistakes and he to his credit like once he realized the other chance he was like he knew that this was his one chance he had to take it and so he did and yeah that's that's the worst i've ever felt after um after chess game.

[643] I realized that I'm probably going to lose my title against somebody who's not even close to my level.

[644] And I've done it because of my own stupidity, most of all.

[645] And that was really, really, at the time, like, I was all in my own head.

[646] That was hard to deal with.

[647] And I felt like I didn't really recover too much for the next game.

[648] So what I did, there was a free day after the eighth game.

[649] So I did something that I never did at any other World Championship.

[650] Like I, after game eight, I just, I got drunk with my team.

[651] That's not a standard procedure.

[652] No, no. That's the only time that's happening in a World Championship during the match.

[653] So, yeah, I just tried to forget.

[654] yet but still before game nine game nine i was a little bit more relaxed but i was still a bit nervous then game nine i was almost lost as well then only game 10 game 10 i was still i wasn't in a great mood i was really really tense um the opening was good uh i had some advantage i was getting optimistic then i made one mistake he could have forced to draw and then the old all the negativity came back like I was thinking during the game like how I'm going to play for a win with black in the next game like what what am I doing and then you know eventually it ended it ended well it didn't find the right line I ground him down actually I played at some point pretty well in the end game and after that game like there was such a weight lifted no I after that there was like no thought of losing the match whatsoever.

[655] I knew that, okay, I'd basically gotten away with, not with murder, but gotten away with something.

[656] What can you say about the after Game 8, where are the places you've gone in your mind?

[657] Do you go to some dark places?

[658] We're talking about depression.

[659] Do you think about quitting at that point?

[660] No, I mean, I think about quitting every time I lose the classical game.

[661] Or at least I used to.

[662] Especially if it's in a stupid way, I'm thinking like, okay, if I'm going to play like this, if I'm going to do things that I know are wrong, then, you know, I might as well quit.

[663] No, that's happened a bunch of times.

[664] And I definitely got a bit more carefree about losing these days, which is not necessarily a good thing.

[665] Like my hatred of losing led to me not losing a lot.

[666] and it also lit the fire under me that I think my performance after losses in classical chess over the last 10 years is like over 2 ,900 like I really play well after a loss even though it's really really unpleasant so apparently like I don't think the way that I dealt with them is particularly healthy but it's worked it's worked so far but then you've discovered now love for winning to where ultimately longevity -wise creates more fun.

[667] Yeah, for sure.

[668] What's the perfect day in the life of Magnus Carlson on a day of a big chess match?

[669] It doesn't have to be a world championship, but if it's a chess match you care about, what time do you wake up?

[670] What do you eat?

[671] It depends on when the game is.

[672] But let's say the game is at three.

[673] I'll probably wake up pretty late at about 11 then I'll go for go for a walk might listen to some podcasts maybe I'll spend a little bit of time looking at some you know some NBA game from last night or whatever to not chess related stuff no no no no then I'll get back I'll have big lunch like usually like a big omelette with a bunch of salad and stuff then go to the game win like a very nice clean game this perfect day just go back after relax like the the things that make me the happiest that tournaments is just having a good routine and feeling feeling well um i don't like it when too much is happening around me so the tournament that i came from now was um the Chess Olympiad, which is the team event.

[674] So we were team Norway.

[675] We did horribly.

[676] I did okay, but the team in general did horribly.

[677] Who won that Italy?

[678] No, no. Italy beat us, but Uzbekistan won in the end.

[679] They were this amazing team of young players.

[680] It was really impressive.

[681] But the thing is, like, we had a good camarader in the team.

[682] We had our meals together.

[683] We played a bit of football, went swimming.

[684] and I couldn't understand why things went wrong and I still don't understand but the thing is for me it was all very nice 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 otherwise just have like a very small team of people that I see you are a kind of celebrity now so you know people within the chess tournament and outside recognize you want to socialize what to tell you about how much you mean to that how much you inspire them, all that kind of stuff.

