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.

The camera on Magnus died 20 minutes into the conversation.

Most folks still just listen to the audio through a podcast player anyway, but if you're

watching this on YouTube or Spotify, we did our best to still make it interesting by adding

relevant image overlays.

I mess things up sometimes, like in this case, but I'm always working hard to improve.

I hope you understand.

Thank you for your patience and support along the way.

I love you all.

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And now dear friends, here's Magnus Carlson.

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.

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

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

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

Can you make the case for Messi?

Can you make the case for Cristiano Ronaldo, Pele, Maradona, does anybody jump to mind?

I think it's pretty hard to make a case for anybody else than Messi for his all around

game.

And frankly, like my Real Madrid fandom sort of predates the Ronaldo era, the second Ronaldo,

not the first one.

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

And I went to quite a number of Madrid games and they've always been super helpful to me

down there.

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 and I said somebody else.

I think I said Isco at that point and I was like, okay, take two, now you say Ronaldo.

So for them, it was very important, but it wasn't that huge to me.

So Messi over Maradona?

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

Obviously the improvements in football have been, like in technique and such, have been

even greater than they have been in chess, but it's always a weird discussion to have.

And just as a fan, what do you think is beautiful about the game?

What defines greatness?

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

Like three, there's just magic.

It's just beautiful to see the play.

So it's not just about the finishing.

There's some, it's like Maradona's hand of God.

There's some creativity on the pitch.

Is that important or is it very important to get the World Cups and the big championships

and that kind of stuff?

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

So it sort of annoys me always when, you know, titles are always appreciated so much even

though that particular title can be a lot of luck or at least some luck.

So I do appreciate statistics a bit and all the statistics say that Messi 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 just like the Olympics.

You basically train your whole life for this.

You live your whole life for this.

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 admire the magic of that.

No, I do.

I just think that like rising into the pressure and breaking under the pressure is often really

oversimplified like take on what's happening.

Yeah, we do romanticize the game.

Yeah.

Well, let me ask you another ridiculous question and another, you're also a fan of basketball.

Yes.

Let me ask the goat question.

I'm biased because I went to high school in Chicago.

You know, Chicago Bulls during the Michael Jordan era.

Let me ask the Jordan versus LeBron James question.

Let's continue on this thread of greatness.

Which one do you pick or somebody else?

So I'll give you a completely different answer.

Uh oh.

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.

It's a quantum mechanical thing.

Can you, again, what would, if you were to argue for either one, statistically I think

LeBron James is going to surpass Jordan?

Yeah, no doubt.

And so, again, there's a debate between unquantifiable greatness, I mean, that's the whole debate.

Yes.

So it's, well, it's quantifiable versus unquantifiable.

Yeah.

What's more important and you're depending on mood all over the place.

But what do you lean in general with these folks, with soccer, with anything in life towards

the unquantifiable more?

No, definitely towards the quantifiable.

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 going to like, are you going to punish Messi for taking a mediocre Argentine

squad to the to the final in 2014 and punish him because they lost to a great team very

narrowly after they missed the end.

He set up like a great chance for a win in the first half, which he, which he fluffed

and then yeah, eventually they lost the game.

Yeah, they do criticize Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi for being on really strong squads in

terms of the club teams and saying, yeah, okay, it's easy when you have like Ronaldinho

or whoever on your team.

It would be very interesting just if the league could make a decision.

Yeah, just random, random allocation.

Yeah.

And just every single game just keep relocating or maybe once a season or every season you

get random.

Yeah, 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.

No, obviously it wouldn't, wouldn't ever happen or, or, or work, but I think it's, it's,

you never know.

Just think to think about.

So on chess, let's zoom out.

If you break down your approach to chess, when you're at your best, what, what do you

think, what do you think contributes to that approach?

Is it memory recalls specific lines and positions?

Is it intuition?

How much of it is intuition?

How much of it is pure calculation?

How much of it is messing with the strategy of the opponent?

So the game theory aspect in terms of what contributes to the highest level of play that

that you do?

I think the answer differs a little bit now from what it did eight years ago.

For instance, like I've, I feel like I've had like two peaks in, in my career in 2014.

Well, 2013, 2014, and also in 2019.

And in those years, I was very different in terms of, of my strength, strength as specifically

in 2019, I benefited a lot from opening preparation.

While in 2013, 2014, I mostly tried to avoid my opponents preparation rather than that

being a, being a strength.

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

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.

Only there are, there are things that I understand now that I didn't understand back then, but

that's not only for me, that's for, for others as well.

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 didn't,

I couldn't, couldn't beat people in the, in the openings.

But in terms of calculation, that's always been a weird issue for me.

Like I've always been really, really bad at solving exercises in chess.

Like that's been like a blind spot for me.

First of all, I found it hard to concentrate on them and to look, to look deep enough.

So this is like a puzzle, a position made in X.

I mean, one thing is made, but find the best move.

That's generally the exercise.

Like find the best move, find the best line, you just don't connect with it.

Usually like you have to, to look, look deep.

And then when I get these lines during the game, I very often find the, the, the right

solution, even though, even though I'm, it's not still the best part of my game to, to

calculate very, very deeply.

But it doesn't feel like calculation you're saying in terms of, you know,

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, to replicate that.

Like you give somebody half an hour in a position like in this instance, you might have thought

for half an hour if you play the game, but I just, I just kind of do it.

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, than most at evaluating, which I think is something that

sets me, sets me apart from, from others.

So evaluating specific position.

If I, if I make this move and the position changes in this way, is this the right step

in the right direction?

Like in a big picture way?

Yeah.

Like you calculate a few moves ahead and then you evaluate because a lot of, a lot of

the time, a lot of the times you cannot, the branches become so big that you cannot calculate

everything.

So you have to.

A fog.

Yeah.

So you have to, you have to make valuations based on, you know, based mostly on knowledge

and intuition and somehow I seem to do that pretty well.

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

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.

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 a deep calculating ability because you simply

don't have time for, for that in Blitz.

You have to calculate quickly and rely a lot on intuition.

Can you try to, I know it's really difficult.

Can you try to talk through what's actually being visualized in your head?

Is there, is there a visual component?

Yeah.

No, I just visualized the board.

I mean, the board is in, is in, is in my head.

