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Magnus Carlsen

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2022-08-27
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2022-08-27
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  1. “At least based on that game, you couldn't tell that I was going to take his spot. I made a horrible blunder and lost to an Uzbek kid in the World Rapid Championship in 2018. 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. He barely played any games. I would think that he would become world champion because he beat me.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “He could have played better. And 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 very, very strong. And at that time, it was fairly equal. Like he was playing me quite a bit, but I was fighting well. So it was pretty even then. So, I mean, I appreciate those games a lot more than some random game from when I was 13. Maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about, but I've always found it.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “I think he's completely fine with that. I think in retrospect, it's a good story. He appreciates that. I don't think that's the problem, but it never made sense for me to broach the subject with him.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “But 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, yeah.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “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 Lina had to go for in order to have a chance to win, but I thought 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 wasn't majorly upsetting, but I felt that I had two black games against Kasparo both in the blitz and the rapid, 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. To me, yeah, I was proud of that, but it was a gimmick. Was like a very strong I am, but had GM strength. I was like. It can happen that a player of that strength makes a draw against Gary once in a while.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “So before that, I hadn't spent 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. But everybody else had noticed it but him. Then he tried to surprise me in the opening. I think like psychologically the situation was not so easy for him. 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 be playing pretty fast in those days. And then at some point”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Yeah, basically, Bullet just never played over the board. So in terms of 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 like the blitz tournament, which didn't go so well. 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. Search chess base for Kasparov, and we'll go from there.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “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 rapid”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “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.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “No, the first homework exercise he gave me was to analyze, 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 it was a hassle. So I loved the idea of being able to pick his brain with everything else. I just... Know, I couldn't see myself, couldn't see myself enjoying. At the end of the day, I did then and always have played Fun, that's always been the main reason”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “I'm not at all a poster boy for deliberate practice. I could never work that way. My first coach, he gave me some Exercises did 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. So what he would do instead is that at the school where I have the trainings with him, there was This massive chess library, so he was just like, yeah, pick up books. You can have anything. You can have anything you want. Just pick up books you like and then you give 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.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “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.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Often I've looked at the random game on my phone, for instance, or in a book, and then my brain just keeps going out the same position, analyzing it, and often it goes all the way to the end game.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Yeah, both 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.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “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.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “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.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Yeah, for sure. And I think it also helps. Your main pursuit to feel that even not mastering but like doing well in something in something else, like I found that if I just juggle a ball, that makes me feel better before a game”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Just love playing sports. So I think people confuse that because I'm not massively athletic, but I do am decent at sports and that's sort of how built that perception, even though others who are top level chess players, they're more fit like Carana, for instance, he's really, really... His body is really, really strong. It's just that he doesn't.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Yeah, but it's just that so in those days I was pretty fit in that sense. I've always liked doing sports, but at times 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 I'm at least after the pandemic, I was not in great shapes and now I'm trying to get back, 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 deserved because I never like. Doing weights much at all. I run a bit of times, but I never liked it too much”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “This is going to be up and down. Like, as I said in 2013, I was in great shape. I mean, 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. And 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 was just, he said, like. He was shocked that if we played for two hours, I wouldn't flinch at all.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “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. So 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. Like if you see me drinking coffee, that's That probably means that I'm massively, massively hung over and I don't, I just want to try anything to make my brain work.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Is remotely relevant if you don't feel like you have the ability to begin with. But if you feel like you have the ability, there are just factors that Make it impossible for you to show it, like numbing your mind a bit can probably be a good thing.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “And I was playing fast, and I was playing confidence. And 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...”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “I think it's just confidence. I think also 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 Bliss Championship. Then I was doing horribly for a long time. I also had food poisoning there. I couldn't play at all for three days. So before the last break, I was like in the middle of the pack in, I don't know. 20th place or something. And so I decided as the last gasp, I'm going to go to the mini bar and just have a few drinks. And what happened is that I came back and I was suddenly relaxed.