[image: Getty Images]

The game of chess has never seen anybody quite like Magnus Carlsen.

The 29-year-old Norwegian became a grandmaster at 13 after beating former world champion Anatoli Karpov and drawing with Russian great Garry Kasparov, became the youngest chess player in history to top the world rankings at the age of 19, and has been the world chess champion since 2013.

You don’t earn the nickname ‘the Mozart of chess’ for no reason.

He’s also one of the most ruthless competitors in chess history, so it’s no surprise that he’s such a fan of The Last Dance and Michael Jordan. Carlsen has come under scrutiny for his single-minded approach to winning, but as CNN reports, he won’t be changing that:

“There have been people saying in Norway ‘you don’t have to be an a***hole to win;’ whenever they say that from now on I’ll say ‘go and watch Jordan’ and I’m going to use it as an excuse for any questionable behavior,” Carlsen says, a wry smile engulfing his face as he speaks from his Oslo home.

“I’m certainly somebody who is very much in that school. There are no excuses. You always have to be the best, nothing else is acceptable.”

That competitive nature has been plain to see during recent encounters with the latest chess prodigy on the scene, 16-year-old  Alireza Firouzja.

The Iranian exile recently beat Carlsen in some online showdowns, in competitions that carried sizeable prizes, and it’s these online tournaments that are being credited with bringing chess to the masses.

Last month’s online Magnus Carlsen Invitational had a total prize fund of $250 000, and the online gameplay also introduces other elements that have a broader public appeal than in-person tournament play:

“When I blundered in one game there’d be a bunch of expletives coming from my mouth; I think that’s a good thing,” Carlsen says, believing that a player’s freedom to be expressive makes rapidplay online chess, games which are normally completed in under an hour, more appealing to the many than the classical format.

“It’s real. People have these instant reactions, which you cannot actually have when you’re at the board,” he says.

Kasparov, one of the most famous names in chess and Carlsen’s coach at one point, predicted back in 2010 that before the Norwegian’s retirement, he “will have changed our ancient game considerably”.

He’s being proven right:

Still in his 20s, Carlsen’s impact on the game has been sizable, leading to modeling assignments with G-star, a deal with Porsche and his own app. All have contributed to his multi-million-dollar fortune…

The pandemic has provided Carlsen with the opportunity to put into practice his vision of making chess more interesting to the masses, in a time when sport has stalled and most of the world is dealing with devastation and unpredictability.

Earlier this month, he launched The Carlsen Tour, a $1 million series of online tournaments in which he will compete, providing hours of entertainment for chess fans until August.

The first event was the Carlsen Invitational, a final reportedly watched by an online audience calculated at over 115,000, and the second the Lindores Abbey Challenge [above], which is happening now.

You can keep tabs on that tournament here.

Given that there may be no face-to-face, or “over-the-board”, chess played this year, online tournament play looks set to revolutionise the game, possibly for good.

Sadly for those who tire of being beaten by the world champion, he won’t be hanging up his boots any time soon:

“I just enjoy the game so much,” he says. “[I] enjoy winning every time, hate losing every time that happens. I’m eager to keep going…I’m just motivated and love to play the game. As long as I feel like I’m still top of my game and I continue to win, I don’t see one reason to quit.”

Read his interview with CNN in full here.

[source:cnn]