Two dimensional.

My interpretation is that it's, it is two, two dimensional.

Like what colors, is it brown tinted?

Is it black?

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, there, there aren't a lot of colors it's, it's mostly, so what is it?

Queens gambit?

I'm trying to find it now to, to imagine it.

What about when you do the branching, when you have multiple boards and so on?

How does that look?

No, but it's only one at a time.

So like.

One position at a time.

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

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

When I play blindfold chess against several people, then it's just always one board at

a time and the rest are stored away somewhere.

But how do you store them away?

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

I understand that's, there's some good there, there's some bad there.

Now let me go down another branch.

Like, how do you store away the information you just put on a shelf kind of?

I, I trend store it away.

Sometimes I have to sort of repeat it because I forget.

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.

I just forgot about it.

So that's obviously what happens when you store the information and you cannot retrieve

it.

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

What can you describe what, like, what's the algorithm here that takes 30 minutes to run?

30 minutes is, at least for me, it's usually a waste 30 minutes usually means that I don't

know what to do.

And I'm trying just running into the wall, yeah, I'm trying to find something that isn't

there.

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

Then you can spend your time pretty efficiently.

Just, it just means that the branches are getting, getting wide.

There's a lot to run through, both in terms of calculation and lots you have to evaluate

as well.

And then based on, based on that 10 to 15 minute thing, you have a pretty good idea what to

do.

I mean, it's very rare that I would think for half an hour and I would have a eureka moment

during the game.

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

We're going to different branches and like after 15 minutes, it's like, it may lead to

the middle game because when you get to the end game, it's usually brute force calculation

that makes you spend so much time.

So middle game is normally, it's, it's, it's a complicated mix of brute force calculation

and, and, and like creativity and, and evaluation, so end game, it's, it's more, it's, it's easier

in that sense.

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

It baffles experts.

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, the longest game ever

played in chess, what it was, um, 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 and you wouldn't that match?

No, I knew, um, that for most of the time it was a theoretical draw since, um, chess

with seven or less pieces on the board is solved.

So you can, like people who are watching online, they can just check it.

They can check and they can check a so called table base and they, it just going to spit

out when for white, when for black or a draw.

So, and, and also I knew that I knew that didn't know that position specifically, but

I knew that it had to be a draw.

So for me, it was about staying alert, first of all, trying to look for the best way to

put my pieces, uh, but, but yeah, those end games are a bit, they're a bit unusual.

They don't happen too often.

So what I'm usually good at is I'm using my, my strengths that I also use in, in middle

games is that I, um, I value it well and I calculate short variations quite, uh,

even for the end game, short variations matter.

Yes.

It does matter in some simpler end games.

Yeah.

But also like there are these theoretical end games with very few pieces like Rook Knights,

uh, and Troupons versus Queens, but a lot of end 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, um, understanding and evaluation and then, then I can use my, my

strengths, um, 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, like how, how does it, being able to evaluate a single position lead

you to evaluate a long sequence of positions that eventually lead to a checkmate?

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

And then usually the play from there is, is often pretty simple.

Let's say you understand how to arrange your pieces and often also how to arrange your

pawns early in the end game, then that makes all, all the, um, all the difference.

And after that is like what we call technique of very often, uh, that it's technique basically

just mean means that, um, the moves are simple and, uh, these are moves that, you know, a

lot of players could, could make not only, not only the very strongest ones, these are

moves that are kind of understood and known.

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.

As long as you're doing the evaluation, well, one step at a time, to some extent.

So yeah, as I said, like if you value it better and thus accumulated some, some small advantages,

then you can, you can often make your, your, your life pretty easy towards the end of the

end game.

So you said in, uh, 2019, sort of the second phase of why you're so damn good, you, uh,

you did a lot of opening preparation.

What's the goal for you of, uh, the opening game of chess is to throw the opponent off

from any prepared lines.

Is there something you could put into words about why you're so damn good at the openings?

Again, these things have changed a lot over time.

Back in Kasparov's days, for instance, um, he very often got huge advantages from the

opening as, as white.

Can you explain why?

Um, there were several reasons for, for that.

First of all, he, he worked harder.

He was more creative and finding ideas.

He was able to look places others didn't.

Uh, also he had a very strong team of people who had specific strengths in, in openings

that he could use.

So they will come up with ideas and he would, he was integrate those ideas into.

Yeah.

And he would also very often come up with them, them himself.

Also, uh, at the start, he had, um, some of the first computer engines to, to work, um,

for him to, to find his ideas, to look deeper, to verify his ideas.

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

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

There are both computer engines, neural networks and hybrid engines available to practically

anybody.

So it's, it's much harder to find ideas now that, um, that actually like give you an advantage

with the, the, the, the white pieces.

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

Now it's all about finding ideas that are missed by the, uh, engines, either they're

missed entirely or they're missed at low depth, uh, and using them to, you know, gain some

advantage in the sense that you have more, more knowledge and, uh, you know, it's also

good to know that usually these are not complete bluffs.

These are like semi bluffs so that you know that even if your opponent makes all the right

moves, you can still make a draw.

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

and, uh, I'm not entirely sure, but there were at least some players in, even in the

top events who you could see did not use them or did not use them in the right way.

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, um, different way.

So short answer is these days it's all about surprising your, your opponent and taking

it into position where you have more, more knowledge.

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

No, you have to.

I mean, you, you have to, because the best moves have been analyzed to, to death mostly.

So that's a kind of, when you say semi bluff, that's a kind of sacrifice.

You're, you're sacrificing the optimal move, the optimal position so that you can take

the opponent.

I mean, that's a game theoretics sense.

You take the opponent to something they didn't prepare well.

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.

So in, in that sense, you may not be going for like the objective, the tries that are

objectively the most difficult to draw against, but you know, you are trying to look at least

that, at the less obvious paths.

How much do you use engines?

Do you use Lila stock fish in your preparations?

My team does personally, I try not to use them too much on, on my own, because I know

that when I play, you can obviously cannot have help from, from engines and often I feel

like often having imperfect or knowledge about a position or some engine knowledge can be

a lot worse than, than having no knowledge.

So I try to look at engines as little as possible.

So that your team uses them for research for a generation of ideas, but you are relying

primarily on your human resources.