[685] Does that get in the way for you when you're trying to really focus on the match?

[686] Are you able to block that?

[687] Are you able to enjoy those little interactions and still keep your focus?

[688] Yeah, most of the time, that's fine as long as it's not too much.

[689] But I have to admit, when I'm at home in Norway, I rarely go out without big headphones.

[690] something oh like a disguise on my no not just to block out the world just to block out the world yeah otherwise um don't make eye contact yeah no so the thing is people in general are nice i mean people they wish me well uh and they don't like bother me also when i have the headphones on i don't notice as much people like turning around and yeah and all of that so i can be more of in my own world.

[691] So I like that.

[692] Yeah.

[693] What about after the, in this perfect day, after the game, do you try to analyze what happened?

[694] Do you try to think through systematically or do you just kind of loosely think about like?

[695] No, I just loosely think about it.

[696] I've never been very structured in, in that sense.

[697] I know that it was always recommended that you analyze your, your own games.

[698] But I generally felt that I mostly had a good idea.

[699] idea about that like nowadays i will like loosely see what the engine says at at a certain point if i'm curious about that otherwise i usually move on to the next what about diet you said omelet and salad and so on i heard uh in your conversation with the uh with the other magnus magnus number two about your you had like this bet about meat one are you're going to go vegan if you lose i forget vegetarian though vegetarians and you both have an admiration for me is there is there some aspect about optimal performance that you look for in food like maybe eating only like once or twice a day or a particular kind of food like meat heavy diet is there anything like that or you just try to have fun with the food I think whenever I'm at tournaments like it's very natural to eat at least for me me to eat only twice a day.

[700] So usually I do that when I'm at home as well.

[701] So you do eat before the tournament though.

[702] You don't you don't play fasted.

[703] No, no, no. 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 because that's the easiest way to make mistake that your energy levels just suddenly drop.

[704] And they don't necessarily need to be too high as long as they're pretty stable yeah have you ever tried playing fasted like you know like uh intermittent fasting so oh playing without having eaten i mean the reason i ask you know uh i've especially when you do a low carb diet when i have done a person in a low carb diet i'm able to fast for a long time like eat once a day maybe uh twice a day but i just the mind is most focused and like really difficult tasks when it's fasted.

[705] It's an interesting, and a lot of people kind of talk about that.

[706] You're able to kind of like zoom in, and if you're doing a low -carb diet, you don't have this energy stable.

[707] No, that is true.

[708] Maybe that will be interesting to try.

[709] So what's happened for me, I played a few tournaments where I've had food poisoning, and then that generally means that you're both sleep deprived and you have no energy.

[710] Yeah.

[711] And what I've found is that it makes me very calm, of course, because I don't have the energy.

[712] And it makes me super creative.

[713] Like being sleep deep priling, I think in general, makes you creative.

[714] Just the first thing that goes away is the ability to do the simple things.

[715] That's what it affects you the most.

[716] Like, you cannot be precise.

[717] So that's the only thing I'm worried about.

[718] like if if i'm fasted that i won't be won't be um precise when i play but you might be more creative it's an interesting trust that yeah potentially what about you have been known to on a rare occasion play drunk is there mathematical formula for sort of on the x -axis how many drinks you had and on the y -axis your performance slash creativity is there like an optimal for Like, one of the, would you suggest for the Feeding World Championship that people would be required to drink?

[719] Would that change things in interesting ways?

[720] Yeah, not at all.

[721] Maybe for Rapid, but for Blitz, I think if you're playing Blitz, you're mostly playing on short calculation and intuition.

[722] And I think those are probably enhanced if you've had a little bit of, little bit to drink.

[723] Can you explain the physiology of why that's why it's enhanced or the...

[724] You're just, you're thinking less, you're more confident.

[725] Oh yeah.

[726] I think I think it's just confidence.

