Why Magnus Carlsen loves chess, but cannot stand preparing for games

Indian Express

a day ago

It's been a few weeks since the wantaway king of chess, Magnus Carlsen, won his seventh title of 2025. Most events that Carlsen has won so far this year have been snowflake-like unique: a classical tournament at Stavanger in the form of Norway Chess, a rapid and blitz event in Zagreb with the SuperUnited Rapid and Blitz Croatia, the Grenke Freestyle Chess event, and finally, the chess event at the Esports World Cup in Saudi Arabia at the start of the month.
Last month, after Gukesh defeated Carlsen in a rapid game at the SuperUnited Rapid and Blitz event, Garry Kasparov, a man who Carlsen still considers the greatest player in chess history and who briefly coached the Norwegian, raised a few eyebrows when he declared: 'Now we can question Magnus' domination. It's a convincing loss, not a miracle… or that Gukesh benefitted from Magnus' mistake. It was a big fight. And Magnus lost.'
Carlsen responded by going on a tear in the blitz portion and leaving the rest of the field in his slipstream, gasping for air, as he won the title. The Esports World Cup title in Saudi Arabia came shortly after.
After his victory in Riyadh he was asked if he would play again at the Esports World Cup next year. Or would he move on, looking for a new challenge?
'As long as I know how the pieces move, I will try (to play) and do my very best in the Esports World Cup for years to come,' Carlsen said with a smile on his face.
It's a paradox that the chess world is still grappling with. Some days, like after winning the Esports World Cup, Carlsen looks like a hopeless romantic, in love with the act of marshalling a wooden army across the battlefield of 64 squares. On other days, like during Norway Chess after the defeat to Gukesh, Carlsen looks like he's trapped in a bad relationship with the sport. 'It's not that I cannot play classical chess. But in situations like that (the loss to Gukesh), I was wondering, 'why am I doing this? What's the point?''
This might come across like a lament of a man who's had a bad day at the job. But it's more than that. It's almost an act of soul searching.
Plenty has been made about Carlsen's disaffection for classical chess — the longest and the most prestigious format of the sport. But the format itself is just one part of it. Carlsen is a man who loves playing chess. But, he doesn't enjoy the act of preparing to play it, which is why he loves the Freestyle Chess events. At the Grenke Freestyle Open with no prep needed, Carlsen won all nine of his games to claim the title.
At Norway Chess, it wasn't uncommon to see Carlsen head off for long rounds of golf with his long-time second Peter Heine-Nielsen and return less than hour before the start of a game. It also isn't uncommon to see him play online Titled Tuesday tournaments in the middle of over-the-board events that he's playing in. Meanwhile, players like Gukesh and Arjun Erigaisi would not even be seen at the hotel for breakfasts or lunches as they trained like an UPSC aspirant to crack the most difficult exam of their lives.
Last year during Norway Chess, Heine-Nielsen had spoken about what it was like being Carlsen's second since his pre-teenage years. He started off with a tale about what Magnus' father Henrik told him in one of their first conversations together when he formally started working as a coach.
'His father said, 'I have to explain the principles of working with Magnus. If he wants to do chess, he can do it. But if he doesn't want to play, you are not allowed to push him,' Heine-Nielsen told The Indian Express.
Those principles still stand.
Heine-Nielsen had gone on to explain what training with Carlsen looked like. 'At the age of 15, he used to come for training camps. We would play blitz, we would analyse chess, and we would talk about things. He would always look at chess anyway! But that push to make him play chess has not existed. He generally likes playing chess. That he does not want to play in the world championship is because the ratio between preparing to actually playing is too big. That's why he likes playing shorter time control games. You get more games, different opponents.
'With Magnus, he might not always check the files properly (the opening preparation ideas prepared by his team of seconds), and neglect the opening phase. That's his choice. But when he's at the board, he's giving his absolute best. There, he is extremely professional. He might have a bad day, and that's absolutely human,' Heine-Nielsen added.
Carlsen gave a peek into his mindset in February on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, when he went as far as calling chess as a 'little bit of a hobby' for him.
'I'm known in the chess world for being a little bit lazy,' he admitted to Rogan. 'I've never been the kind of person who wakes up in the morning and works six-seven hours on chess like a normal job. It's a little bit of a hobby for me, once it feels like work, it's harder for me. I think about chess all the time.'
He goes on to explain how his way of training was not like the Soviet Union's famed chess school, where there would be a lot of discipline, and regimented work when the players trained.
'The most important thing that I have done is that I haven't really listened to people who want me to do things a certain way because that's the way things have always been done, like with the Soviet Chess School. I've gone my own way. I've tried to have as much fun as I can. Everything has to be about enjoyment,' he said.
So what does Carlsen still enjoy about chess?
'He's a chess fan. He loves the game, he loves playing it, the history of chess, the environment. Chess is basically everything to him as an identity. He has his legacy in chess. He makes his money from chess, even though it's still kind of a hobby, which turned out to be lucrative and something he could live off,' Magnus' father Henrik told The Indian Express earlier this year during Norway Chess.
Henrik, who probably understands Magnus' psyche best, does not get into the specifics of how many hours his son trains for during tournaments. But he says that Magnus does 'think' a lot about an upcoming tournament as part of preparing for it even if he does not train for as many hours as the Soviet Union's champions back in the day or the Indian prodigies do now.
'He likes golf a lot these days. He follows football and the NBA very closely. But chess is his life, basically. He's grateful for it as a sport. You can see he goes online to play, even during a tournament like Norway Chess. Sometimes he will go at night and play Titled Tuesday or something, just play games. Because he's a chess player!'