Yeah, for sure.

You can evaluate well, you don't lean.

Yeah, I can evaluate as a human, I can know what they find unpleasant and, and, and so

on.

And it's very often the case for me to some extent, but a lot for, for others that you

arrive in a position and your opponent plays a move that you didn't expect.

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, by the engine.

But if it's not, if it's not obvious why it's not a good move, it's usually very, very hard

to figure it out.

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.

I was chatting with the demo sassaba CEO of DeepMind a couple of days ago and he asked

me to ask you about what you first felt when you saw the, the, the play of AlphaZero.

Like interesting ideas, any creativity.

Did you feel fear that the machine is taking over?

Did you, were you inspired and any, what was going on in your mind and heart?

Funny thing about Demis 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.

So that's never been an issue for me.

I never, never liked playing as computers much anyway.

So, so that's completely fine, but it was amazing to see how they quote unquote thought

about chess and in such a different way and in a way that you could mistake for creativity.

Mistake for creativity.

Strong words.

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, 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, I sacrifice, I feel like I'm, you

know, I don't do it unless I feel like I'm getting something like tangible in, 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 that 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 a 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, get a bishop pair, that's one of the most

common sacrifices in chess.

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.

So that's fine.

But the way AlphaZero would, would sacrifice a knight or sometimes two pawns, three pawns.

And you could see that it's looking for some sort of positional domination, but it's, it's

hard to understand.

And it's, it was really fascinating to see.

Um, yeah, in 2019, I was sacrificing a lot of, a lot of pawns, especially, and it was,

it was a great joy.

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

People, people have found more solid opening lines since that don't allow me to, to do

that as often.

I'm still trying both to get those positions and still trying to, to learn the art of, of

sacrificing pieces.

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.

So you were talking about this interesting, um, difference between the two pieces, that

there's some kind of, how would you convert that?

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

I think he said that wise chess been played for such a long time.

Wise is so fun to play at every level that if you can reduce it to one thing is, is it's

the bishop and the, 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 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 I kind of think makes it makes a lot of fun.

You, you think power is more fun than like variety?

No, there is a variety in chess as well, though, just, but not much more so than like, like

no, no, no, no, no, no, that's for, so like knight, I mean, they all move in different

ways.

They're all like weird.

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

The difference in the pieces create all kinds of interesting dynamics, I guess is what I'm

trying to say.

Yeah.

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, equally

strong with such different qualities.

That's crazy that this, you know, like when you design computer games, it's like an art

form, it's science and an art to balance it.

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 and in the case of chess, it's different

pieces and they somehow designed a game that was super competitive, but there's probably

some kind of natural selection that the chess would just wouldn't last if it was designed

poorly.

Yeah.

And I think the rules have changed over time a little bit, 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, Fisher Random, chess 960s, yeah, that basically just means

that the pawns are in the same way and the major pieces are distributed randomly on the

last rank.

Only that there have to be obviously bishops of opposite color and the king has to be in

between the rooks so that you can castle both ways.

Oh, you can still castle.

You can still castle, but it makes it 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.

So to castle this side, you have to clear a whole lot of pieces.

What would castling look like though?

No, the king would go here and the rook would go there.

Oh, okay.

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.

I think Fisher chess is good that the maps will generally be worse than regular chess.

Like I think the starting position is as close to ideal for creating a competitive game as

possible, but they will still be like interesting and diverse enough that you can play very,

very interesting games.

So when you say maps, there's 960 different options and like what fraction of that creates

interesting games at the highest level?

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 like

it pushes you to play pure chess versus memorizing lines.

Oh yeah, for sure.

Or for sure.

But that's the whole idea.

That's what you want and...

How hard is it to play?

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

Is there some intuition you've been building up?

It's very, very different and I mean, understandably, engines have an even greater advantage in

960 than they have in classical chess.

No, it's super interesting and that's why also I really wish that we played more classical

chess like long games, four to seven hours and in fish random chess 960 because then

you really need that time.

Even on the first moves, what usually happens is that you get 15 minutes before the game,

you're getting told the position 15 minutes before the game and then you can think about

it a little bit, even check the computer but that's all the time you have but then you

really need to figure it out.

Some of the positions obviously are a lot more interesting than the others.

In some of them, it appears that if you don't play symmetrically at the start, then you're

probably going to be in a pretty bad position.

What do you mean with the pawns?

With the pawns, yeah.

Why?

How does that make sense?

That's the thing about chess though.

So let's say white opens with e4, 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 with the e5 and then there's the relopus, there's the petrophoping

and so on.

If you just banned symmetry on the first move in chess, you would get more interesting games.

Oh, interesting.

Or you'd get more decisive games.

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.

But symmetry is a good default.

But yeah, symmetry is a good default and it's a problem that by playing symmetrical armed

with good preparation in regular chess, it's just a little bit too easy.

It's a little bit too dryish and I guess if you analyzed a lot in chess 960, then a lot

of the positions would end up being pretty dryish as well.

Because the random starting points are so shitty, you're forced to...

You're actually forced to play symmetrically.

You cannot actually try and play in a more interesting manner.

Is there any other variations that are interesting to you?

Oh yeah, there are several.

So no castling chess has been promoted by former world champion Vladimir Kramnik.

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

I kind of like it.

Also, my coach uses 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, for sure.

It seems like a tiny little difference.

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.

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 less dryish for sure.

Then you have some reader variants like where the pawns can move both diagonally and forward.

And also you have self capture chess, which is quite interesting.

So that pawns can, or pieces...

Could commit suicide?

Yeah, people can...

Why would that be a good move?

No, sometimes one of your pieces occupies a square.

I mean, let me just set up a position, let's put it like this, for instance, like here.

I mean, there are a lot of ways to checkmate for white, like this, for instance, or there

are several ways.

But like this would be...

Oh, cool.

For people who are just listening, yeah, basically you bring in a knight close to the king, the

queen and so on.

Yeah.

And you replace the knight with a queen.

Yeah, that's interesting.

So you have like a front of pieces and then you just replace them with the second piece?

Yeah.

That's cool.

I mean, that could be interesting.

I think also maybe sometimes it's just clearance, basically.

It adds an extra element of clearance.

So I think there are many, many different variants.

