Magnus Carlsen: Move fast, play young
Susannah Ireland
Magnus Carlsen: Move fast, play young
At just 19, Magnus Carlsen is the highest-ranking chess player in the world. As he arrives in the UK for a historic tournament, Simon Usborne meets him
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
The world’s best chess player is hunched over a board in the bar of his London hotel. The pieces are lined up in neat rows, ready for battle, as Magnus Carlsen prepares to take on a man (me) whose grasp of the rules is the only thing between him and the imaginary title of the world’s worst chess player. “Now I see the same as you,” says Carlsen, 19. “We are equal.”
Six moves and three minutes later, I ask Carlsen, who earlier revealed he can sometimes see 40 moves ahead, if victory is in sight. “No,” he replies. “That would require quite a lot of cooperation from you.” I make a rash move with my knight. “Now I have got the cooperation I wanted.” Carlsen takes out the pawn protecting my king, sliding his queen next to it. “Checkmate.”
It is the easiest and quickest win Carlsen will enjoy this week, but it won’t be the first. Tomorrow, the Norwegian prodigy they call “the Mozart of chess” will do battle at the London Chess Classic at Olympia, Kensington. The biggest tournament to kick off in the capital for 25 years will see four British grandmasters take on some of the world’s top players. But there is no doubt who has top billing.
In a game beset by images of bespectacled, pale-faced masterminds duelling in grey Eastern Bloc gymnasiums, Carlsen is seen as something of a saviour. Sure, he has the air of the nervous savant – a sense of simmering brilliance behind restless eyes – and he speaks shyly and laconically. But he is fresh-faced, has good hair and is handsome enough that, were his story to get the Hollywood treatment (and well it might) Matt Damon would be a shoe-in for the starring role.
“Carlsen is a vital part of raising the profile of chess,” says Malcolm Pein, an accomplished player and director of the London Chess Classic. “Chess has always been very popular – in Britain 4 million people play regularly, which is more than play cricket, but what we lack is good role models for young people who play in clubs and schools.”
Here is the full story.
Carlsen is the best ever.
“but what we lack is good role models for young people who play in clubs and schools.”
I respectfully disagree. It could be a fact, “a good role model” will help, but it alone is not the main solution to the issue (raising the profile of Chess as a sport).
Anyway, more tournaments with young stars is exciting and can really help.