Comment by saucymew
11 days ago
It feels like the cohort GM player pool is mentally cooked against Magnus.
Youngsters like Lazavik during the Speed Chess Championship or Sindarov in Freestyle were the most recent convincing wins against Magnus, but the historical mental edge that Magnus comes into each game after beating the brakes out of everyone is hard to overcome.
Magnus' time will come! But not today.
I don't think it's merely mental albeit it seems like even nervous Carlsen is cooler than his very focused opponents (see game 3 vs Fabiano where caruana had a completely winning position after carlsens blunder).
Carlsen has spent the core of his career mastering two aspects historically underlooked aspects of the game.
The first is the endgame, and there isn't much to say there. He's by far the best end game player by far and it's not even close.
The second are drawish locked positions where most GMs can't but see a draw. Carlsen realized that in order for it to be a draw his opponents still have to play perfect and he focused a lot on accumulating small but convincing advantages in those kind of games.
Another thing that should not be overlook: mental strength, like you point out.
They had a heart rate monitor at one of the freestyle events which physically affirms what you're saying here. Carlsen's heart rate was barely above resting while his opponents were invariably like they were running a marathon. Even when he was losing, he remained calmer than when his opponents were in normal positions.
I think that should be a normal part of chess competition. It provides some really interesting metadata for spectators. To some degree it also emphasizes the importance of something people don't normally associate with chess - physical conditioning. When your heart is pounding for hours and the cortisol flowing, you literally get physically exhausted.
> When your heart is pounding for hours and the cortisol flowing, you literally get physically exhausted.
Not only that, when the body enters flight response the brain makes mistakes.
When I started jiujitsu many years ago someone asked the professor what's the biggest difference between a white belt and black belt. He thought for a second and said something along the lines that everyone loses, even black belts. The difference is that a black belt will be calm and able to think of solutions until the very end, whereas someone who is untrained panics, isn't able to think, and makes mistakes.
Staying calm is a lesson for life really.
IMHO a huge aspect of Carlsen mental strength isn't just the focused, at-the-game part, but we just see him enjoying Chess in many angles: not only he plays all styles, he streams relaxed, he plays Lichess and Chess.com; Chess is not only his job and passion, but it seems that he's also able to relax while engaging with it.
The only top-athlete that I see do the same is Max Verstappen, who is know to play competitive racing-sims online even hours before a real F1 race.
Magnus has streamed playing chess while drunk, in a party/loud atmosphere, and had some very fun and exciting games. He's a blast.
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Carlsen has always had a tenacity that allows him to come back from positions other players would give up on thinking to conserve effort to fight another day. Mental strength and stamina to stay in the fight has always been something that made him who he is.
You also can't underestimate physical stamina. Kasparov in his 5-3 result against Karpov in 1984-85 was eventually halted due to Karpov's exhaustion and losing 18kg over the match period.
> losing 18kg over the match period.
woah that's crazy, I was not aware of this. That's like 36 weeks of aggressive weight loss.
edit: Looks like it lasted 5 months (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1984%...).
Chess ability seems distributed in a power law, rather than any sort of a normal distribution. There are repeatedly, throughout history, players that are just much better than everybody else, including the 2nd best player in the world. Lasker, for instance, was world champion for 26 consecutive years while also regularly dominating tournaments during that period as well. Kasparov was #1 for 21 years, and so on.
I'd go further to say I think this is true in many things. For instance if you're into wrestling, you know the name of Alexander Karelin [1] who ended his career with a record of 887 wins and 2 losses (both losses by a single point and both highly controversial). He was winning olympic gold, repeatedly, not only without a single defeat but without his opponents even scoring a single point against him. His ears tell the story - 889 world class matches, and he doesn't even have cauliflower ear.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Karelin
Same exact thing happened in tennis. There was a whole "lost generation" of amazingly talented players who just basically shat the bed whenever they stepped onto the court with Djokovic, Federer, or Nadal. It wasn't until much younger players like Alcaraz and Sinner came on the scene, who weren't quite as overpowered by the aura of the Big 3, that the playing field finally leveled. (And now they themeselves are turning into those guys for everyone else, haha.)
Or maybe the “lost generation” was simply not as good as Djokovic, Federer, or Nadal.
Quite chuffed someone else mentioned Djokovic, who is close to 39 and just played an Australian Open final. (Yes he got lucky with 2 freebies but he _did_ beat Sinner in the semifinal fair and square, and managed to win the first set before running out of juice)
imho Sinner and Alcaraz didn't solve the "overpowering aura" so much as the physical wear and tear took the trio down enough pegs to be much more attainable, and Djokovic is still competing impressively well.
I'm not sure why are you so sure that everyone plays worse when playing against some big name. I'd estimate that 90-95% of the top ranked players don't play worse when they play against big names.
We often think of chess as something you "learn" how to do. But players like Magnus are evidence that there's really some neurological "muscle" for chess which some people just have naturally more of than others. The way in which Magnus has just so obviously been so much better than every other player in the world for over 15 years now, to the point of becoming bored and refusing to continue competing in the classical World Championships, speaks volumes.
He doesn't play the classical championship anymore because it's 6+ months of daily hard work to prepare for it and he's already won it 5 times.
You and I are saying the same thing.
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I’d love to see a classical (or rapid/blitz) tournament where the players don’t know who they’re playing.
Separate rooms, arbiters make the moves for the opponent.
I think we’d see some interesting results.
Are you referring to the odd individual game? Magnus beat Lazavik pretty badly in the SCC and knocked Sindarov out of the Freestyle final.
Individual games.
The ones that specifically come to mind are Lazavik vs. Carlsen, Speed Chess Championship 2025 Semi-Final, Round 3, and Sindarov vs. Carlsen, Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Finals 2025 in South Africa, Round 1 of the Group Stage Finals.
I assume you mean that beautiful tactical shot Lazavik found? In general these sort of games are the opposite of convincing. The reason is that we're all human and make tactical mistakes now and again, even more so in very rapid time controls. What generally defines players overall edge though is the ability to grind small edges, rather than stumble into knock-out blows.
For instance this is why Carlsen was so crushed by his loss to Niemann in 2022 (that led to the cheating claim controversy). Niemann actively avoided a draw and then systematically outplayed Magnus in a very difficult R+N v R+B ending. This is also why players like Erdogmus seem to have so much potential. It's not the tactics - which is basically a prerequisite to high level play, but his ability to just systematically grind down extremely strong players like MVL.
Magnus it often feels like opponents aren't just playing the position, they're playing the idea of Magnus
or maybe he's just very good?
Agree you don't have to overcomplicate it. Magnus is a generational talent.
I would almost say “generational” is underselling it. Gretzky might be the only competitor that’s even comparable in terms of dominance.
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Brain ages. He will eventually decline just like any human being. Let's hope by then he will have the wisdom to smile when that happens.
Ageism also just one of these shitty unproven biases, like sexism, which is self-realizing by applying pressure to people who fall out of the mold even slightly.
He's 30 something, not 90.
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> Magnus' time will come! But not today.
Hasn't Magnus' time already come, and isn't it still Magnus' time? He is #1 on all three lists[1] and so long that I have forgotten when he was not.
[1]: https://2700chess.com/
I think they mean his time to be dethroned.
Ah okay.