[727] I think also like a lot of people feel like they're better at speaking languages, for instance, if they've drunk a little bit.

[728] It's just like removing these barriers.

[729] Yeah.

[730] I think that But it's a little bit of the same in chess.

[731] In 2012, I played the World Bliss Championship.

[732] Then I was doing horribly for a long time.

[733] I also had food poisoning there.

[734] I couldn't play at all for three days.

[735] So before the last break, I was in the middle of the pack in, I don't know, 20th place or something.

[736] And so I decided, like, as the last, last.

[737] gas, I'm going to go to the mini bar and just have a few drinks.

[738] And what happened is that I came back and I was suddenly relaxed.

[739] And I was playing fast and I was playing confidence.

[740] And I thought I was playing so well.

[741] I wasn't playing nearly as well as I thought.

[742] But it still helped me like, I won my remaining eight games.

[743] And if there had been one more round, I probably would have won the whole thing, but finally I was second.

[744] So generally I wouldn't recommend that.

[745] but maybe as a last resort sometimes like if you feel that you have the ability like obviously none of this is remotely relevant if you don't feel like you have the ability to begin with but if you feel like if you feel like you have the ability there are just factors that make it impossible for you to um to show it like numbing your mind a bit can probably be a good thing yeah well it's interesting especially during training you have all kinds of sports that have interacted with a lot of athletes in grappling sports.

[746] It's different when you train under extreme exhaustion.

[747] For example, you start to discover interesting things.

[748] You start being more creative.

[749] A lot of people, at least in Brazilian jihitsu, they'll smoke weed.

[750] It creates this kind of anxiety and relaxation that kind of enables that creative aspect.

[751] It's interesting for training.

[752] Of course, you can't rely on any one of those things too much but it's cool to throw in like a few drinks every once in a while to uh yeah one first of all to relax and have fun and two to kind of try things differently to unlock a different part of your brain yeah for sure uh what about supplements do you uh you a coffee guy oh no um i quite like the taste of coffee uh i've but the thing is i've never had a job so i've never needed to wake up early.

[753] So my thought is basically that if I'm tired, I'm tired, that's fine.

[754] Yeah.

[755] Then I'll, you know, then I'll work it out.

[756] So I don't want to ever make my brain get used to get used to coffee.

[757] Like if you see me drinking coffee, that's, that probably means that I'm massively, massively hungover and I don't I just want to try anything to make my brain work.

[758] Yeah, that's interesting.

[759] 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.

[760] Yeah, for sure.

[761] You know, so, but you can have rituals without that.

[762] I know that I would enjoy it a lot.

[763] Just you don't want to rely on that.

[764] Yeah.

[765] I also like the taste, so there's no problem there.

[766] what about exercise so how does that what like what what you know a lot of people talk about the extreme um stress that chest puts in your body physically and mentally how do you prepare for that to be physically mentally is it just through playing chess or do you do cardio any of that kind of stuff this is kind of bit up and down like as i said in 2013 i was in i was in i was in great shape like i mean generally i was exercising doing sports every day either playing football or um tennis or even other other sports otherwise if i couldn't do that i would try and take my my bike for for a ride i had a few training camps and i played tennis against one of my my my seconds like he's not a super fit guy but he's always been very good at tennis and i never played in any organized way and that was like that was a that was the perfect exercise because I was running around enough to make the games pretty competitive and it means meant that he had to run a bit less as well but he was just he said like he he was shocked that if we played like for two hours I wouldn't flinch at all interesting so like a combination of fun and the differential between skill result in good cardio.

[767] Yeah, but it's just that, so in those days, I was pretty, I was pretty fit in that sense.

[768] I've always liked doing sports, but at times, you know, I think in winter especially, like I never had like a schedule.

[769] So at times I let myself go a little bit.