I don't think any of them are better than the one that has been played for at least

a thousand years, but it's certainly interesting to see.

So one of your goals is to reach the Fedia ELO chess rating of 2900.

Maybe you can comment on how is this rating calculated and what does it take to get there?

Is it possible for a human being to get there?

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.

If your opponent is 200 points lower rated, you're expected to score 75% and so on.

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.

And my rating is obviously carried through thousands of games.

Right now my rating is 2861, which is decent.

I think that pretty much corresponds to the level I have at the moment, which means in

order to reach 2900, I would have to either get better at chess, which I think is fairly

hard to do, at least considerably better.

So what I would need to do is try and optimize even more in terms of the matchups, the game

preparations, everything, but not necessarily like select internments and so on, but like

just optimizing in terms of preparation, like making sure I never have any bad days.

You basically can't lose.

Yeah.

You can't fuck up ever if I want to reach that goal.

And so I think reaching 2900 is pretty unlikely.

The reason I've set the goal is to have something to play for, to have a motivation to actually

try and be at my best when I play, because otherwise I'm playing to some extent mostly

for fun these days in that I love to play, I love to try and win, but I don't have a

lot to prove or anything, but that gives me at least the motivation to try and be at my

best all the time, which I think is something to aim for.

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

What would you say motivates you in this now and in the years leading up to now, the love

of winning or the fear of losing?

So for the World Championship, it's been fair 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 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 in terms of fear of losing, that's the 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 that the World Championship really makes you feel this way, the anxiety?

And when you say losing, do you mean not just a match, but every single position, the fear

of a blunder?

No, I mean, the blunder is okay.

When I sit down at the board, then it's mostly been fine, because then I'm focused on the

game.

And then I know that I can play the game.

It's a time in between knowing that 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 winner and a loser.

If I don't win a random tournament that I play, then I'm usually, it depends on a tournament.

I might be disappointed for sure, might even be pretty pissed, but ultimately, you go on

to the next one.

With the World Championship, you don't go on to the next one.

It's like, it's years, and it also has been a core part of my identity for a while now

that I am World Champion.

And so, there's not an option of losing that.

Yeah, you're going to have to, at least for a couple of years, carry the weight of having

lost.

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 makes martial arts are a little better with losing.

It's understood like everybody loses, but they're not everybody though.

Not everybody.

Not everybody.

Not everybody.

Yes.

We went to the chat, but in boxing, there is like that extra pressure of like maintaining

the championship.

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

So for you personally, for a person who loves chess, the first time you won a World Championship,

that was the thing that was fun.

And then everything after is like stressful.

Essentially, there was certainly stress involved the first time as well, but it was nothing

compared to the others.

So the only World Championship after that that I really enjoyed was the one in 2018

against the American Fabiano Caruana.

And what that made that different is that I'd been kind of slumping for a bit and he'd

been on the rise.

So our ratings were very, very similar.

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

He would have been ranked as number one in the world.

Like our ratings were so close that for each draw, they didn't move and and the game itself

was close.

Yeah.

The game themselves were very close.

I, I had a winning position in, in the first game that I couldn't really get anywhere for

a lot of games, then 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 a disaster because all 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 be a lot harder for me to, to take.

Well, that's fascinating and beautiful that the stress isn't from losing this because

you have fun.

You enjoy playing against somebody who's as good as you, maybe better than you.

That's exciting to you.

Yeah.

It's, it's losing at this high stakes thing that only happens rarely to a person who's

not as good as you.

Yeah.

And that's why it's also been incredibly frustrating in other matches, like when I know, when we

play draw after draw, and I can just, I know that I'm better.

I can sense during the game that I understand it better than them, but I cannot, you know,

I cannot get over the hump.

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 or, I mean, there's an argument

to be made for that.

Is there anything you would like to see if you had a change about the world championship

that would make it more fun for you and better for the game of chess period for everybody

involved?

So I think 12 games or now 14 games that there is for the world championship is fairly, fairly

low sample size.

If you want to determine who the best player is, or at least the best player in that particular

matchup, you need more, more games.

And I think to some extent, if you're going to have a world champion and call them the

best players, you best player, you got to make sure that the format increases the chance

of finding the best players.

So I think having more games, and if you're going to have a lot more games than you need

to, 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

and also, yeah, you have deep preparation.

So I think those would be for me to play.

Those would be the main things, more games and less time.

So you want to see more games and rules that emphasize pure chess?

Yeah, but already less time emphasizes pure chess because defensive techniques are much

harder to execute with little time.

What do you think?

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

How many minutes?

I think Blitz is a bit too fast.

To their credit, this was suggested by Fida as well for a start to have two games per

day and let's say you have 45 minutes a game plus 15 or 30 seconds per move.

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

That would be a start.

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 the one there is now.

I understand that there are a lot of traditions.

People don't want to change the world championship.

That's all fine.

I just think that the world championship should do a better job of trying to reflect

who's the best overall chess player.

So would you say if it's faster games, you'd probably be able to get a sample size of over

20 games, 20, 30, 40.

You think there's a number that's good over a long period of time?

I would prefer as many as possible.

It's like 100.

Yeah, but let's say you play 12 days to games a day.

That's 24.

I feel like that's already quite a bit better.

You play one black game, one white game each day.

Sometimes 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 a problem.

And also you have to prepare two sets of openings for each day, which makes it more difficult

for the teams preparing, which I think is also good.

Let me ask you a fun question.

If Hikaru Nakamura was one of the two people, I guess, I apologize for that.

Yeah, he could have finished second.

So he lost the last round of the candidates.

And maybe you can explain to me, InternetSpeakCopium is something you tweeted.

But if he got second, would you just despite him still play the world championship?

That's Internet question.

And when the Internet asks, I must abide, the due to abide.

Yeah, sure.

Thank you, Internet.

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.

I'd spoken privately to both family, friends, and of course, also my chess team, that this

was likely going to be the last, the last match.

What happened was that right before the world championship match, there was this young player

Alireza Fyrusha, he had a dramatic rise.

He rose to second in the world rankings.

He was 18 then, he's 19 now.

He qualified for the candidates.

And it felt like there was 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 idea?

I like that a lot.