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Interesting ways. Yeah, not at all. Maybe for rapid, but for blitz, I think if you're playing Blitz, you're mostly playing on On short calculation and intuition. And I think those are probably enhanced if you've had a little bit of drink.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “The first thing that goes away is the ability to do the simplest things. You cannot be precise. So that's the only thing I'm worried about. If I'm fasted that I won't be... Won't be Precise when I play.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “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 very calm, of course, because I don't have the energy. And it makes me super creative. Interesting. Being sleep differently, I think in general makes you creative”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “No, that is true. Maybe that would be interesting to try. So, what's happened for me if I played a few tournaments where I've had food poisoning?”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “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.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “I think whenever I'm at tournaments, 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.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “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.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Yeah, you know, so the thing is. People in general are nice. I mean, people 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”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “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.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “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. Yeah. Otherwise, just have like a very small team of people that I see.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “No, no, it'll be us, but Uzbekistan won in the end. They were this amazing team of young players. It was really impressive. But the thing is, we had a good camaraderie in the team. We had our meals together. We played a bit of football, went swimming.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “Just go back after relax. Like the things that make me the happiest that tournaments is just having a good routine and 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 land. So we're a team Norway. We did horribly. I like I did okay with the team in general did horribly.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “No, no, no, no. Then I'll get back. I'll have a 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.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “It depends on what the game is, but let's say the game is at three or probably... Wake up pretty late at about eleven. Then I'll Go for a walk. Might listen to some podcasts. Maybe I'll spend a little bit of time looking at some NBA game from last night or whatever.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “No, I mean, I think about quitting every time I lose the classic, or at least I used to. Especially if it's in a stupid way, I'm thinking like, okay, if I'm going to. To play like this, if I'm gonna do things that I know are wrong, then I might as well quit. No, that's happened a bunch of times. And I've 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 lit the fire under me that I think my performance after losses 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.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Lift it. After that, there was no thought of losing the match whatsoever. I knew that, okay, I'd basically gotten away with, not with murder, but gotten away with something.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “No, no, that's the only time that's happened in the World Championship during the match. Just try 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. And 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. You could have forced a draw. And then the old negativity came back. I was thinking during game, like, how am I going to play for a win with black in the next game? What am I doing? And then eventually 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, there was such a wait.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Then I realized that this could potentially not go my way. So then I made another couple of mistakes and he, to his credit, like once he realized he had the chance, he 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, 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, that was a free day after the eighth game. So I did something that I never did at any other world championship. After Game 8, I just... I got drunk with my team. That's not a standard.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “No, it was the one thing or something, it was just a position on the board, like realizing there was one particular move he played that I missed and then like...”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “I realized that all the thoughts of I might lose this. What have I done? Why didn't I take so many risks? I knew that I could have drawn at any moment. Just be patient. Don't give him these opportunities.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “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. Done at some point, I realized that I'd gone a bit too far and I had to be really careful that I just froze. I just completely froze mentally.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “Basically, I set up pretty defensively as watch. 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.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “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. Like, when I won the first game against Napo, 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 kind of an innocuous opening as white, just trying to get a game, trying to game out a book as soon as possible.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “Yeah, so game one and two, not much happened. Games three and four, 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 messed up. And then after that games five, six and seven, not much happened. I was getting impatient at that point. So for Game eight, I was probably ready to take a little bit more risks than I had before, which I guess it was insane because I knew that he couldn't beat me unless I beat myself. Like he wasn't strong enough to outplay me.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “Yeah, and also I can think to some extent both rapidly and deeply, which a lot of people, they cannot 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.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “No, but really all the best chess players, there are basically just two camps. People who are good at longer lines or shorter lines. It's the hair on the tortoise, basically. And sometimes I feel like I'm the closest you can get to a hybrid of those.”

    2022-08-27 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #315 – Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source