[770] And I've always kind have done it more for fun than like for a concrete benefit but now I'm at least after the pandemic I was not in great shape so now I'm trying to to get back get better get better habits and so on but I feel like I've always been the poster boy for making being fit a big thing in chess And I always felt that it was not really a deserve because I never liked doing weights much at all.

[771] I run a bit at times, but I never liked it too much.

[772] You just love playing sports.

[773] I just love playing sports.

[774] So I think people confuse that because I'm not like massively athletic, but I do, I am decent at sports and that sort of help build that perception, even though others who are top -level chess players they're more fit like Karana for instance he's really really really strong it's just that he doesn't he like goes to the gym and yeah it doesn't play sports that's that's the difference and the thing about sports is also is just uh it's an escape it helps you forget for for a brief moment about like the the obsessions the pursuits of of the main thing which is chess.

[775] Yeah, for sure.

[776] And I think it also helps your main pursuit to feel that you're, even not mastering, but like doing well in something else.

[777] Like, I found that if I just juggle a ball, that makes me feel better before a game.

[778] So a skilled activity.

[779] Juggler football, yeah.

[780] Yeah, skilled activity that you can improve on over time.

[781] time.

[782] It flexes the same kind of muscle, but on the thing that you're much worse at.

[783] Yeah.

[784] It focuses, you, relaxes you.

[785] That's really interesting.

[786] What's the perfect day in the life of Magnus Carlson when he's training?

[787] So, like, what's a good training regimen in terms of, you know, 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?

[788] I would say when I'm at home, I do.

[789] very little deliberate practice i've never been that guy at all like i i could never force myself to just sit down and work so deliberate practice just to maybe you can educate me for some grandmasters what would that look like just doing puzzles kind of thing or yeah yeah doing puzzles and opening analysis that would be the main things studying games just studying games yeah a little bit but i feel like that's something that i do but it's not deliberate it's like reading our article or reading a book got like i love chess books i'll read just anything and i'll find something interesting so chess books that are like on openings and stuff like that or chess books that go over different different games.

[790] Yeah.

[791] Books on, so there are three main categories.

[792] There are books on openings and there are books on strategy and there are books on chess history and I find all of them very, very interesting.

[793] Like what fraction of the day would you say you have a chess board floating somewhere in your head?

[794] Meaning like you're thinking about it.

[795] Probably be a better question to ask how many hours a day.

[796] I don't have a chessboard floating.

[797] I mean, it could be just floating there and nothing is happening but like i i often do it parallel to some other activity though and what what does that look like like are you daydreaming like different is it actual positions you're just fucking around with like fumbling with different pieces in your head often i've looked at a 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 and those are actual games or you conjure up like fake games no they were often based on real games uh and then i'm i'm thinking like oh but it wouldn't be more interesting if the pieces were a little bit different and then often i play it out from there so you don't have uh like you don't sit behind a computer or a chess board and you lay out the pieces and no i'm not at all a poster board for deliberate practice i could never i could never work that way my first coach He gave me some exercises that at home sometimes, but he realized at some point that wasn't going to work because I wouldn't do it really or enjoy it.

[798] So what he would do instead is that at the school where I had the trainings with him, there was this massive chess library.

[799] So he was just like, yeah, pick out books.

[800] You can have anything.

[801] you can have anything you want just pick out books you like and then you give it back the next time so that's what I did instead yeah I just absolutely rated 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 does it feel like a struggle like challenging like to be thinking of those positions or is it fun and relaxing no it's completely fine I don't like if it's a difficult position to figure out you know like to calculate then I go on to something else.

[802] Okay.

[803] Like if I can't figure it out, then, you know, I go on.

[804] Change it so that it's easier to figure out.

[805] There was a point in your life, because probably was interested in being your coach, or at least training with you.

[806] Why did you choose not to go with him?

[807] That's a pretty bold move.

[808] Was there a good reason for this?

[809] No. The first, like, homework exercise he gave me was to analyze.