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

And originally, I was sure that I wanted to announce right after the tournament, the match

that this was it, I'm done.

I'm not playing the next one.

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 sort of motivate myself a little bit, maybe motivate him.

Also, obviously, I wanted to give people a heads up for the candidates that you might

be playing for more than first place.

Like normally the candidates is first place or best.

It's like the world championship.

And then, so Nakamura was one of many people who just didn't believe me.

Which is fair, because I've talked before about not necessarily wanting to defend again.

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

So he simply didn't believe me.

And he was very vocal about that.

And he said, nobody believe me, no, no, no, the players may or may 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 play.

I would have liked it less if he had not lost the last round.

But the decision was made.

But the decision was already made.

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 and 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 community is walking away from a kind of a historic event that

was so important in the 20th century, at least.

So I won the championship in 2013.

I said no to the candidates in 2011.

I didn't particularly like the format.

I also wasn't, I was just not in a mood.

I didn't want the pressure that was connected with the world championship.

And I was perfectly content at the time to play the tournaments that I did play.

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.

And what happened later is I suddenly decided to play.

In 2013, I liked, they changed the format.

I liked it better.

I just decided, you know, it could be interesting.

Let's try and get this.

There really wasn't more than, more than that to it.

It wasn't like fulfilling life or a dream or anything.

I just thought, you know, let's play.

So it's just a cool tournament.

Yeah.

It's a cool tournament.

It's a good challenge.

You know, why not?

It's something that could be a motivation.

It motivated me to get in the best shape of my life that had been until then.

So it was a good thing.

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

So I'm very, very happy that I did that.

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

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 general, generally like, okay, we're good.

We don't, 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.

Have to ask just in case you have an opinion, if you can maybe from a fantasy chess perspective,

analyze Ding versus Neppo, who wins the current, the two people that would play if you're

not playing?

Actually I would consider that Ding has a slightly better overall chess strength.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of each if you can kind of summarize it?

So Neppo, he's even better at calculating short lines than I am.

But he can sometimes like a little bit of, little bit of depth.

Like he's in short lines, he's an absolute calculation monster.

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

Also recently, he's improved his openings quite a bit.

So now he has a lot of, a lot of good ideas and he's very, very solid.

Ding is not quite as well prepared, but he has an excellent understanding of dynamics

and imbalances in chess, I would say.

What do you mean by imbalances?

Imbalances like bishops against knights and material imbalances.

He can take advantage of those.

Yes, I would say he's very, very good at that and understanding the, you know, the dynamic

factors as we call them, like material versus time, especially.

I think Neppo got the better of him and the candidates.

So what's your sense why Ding has an edge in the championship?

I feel like individual past results hasn't necessarily been a great indicator of world

championship results.

I feel like overall stress strength is more, more important.

I mean, to be fair, I only think like Ding has a very small edge.

Like difference is not big at all, but our individual head to head record was probably

the main reason that a lot of people thought Neppo had a good chance against me as well.

It was like four to one in his favor before the match, but that was just another example

of why that may not necessarily mean anything.

Also in our case, it was a very, very low sample size, I think, about the size of the

match in total 14 games and that generally doesn't mean much.

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

So that game six where it was a turning point where you won, was there any doubt in your

mind that, you know, like if you do a much larger sample size, you'll get the better

of Neppo?

No, no, larger sample size is always good for me.

So World Championship, it's a great parallel to football because it's a low scoring game.

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

That's generally for championships or in general?

Yeah, for championships, like they generally win because the other slightly weaker team,

they're good enough to defend, to make it very, very difficult for the others.

But when they actually have to create the chances, then they have no chance.

And then it very often ends with a blowout as it did in our match.

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

He might have edged it.

There's always the bigger chance that I would have edged it.

But this is just what happens a lot in chess, but also in football that matches are close.

And then they, somebody scores, somebody scores and then things change.

And this gives people the illusion that the matchup was very close, 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

Karajakin, there were people who thought before the match that I was massively overrated

as a favorite and that essentially the match was pretty close, like whatever, 60, 40, or

some people even said like 55, 45.

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

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 pretty big favorite to begin with.

I do have a question to you about that match, but first, so Sergei Karajakin was originally

a qualifier for the candidate tournament, but was disqualified for breaching the Fedia

Code of Ethics after publicly expressing approval for the 2022 Russian invasion in Ukraine.

When you look at the Cold War and some of the US versus Russian games of the past, does

some of this geopolitics, politics ever creep its way into the game?

Do you feel the pressure, the immensity of that as it does sometimes for the Olympics,

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?

I think it still does.

So the president of the World Chess Federation, who was just reelected, is a Russian, like

I like him personally for sure, but he is quite connected to the Kremlin.

And it's quite clear that the Kremlin considers it at least a semi important goal to bring

the chess crown home to Russia.

So it's still definitely a factor.

And I mean, I can answer for in the Karyakin case, like, I don't have a strong opinion

on whether he should have been banned or not.

Obviously, I don't agree with anything that 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 has 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 don't know about the long term conflicts.

And a lot of people try to do the right thing in this sense, which I don't really blame

at all.

It's just that we don't know.

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

Like within the competition, within some of those battles of US versus Russia or so on

of the past, there's also between the individuals, maybe you'll disagree with this, but from

a spectator perspective, there's still a camaraderie.

Like at the end of the day, there's a thing that unites you, which is this appreciation

of the fight over the chessboard.

Even if you hate each other in a moment.

Yeah, for sure.

I think for every match that's been, you would briefly discuss the game with your opponent

after the game, no matter how much you hate each other.

And I think that's lovely.

And Kasparov, I mean, he was quoted like one, somebody in his team asked him, like,

why, why are you talking to the carp of after the game?

Like he, you hate that guy and he's like, yeah, sure, but he's the only one who understands

me.

Yeah.

The only one who understands.

So that's, 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.

And 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.

Do you think there's some truth to that?

I said that back a long time ago as well, that for me, I don't know if it never happened.

So I don't know what would have happened.

But I was thinking like the moment that I realized that I'm not the best player in the

world, like I felt like morally I have to renounce the world championship title, you

know, because it doesn't mean anything.

As long as you're not the best player.

So the ratings really tell a bigger, a clearer story.

I think so.

