The Internet Kid

Magnus Carlsen, the 20-year-old wunderkind ranked second in the world, heeds his inner voice with consistency. In this respect, he reminds us of Bobby Fischer. Otherwise they seem to share little, except that Carlsen, like Fischer, is mostly self-taught.

Carlsen has the flexibility of an “Internet kid” who has played thousands of games on the computer.

While Fischer could hunker down behind his moat of a few exquisitely prepared openings – an option not available in today’s dynamic computer era – Carlsen seems to be as freewheeling as an inner-city future NBA star, shaking and baking on a neighborhood hardscrabble court.

The Norwegian chess star will sometimes begin a game with scant opening foreknowledge, although he can be as well-prepared as anyone. In fact, a year of hard work and opening preparation with Garry Kasparov helped catapult Carlsen to the top of the chess heap.

Early in the relationship, Carlsen expressed his independence by reminding an interviewer that it was he, not Kasparov, who made the moves on the board.

Source: http://www.charlotteobserver.com