[810] like he picked out I think three or four of my worst losses and he wanted me to analyze them and give him my thoughts and it wasn't that there were painful losses or anything that that was a problem I just didn't really enjoy that also I felt that this whole structured approach and everything I just felt like from the start there was a was a hassle so I loved the idea of being able to pick his brain but everything else i just you know couldn't see myself couldn't see myself enjoying and at the end of the day i did then and always have played for fun that's always been like the main reason 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.

[811] I don't think I thought it that way.

[812] I just thought this is not for me. I'm going to try another way.

[813] I don't think I was particularly thinking that this is my one opportunity or anything.

[814] It was just, yeah, I don't enjoy this.

[815] Let's try something else.

[816] When you were 13, you faced Kasparov and he wasn't able to beat you.

[817] Can you go through that match?

[818] What did that feel like?

[819] How important was that?

[820] How epic was that?

[821] We played three games.

[822] I lost two.

[823] and I drew one.

[824] Right.

[825] But one draw.

[826] No, the one draw.

[827] But didn't you say that you kind of had a better position in that?

[828] Yeah.

[829] I remember that day very well.

[830] There was a Blitz game.

[831] This was a rapid tournament.

[832] And there was a Blitz tournament the day before, which determined the pairings for the rapids.

[833] And for people who don't know, super short games are called Bullet, kind of short games are called Blitz.

[834] Semi short games are called.

[835] Yeah.

[836] And classic chess, I guess, is like very super long.

[837] Yeah.

[838] Yeah, basically, Bullet just never played over the board.

[839] So in terms over the board chess, Blitz is the shortest.

[840] Rapid is like a hybrid between classical and Blitz.

[841] You need to have the skills of both and then classical is long.

[842] The Blitz tournament, which didn't go so well.

[843] Like, I got a couple of wins, but I was beaten badly in a lot games including by Gary and so there was the pairing that I had to play him which is pretty exciting so I remember I was so tired after the Blitz tournament like I slept for 12 hours or something then I woke up like okay I'll turn on my computer I'll search chess base for Kasparov and we'll go from there so before that I hadn't spent like a lot of time specifically studying his games And it was super intimidating because a lot of these openings I knew, I was like, oh, he was the first one to play that.

[844] Oh, that was his idea.

[845] I actually didn't know that.

[846] So I was a bit intimidated before we played.

[847] 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.

[848] But everybody else had noticed it but him.

[849] Then he tried to surprise me in the opening.

[850] I think like, psychologically the situation was not so easy for him like clearly it would be embarrassing for him if he didn't win both games against me then like I was spending way too much time on my moves because I was playing Kasparov I was double checking everything too much like normally I would would be playing pretty fast in those days and then at some point I calculated better than him he missed a crucial detail and had a much better position I couldn't convert it though 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.

[851] Maybe I can win still.

[852] I couldn't.

[853] And then I lost the second game pretty badly, which it wasn't majorly upsetting, but I felt that I had two black games against Kaspar, both in the Blitz and the Rapid, and I lost both of them without any fight whatsoever.

[854] I wasn't happy about that at all.

[855] That was like less than I thought I could be able to do.

[856] So to me, yeah, I was proud of that, but it was a gimmick.

[857] That was like a very strong I am but had GM's strength.

[858] I was like, it can happen that a player of that strength makes a draw against Gary once in a while.

[859] But I mean, I understand that I'm 13, but like still I felt a bit more gimmicky than anything i mean i guess it's it's a good thing that made me noticed uh but apart from that wasn't yeah and for people who don't know i am as international master and uh gm was grandmaster and you were just on the i guess on the verge of becoming a young youngest grandmaster ever i was the second youngest ever i think i'm like the seventh youngest now i mean these kids these days kids these days yeah yeah no but uh but i was the youngest grandmaster at the time in the world yeah yeah so there is a you know you say it's gimmicky but there's a romantic notion is the especially as things have turned out right like no for sure and have you talked to gary since then about that no not really i don't i think he's embarrassed the he's still bitter he's like no i don't think it's he's bitter but i think the game in itself was was a bit embarrassing for him.