At least, at least over time, 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, I'm a lot more

proud of, of that than, than the world championships.

How much anxiety or even fear do you have before making a difficult decision on the

chess board?

So it's a high stakes game.

How nervous do you get?

How much anxiety do you have in all that calculations?

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

There's always a possibility of a blunder of a mistake.

Are you anxious about it?

Are you afraid of it?

Really depends.

I have been, I have been at times.

I think the most nervous I've ever been was game 10 of the world championships in 2018.

I thought that was just a thrilling game.

I was black.

I basically abandoned the queen side at some point to attack him on the king 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 my time was ticking and I was

just getting so nervous.

I, I still remember what happened.

Like we played this time trouble face where he had very little time, but I had even less.

And I just remember, I kind of remember much of it, just that when it was over, I was just

so relieved because then it was clear that the position was probably going to clear out

the name 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 losing when I, when I play

because I trust, 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 will play a lot better if they played against an anonymous me.

I would love to.

Are people scared of you?

I would love to have a tournament online where let's say you play 10 of the best players

in the world and you don't, for each round, you don't know who you're playing.

Would be, that's an interesting question.

You know, like there's these like videos where people eat McDonald's, a Burger King

or Diet Coke versus Diet Pepsi.

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 like 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 per person.

Yeah.

But I know that they've already developed AI bots that are pretty good at recognizing

somebody's style.

Okay.

So, which is quite fascinating.

And it'd be fascinating if those bots were able to summarize the style somehow.

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.

Or just talk shit.

I mean, really, really all the best chess players, there are basically just two camps.

People who are good at longer lines or shorter lines.

Just the hair and the tortoise, basically.

And sometimes, you know, I feel like I'm the closest you can get to a hybrid of those.

Because you got both, you're good in every position, so the middle game and end game.

Yeah.

And also, I can think to some extent, both rapidly and deeply, which a lot of people,

they can do both.

But, I mean, 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, it's mostly 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.

And I certainly use that to my advantage.

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.

And I always try and find that balance.

To shake them up a little bit.

Yeah.

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

Would that be the World Championship match?

Oh, yeah, for sure.

Can you take Game 8 in 2016?

And who was it against?

Against Karyakin in New York.

Can you take it through the story of that game?

Where were you before that game in terms of Game 1 through 7?

Yeah, so Game 1 and 2, not much happened.

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

And normally, I should definitely have converted both.

I couldn't.

Partly due to good defense on his part, but mostly because I just, I messed up.

And then after that, games 5, 6 and 7, not much happened.

I was getting impatient at that point.

So for Game 8, 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.

Like he wasn't strong enough to outplay me.

And that was leading to impatience somehow and impatience.

No, because I knew that I was better.

I knew that I was better.

I knew that I just needed to win one game, and then the match is over.

That's what happened in 2021 as well.

When I won the first game against Nebo, I knew that the match was over, unless I 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 white, just trying

to get a game, trying to get him out of book as soon as possible.

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

No, but basically, I set up pretty defensively as white.

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

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

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

You can set them up however you want, and then later where sort of the armies are going

to meet, I'm not going to try and bother you at the start.

And that means you're going to 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.

And so there was at some point, a couple of exchanges, then some maneuvering, a little

bit better, then he was sort of equalizing, and then I started to take too many risks.

And I was still sort of fine.

But then at some point, I realized that I'd gone a bit too far and I had to be really

careful.

Then I just froze.

I just completely froze.

Mentally?

Like what?

Yeah, mentally.

What happened?

I realized that 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 just a position on the board, like realizing, like there was one particular

move he played that I missed, and then I realized this could potentially not go my way.

So then I made another couple of mistakes, and to his credit, once he realized he had

the chance, he knew that this was his one chance.

He had to take it.

And so he did.

And yeah, that's the worst I've ever felt after a chess game.

I realized that I'm probably going to lose my title against somebody who's not even close

to my level.

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

And that was really, really, at the time, like I was all in my own head, that was hard

to deal with.

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

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

So I did something that I never did at any other world championship.

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

And that's not a standard procedure.

No, no, that's, that's the only time that's happened in the, in the world championship

during the match.

So yeah, I just tried to forget, 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.

The opening was good.

I had some advantage.

I was getting optimistic.

Then I made one mistake.

He could have forced the draw and then the old, old, the negativity came back.

Like I was thinking during game, like how I'm going to play for win with black in the

next game.

Like what, 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, I, after that there

was like no thought of losing the match whatsoever.

I knew that, okay, I'd basically gotten away with not with murder, but getting gotten away

with something.

What can you say about the after game eight, where are the places you've gone in your mind?

Do you go to some, some dark places, we're talking about like depression.

Do you think about quitting at that point?

No, I mean, I think about quitting every time I lose the classical game or at least I used

to.

Yeah.

Like especially if it's in a stupid way.

I'm thinking like, okay, if I'm going to, 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.

No, that's happened, that's happened a bunch of, bunch of times.

And I definitely gotten a bit more carefree about losing these days, which it's not necessarily

a good thing.

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

And it also led to fire under me that I think my performance after losses in, in classical

chess over the last 10 years is like over 2900.

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 discovered now a love for winning to where ultimately longevity wise creates

more fun.

Yeah.

For sure.

Yeah.

What's the perfect day in the life of Magnus Carlsen on a day of a big chess match?

It doesn't have to be world championship, but if, if it's a chess match you care about

what, what time do you wake up?

What do you eat?

Oh, it depends on when the game is, but let's say the game is at three or 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, I'll get back, I'll have big lunch, like usually like a big omelet with a bunch

of salad and stuff, then go to the game, win like a very nice clean game.

This is the 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.

I don't like it when too much is happening around me.

So the tournament that I came from now was the Chess Olympiad, which is the team then.

So we were team Norway.

We did horribly.

Yeah.

I like, I did okay, but the team in general did, did horribly.

You won that Italy?

No, no, Italy beat us, but Uzbekistan won the end.

They were this amazing team of young players.

It was really, it was really impressive.

But the thing is like we had a good camaraderie in the team.

We had our meals together.

We played a bit of football when swimming 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,

want to tell you about how much you mean to them, how much you inspire them, all that

kind of stuff.

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

Are you able to block that?

Like are you able to enjoy those little interactions and still keep your focus?

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

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

and something.

Oh, like a disguise?

No, not a disguise, just to block out the world, otherwise.

Don't make eye contact.

Yeah, so the thing is, people in general are nice.

I mean, people, they wish me well, 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 all of that, so I can be more of in my own world.

So I like that.

Yeah.

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

Do you try to think through systematically, or do you just kind of loosely think about

like?

No, I just loosely think about it.

I've never been very structured in that sense.

I know that it was always recommended that you analyze your own games, but I generally

felt that I mostly had a good idea about that.

Like nowadays, I will loosely see what the engine says at a certain point if I'm curious

about that.

Otherwise, I usually move on to the next.

What about diet?

You said omelette and salad and so on.

I heard in your conversation with the other Magnus, Magnus number two, about you had

like this bet about meat.

One of you are going to go vegan if you lose, I forget which, vegetarian though, vegetarian.

And you both have an admiration for me.

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

to eat only twice a day.

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

So you do eat before the tournament though, you don't play fasted.

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 and they don't necessarily need to be

too high as long as they're pretty stable.

Have you ever tried playing fasted, like intermittent fasting, so playing without having

eaten?

I mean, the reason I ask, especially when you do a low carb diet, when I have done

a person at low carb diet, I've been able to fast for a long time like he wants a day,

maybe twice a day, but I just, the mind is most focused on like really difficult thinking

tasks when it's fasted.

It's an interesting, a lot of people kind of talk about that.

Yeah.

You're able to kind of like zoom in and if you're doing a low carb diet, you don't have

this energy, the energy stable.

No, that is true.

Maybe that will be interesting to try.

So what's happened for me is 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.

And what I've found is that it makes me, it makes me very calm, of course, because I

don't have the energy and it makes me super creative.

Interesting.

Like being sleep deprived, I think in general makes you creative.

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

That's what affects you the most.

Like you cannot be precise.

So that's the only thing I'm worried about, like if I'm fasted, that I won't be precise

when I play.

But you might be more creative.

It's an interesting trend.

Fasted, yeah, potentially.

What about you have been known to on a rare occasion play drunk?

Is there a mathematical formula for sort of on the X axis, how many drinks you had and

then the Y axis, your performance slash creativity?

Is there like an optimal for like one of, would you suggest for the Fede world championship

that people would be required to drink?

Would that change things in interesting ways?

Yeah, not at all.

Maybe for rapid, but for Blitz, think if you're playing Blitz, you're mostly playing on short

calculation and intuition.

I think those are probably enhanced if you've had a little bit of a little bit to drink.

Can you explain the physiology of why that's why it's enhanced or the you're just you're

thinking less.

You're more confident.

Oh, yeah.

I think I think it's just confidence.

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, it's just like removing these barriers.

I think that it's a little bit of the same in chess.

In 2012, I played the world Blitz championship and then I was doing horribly for a long time.

I also had food poisoning there.

I couldn't play at all for three days.

Before the last break, I was in the middle of the pack in 20th place or something.

I decided as the last gasp, I'm going to go to the mini bar and just have a few drinks.

What happened is that I came back and I was suddenly relaxed and I was playing fast and

I was playing confidence.

I thought I was playing so well.

I wasn't playing nearly as well as I thought, but it still helped me.

I won my remaining eight games and if there had been one more round, I probably would

have won the whole thing, but finally I was second.

Generally, I wouldn't recommend that, but maybe as the last resort sometimes.

If you feel that you have the ability, obviously none of this is remotely relevant if you don't

feel like you have the ability to begin with.

If you feel like you have the ability, there are just factors that make it impossible for

you to show it.

Norming 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.

It's different when you train under extreme exhaustion.

For example, you start becoming, you start to discover interesting things.

You start being more creative.

Yeah.

A lot of people, at least in Brazilian jiu jitsu, they'll smoke weed.

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

It's interesting for training.

Of course, you can't rely on any one of those things too much, but it's cool to throw in

a few drinks every once in a while to relax and have fun and two, to try things differently,

to unlock a different part of your brain.

Yeah, for sure.

What about supplements?

Do you a coffee guy?

Oh, no.

I quite like the taste of coffee, but the thing is I've never had a job, so I've never

needed to wake up early.

My thought is basically that if I'm tired, I'm tired.

That's fine.

Then I'll work it out.

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

If you see me drinking coffee, that probably means that I'm massively hungover.

I just want to try anything to make my brain work.

Yeah, that's interesting.

So 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 that they enjoy.

So I know that I would enjoy it a lot, but you don't want to rely on that.

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

What about exercise?

How does that work?

A lot of people talk about the extreme stress that chest puts in your body physically and

mentally.

How do you prepare for that to be physically and mentally?

Is it just through playing chess or do you do cardio and any of that kind of stuff?

This is going to be up and down.

As I said in 2013, I was in great shape.

Generally, I was exercising doing sports every day, either playing football or tennis or

even other sports, otherwise, if I couldn't do that, I would try and take my bike for

a ride.

I had a few training camps and I played tennis against one of my seconds.

He's not a super fit guy, but he's always been very good at tennis.

I never played in any organized way, and that was the perfect exercise because I was running

around enough to make the games pretty competitive, and it meant that he had to run a bit less

as well.

But he said he was shocked that if we played 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.

It's just that, so in those days, I was pretty fit in that sense.

I've always liked doing sports, but at times, I think in winter especially, I never had

a schedule.

So, at times, I let myself go a little bit, and I've always kind of done it more for fun

than for a concrete benefit.

But now, at least after the pandemic, I was not in great shape, so now I'm trying to get

back, get better habits and so on.

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 dessert because I never liked doing weights

much at all.

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

You just love playing sports.

So, I think people confuse that because I'm not like massively athletic, but I am decent

at sports, and that sort of helped build that perception, even though others who are top

level chess players, they're more fit, like Karana for instance, his body is really, really

strong.

It's just that he doesn't...

He goes to the gym and...

Yeah.

So, sports, that's the difference.

And the thing about sports is also it's an escape.

It helps you forget for a brief moment about the obsessions, the pursuits of the main thing,

which is chess.

Yeah, for sure.

And I think it also helps your main pursuit to feel that you're even not mastering, but

doing well in something else.