[860] Even he can't see past like is no no no I think he's completely fine with that I think like in retrospect it's a good story he appreciates he appreciates that I don't think that's the problem but it never made sense for me to broach the subject with him 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 no matter how beautiful like that moment is because it's like in a way it's a passing of the baton from like one great champion to another yeah right but like you still just don't like the fact that you didn't play a good game from a garious perspective like he still is just annoyed probably that yeah he could have played better and we did so we did work together in 2009 quite a lot and that corporation ended um early 2010, but we did play a lot of training games in 2009, which was interesting because he was still very, very strong.

[861] And at that time, it was fairly equal.

[862] Like, he was up playing me quite a bit, but I was, I was fighting well.

[863] So it was pretty, pretty even then.

[864] So I mean, I appreciate those games a lot more than some random game from when I was 13.

[865] And I, maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about, but I've always found it, at least based on that game, you couldn't tell that I was going to take his spot.

[866] Like, I made a horrible blunder and lost to an Uzbek kid in the World Rapid Championship in 2018.

[867] And I mean, granted, he was part of the team that now won gold in the chess Olympia, but he wasn't a crucial part.

[868] He barely played any games.

[869] Like, it wasn't, like, I would think that he would become world champion because he beat me. 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.

[870] I mean, it was easy to see that I would become a very, very strong player.

[871] Everybody could see that, but to be the best in the world or one of the best ever.

[872] That's true.

[873] It's hard to say.

[874] It is hard to say, but I do remember seeing messy when he was 16 and 17.

[875] But hasn't that happened with other players, though?

[876] Yeah, but I just had a personal experience.

[877] He did look different than there's like magic there.

[878] Maybe you can't tell he would be one of the greatest ever, but there's still magic.

[879] But you're right.

[880] 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.

[881] Then we forget when they don't become that.

[882] Yeah, exactly.

[883] that's i think what happens but when it does maybe or maybe some people are just so good at seeing these patterns that they can actually 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 no you you make a lot of a lot of long shot bets and then some of them come good and then people call you a genius for making the bet well let me ask you the goat question again from fantasy perspective can you make the case for the greatest chess player of all time for each yourself magnus carlson for garrick casparov i don't know who else bobby fisher mikhle tal anyone else um for uh hikaru and akamura just kidding yeah uh i think i'll i can make a case for um myself for for gary and for fisher so i'll start with fisher uh for him it's very very same simple.

[884] He was ahead of his time, but that's like intangible.

[885] You can say that about a lot of people.

[886] But he had a peak from 1970 to 72 when he was so much better than the others.

[887] He won 20 games in a row.

[888] Also, the way that he played was so powerful and with so few mistakes that he just had no opposition there.

[889] So he had just a peak that's been better.

[890] than anybody like the gap between first and second have was greater than it's ever been in history at any other time and that would be the argument for for him for gary he's played in a very competitive era and he's beaten several generations he was the best 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.

[891] So the longevity.

[892] The longevity for sure.

[893] Also at his peak, he was not quite a level of Fisher in terms of the gap, but it was similar to or I think even a little bit better than mine.

[894] As for me, I'm of course unbeaten as a world champion in five tries.

[895] I've been world number one for 11 years straight in an even more competitive era than Gary.

[896] I have the highest chess rating of all time.

[897] I have the longest streak ever without losing a game.

[898] I think for me the main argument would be about the era where there's the engines have leveled the playing field so much that it's harder to dominate.

[899] And still, I haven't always been a clear number one, but I've always, I've been number one for 11 years.

[900] And for a lot of the time, the gap has been pretty big.

[901] So I think there are decent arguments for all of them.

[902] I've said before, and I haven't changed my mind, that Gary generally edges it because of the longevity in the competitive era.

[903] there are arguments.

[904] But people also talk about you in terms of the style of play.

[905] So it's not just about dominance or the height or the, it's like just the creative genius of it.

[906] Yeah, but I'm not interested in that.

[907] In terms of greatest of all time, I'm not interested in questions of style.

[908] So for Messi, you don't give credit for the style, for the stylistic.

[909] I like, I like, no, I like watching it.

[910] But you're not going to give points for the, so Messi gets the best ever because of the finishing.

[911] It's, it's the, no, it's not because of the finishing.

[912] It's because of his overall impact on the game.

[913] It's higher than anybody else's.

[914] Okay.

[915] He contributes, he can just contribute more to winning than anybody else does.

[916] What's, so you're somebody who was advocated for.

[917] has done quite a bit of study of classic games.

[918] What would you say is, I mean, maybe the number one or maybe top three games of chess ever played?

[919] It doesn't interest me at all.

[920] You don't think of the knowledge of any course.

[921] No, I don't think of it.

[922] I mean, I try to, I find the games interesting.

[923] I try to learn from them.

[924] But like trying to rank them has never interested me. What games pop out to you is like super interesting then?

[925] Is there things like where I did, like old school games where there was like interesting ideas that you go back or like you find surprising and pretty cool that that those ideas were developed like then is there something that jumps to mind yeah there are several games of young Kasparov like before he became world champion if you're going to ask for like my favorite player or favorite style that's probably young Kasparov young Kasparov can you describe statistically or in a young other way what Yonka's prof was like that you're that you like uh it was just an overflow energy in his play so aggressive yeah extremely aggressive dynamic chess it probably appeals to me a lot because these are the things that i cannot do as well uh that it just feels very special to me but yeah in terms of games i never never thought about that too much Is there memories, big or small, weird, surprising, just any kind of beautiful anecdote from your chess career, like stuff that pops out that people might not know about.

[926] Stuff when you look back and just makes you smile.

[927] No, so I'll tell you about the most satisfying tournament victory of my career.

[928] So that was the Norwegian Championship under 11 in 2000.

[929] Before that, tournament, I was super anxious because I started like kind of late at chess.

[930] I played my first tournament when I was eight and a half.

[931] And a lot of my competitors had already played for a couple of years or even three, four years at that point.

[932] And the first time, so I played the Under 11 championship in 99.

[933] I was like a little over the middle of the pack.

[934] I'd never played against any of them before.

[935] So I didn't know what to expect at all.

[936] And then over the next year, I was just like edging a little bit closer.

[937] In each tournament, I felt like I was getting a little bit better.

[938] And when we had the championship, I knew that I was ready, that I was now at the same level of the best players.

[939] I was so anxious to show it.

[940] I remember I was just the feeling of excitement and nervousness before the tournament was incredible.

[941] The tournament was weird because I started out, I gave away a draw to a weaker player, whom I shouldn't have drawn to.

[942] And then I drew against the other guy who was clearly like the best or a second best.

[943] And at that point, I thought it was over because I thought he wouldn't give away points to others.

[944] And then the very next day, he lost to somebody.

[945] So the rest of the tournament, it was just like, I was always like playing my game and watching his.

[946] and we both won the rest of our games but it meant that I was half a point I had like the feeling when I realized that I was going to win that was just so amazing it was like the first time that I was the best at my age and at that point you're hooked yeah at that point I realized you know this I could actually be very good at this so you you kind of saw where did you think your ceiling would be?

[947] Did you see that one day you could be the number one?

[948] No, I didn't think that was possible at all.

[949] But when did you first?

[950] I thought that could be the best in Norway.

[951] The best in Norway.

[952] At that point.

[953] When did you first?

[954] Because like I started relatively late.

[955] Right.

[956] And also like I knew that I studied a lot more than the others.

[957] I knew that I had a passion that they didn't have.

[958] They saw chess as some.