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

So, a skilled activity...

Like a juggle of football.

Yeah.

A skilled activity that you can improve on over time, it flexes the same kind of muscle,

but on the thing that you're much worse at, it focuses you, relaxes you.

That's really interesting.

What's the perfect day in the life of Magnus Carlsen when he's training?

So, what's a good training regimen in terms of daily training that you have to put in

across many days, months, and years to just keep yourself sharp in terms of chess?

I would say when I'm at home, I do very little deliberate practice.

I've never been that guy at all.

I could never force myself to just sit down and work.

So deliberate practice, just so maybe you can educate me.

For some grandmasters, what would that look like?

Just doing puzzles kind of thing?

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 it.

I love chess books.

I'll read just anything, and I'll find something interesting.

So chess books that are on openings and stuff like that, or chess books that go over different

games?

Yeah, books on, so there are three main categories.

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.

What fraction of the day would you say you have a chessboard floating somewhere in your

head, meaning you're thinking about it?

Probably be a better question to ask.

How many hours a day?

I don't have a chessboard floating in my head.

I mean, it could be just floating there and nothing is happening, but you're like...

I often do it parallel to some other activity, though.

And what does that look like?

Are you daydreaming different?

Is it actual positions you're just fucking around with, fumbling with different pieces

in your head?

Often I've looked at a random game on my phone, for instance, or in a book, and then my brain

just keeps going at the same position, analyzing it, and often it goes all the way to the end

game.

And those are actual games?

Or you conjure up fake games?

No, they were often based on real games, and then 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 a...

You don't sit behind a computer or a chessboard, and you lay out the pieces, and then you're...

No, I'm not at all a poster board for deliberate practice.

I could never work that way.

My first coach, he gave me some exercises during home sometimes, but he realized at

some point that wasn't going to work, because I wouldn't do it really or enjoy it.

So what he would do instead is that at the school where I had the trainings with him,

there was this massive chess library, so he was just like, yeah, pick out books.

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 them.

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.

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

Change it so that it's easier to figure out.

There was a point in your life where Kasparov was interested in being your coach, or training

with you.

Why did you choose not to go with him?

That's a pretty bold move.

Was there a good reason for this?

No.

The first homework exercise he gave me was to analyze.

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 it was a hassle.

So I loved the idea of being able to pick his brain with everything else.

I just, you know, couldn't see myself, couldn't see myself enjoying.

At the end of the day, I did then and always have played for fun.

That's always been the main reason.

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.

I don't think I thought of it that way.

I just thought this is not for me.

I wouldn't try another way.

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

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

Let's try something else.

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

Can you go through that match?

What did that feel like?

How important was that?

How epic was that?

We played three games.

I lost two and I drew one.

Right.

But one draw.

No, the one draw.

And didn't you say that you kind of had a better position in that?

Yeah, I remember that day very well.

There was a Blitz game.

This was a rapid tournament.

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

For people who don't know, super short games are called bullet, kind of short games are

called Blitz, semi short games are called rapids.

And classic chess, I guess, is very super long.

Yeah, basically, bullet is never played over the board.

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

Rapid is like a hybrid between classical and Blitz.

You need to have the skills of both.

And then classical is the Blitz tournament.

Which didn't go so well.

Like I got a couple of wins, but I was beaten badly in a lot of 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 space for Kasparov.

And we'll go from there.

So before that, I hadn't spent like a lot of time specifically studying his games.

It was super intimidating because a lot of these openings I knew, I was like, oh, he

was the first one to play that.

Oh, that was his idea.

I actually didn't know that.

So I was a bit intimidated before we played.

Then of course, the first game, he arrived a bit late because they changed the time from

the first day to the other, which is a bit strange and everybody else have noticed it.

But him, then he tried to surprise me in the opening.

I think psychologically, the situation was not so easy for him, like clearly it would

be embarrassing for him if it didn't win both games against me.

Then 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 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.

Maybe I can win still.

I couldn't.

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 Kasparov both in the Blitz and Thrap it and I lost

both of them without any fight whatsoever.

I wasn't happy about that at all.

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

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

I was like a very strong IM that had GM's strength.

I was like, it can happen that a player of that strength makes a draw against Gary once

in a while.

But I mean, I understand I'm 13, but like, still I felt a bit more gimmicky than anything.

I mean, I guess it's a good thing that made me noticed.

But apart from that, it wasn't.

And for people who don't know, IM is international master and GM is grandmaster and you were

just on the verge of becoming a 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.

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 at since then about that?

No, not really.

I don't, I think he's embarrassed about it.

He's still bitter, you think?

No, I don't think it's his bitter, but I think the game in itself was, was a bit embarrassing

for him.

Uh, so even he can't see past, like, 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.

It's 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 Gary

Gary's perspective.

Like, he's still just annoyed probably that you could have played better.

And we did, so we did work together in 2009, quite a lot.

And that corporation ended early 2010, but we did play a lot of training games in 2009,

which was interesting because he was still a very, very strong.

And at that time it was fairly equal, like he was at playing me quite a bit, but I was,

I was fighting well.

So it was, it was pretty, pretty even then.

So I mean, I appreciate those games a lot more than some random game from when I was

13.

And I, maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about, but I always found it, at least based

on that game, you couldn't tell that I was going to take his, that I was going to take

his spot.

Like I made a horrible blunder and lost to an Uzbek kid in the world rapid championship

in, in 2018.

And I mean, granted, he was part of the team that now won gold in the Chess Olympia, but

he wasn't the crucial part.

He barely played any games.

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, after that game or at all at that time.

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

You couldn't see that, but to be the best in the world or one of the best ever.

It's true.

That's hard to say.

It's, it is hard to say, but I do remember seeing Messi when he was 16 and 17.

But hasn't that happened with other players though?

Yeah, but I, I personally, I just had a personal experience.

He did look different than there's like magic there.

Maybe you can't tell he would be one of the greatest ever, but there's, there's still

magic.

But you're right.

You'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, then we forget when they don't become

that.

Yeah, exactly.

That's, I think what happens.

But when it does become, or maybe some people are just so good at seeing these patterns

that they can actually see.

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 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 Asparov, I don't know who else, Bobby Fisher, Mikhail Tal, anyone