[959] something like, it was, you know, it was a hobby.

[960] It was like an activity.

[961] It was like, it was like going to football practice or any other sports.

[962] Like you go, you practice like once or twice a week and then you play a tournament at the weekend.

[963] That's, that's what you did.

[964] For me, it wasn't like that.

[965] Like, I would go with my books and my board every day after school.

[966] And I would just constantly be trying to learn new things.

[967] I had like two hours of internet time on the computer each week.

[968] And I would always spend them on chess.

[969] Like I think before I was 13 or 14, I'd never opened a browser for any other reason.

[970] and then to play chess.

[971] Would you describe that as love or as obsession or something in between it's everything?

[972] Yeah, everything.

[973] 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.

[974] But once I started, I always got hooked and then I never stopped learning.

[975] what would you say you've talked about the middle game as a place where you can play pure chess what do you think is beautiful to you about chess like the thing when you were 11 what is beautiful to me is when your opponent can predict every single one of your moves and they still lose how does that happen no like it means that at some point early you're planning your evaluation has been better so that you play just very simply very clearly it looks like you did nothing special and your opponent lost without a chance so you're how do you think about that by the way are you basically narrowed 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 yeah that's it essentially is there some aspect to the patterns themselves to the positions to the elegance of like the dynamics of the game that you just find beautiful that doesn't where you forget about the opponent general I try and create harmony on the board like 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 or if they are suboptimally placed they can be improved pretty easily like i hate when i have one piece that i know is badly placed and i kind of improve it yeah when you're thinking about the harmony of the pieces when you're looking at the position you're evaluating it are you looking at the whole board or is it like a bunch of groupings of pieces overlapping and like dancing together kind of thing.

[976] I would say it's more of the latter that would be more precise that you look.

[977] I mean, 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.

[978] So I would think of it a little bit that way.

[979] And everything is kind of gravitating to the middle.

[980] if it's going well then yes and in harmony yeah in in harmony or like if you can control the middle you can more easily attack on both sides that applies to pretty much any game it's as simple as that and like attacking on one side without control of the middle would feel very non -harmonious for for me like i talked about the 10th game and in the world championship that's the time I was the most nervous and it was because it was a kind of attack that I hate where you just have to you're abandoned one side and you the attack has to work there was one side and part of the middle as well which I didn't control at all that that's like the opposite of harmony for me what advice would you give to chess players of different levels, how to improve in chess?

[981] Very beginner, complete beginner, I mean, at every level.

[982] Is there something you can...

[983] It's very hard for me to say.

[984] Because, I mean, the easiest way is like love chess, be obsessed.

[985] Well, that's a really important statement.

[986] But that doesn't work for everybody.

[987] So I feel like...

[988] It can feel like a grind.

[989] So you're saying if the less can feel like a grind.

[990] Brian, the better, the better.

[991] Yeah, for sure.

[992] At least for you.

[993] That's for sure.

[994] But I'm also very, very skeptical about giving advice because I think, again, my way only works if you have some combination of talent and obsession.

[995] So I'm not sure that I'd generally recommend it.

[996] Like, what I've done doesn't go with what most coaches suggest for their kids.

[997] I've been lucky that I've had coaches from early on that I've been very, very hands -off and just allowed me to do my thing, basically.

[998] Well, there's a lot to be said about cultivating the obsession, like really, 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.

[999] No. So, like, just letting me do me. my thing.

[1000] Like if you give me a bunch of work, it will probably feel like a sure.

[1001] 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 thought that I'm doing this to improve my chess.

[1002] Well, in terms of learning stuff, like books, there's one thing that's relatively novel from your perspective.

[1003] People are starting now is there's YouTube.

[1004] There's a lot of good YouTubers.

[1005] You're part -time YouTuber.

[1006] You have stuff on YouTube, I guess.

[1007] If you've seen my YouTube, it's mostly like...

[1008] It's not...

[1009] It's carefree.