Magnus Carlsen: Greatest Chess Player of All Time

Lex Fridman (01:19.720)

Can you make the case for Messi?

Lex Fridman (01:22.240)

Can you make the case for Cristiano Ronaldo, Pele,

Lex Fridman (01:25.920)

Maradona, does anybody jump to mind?

Magnus Carlsen (01:28.840)

I think it's pretty hard to make a case

Lex Fridman (01:30.800)

for anybody else than Messi for his all around game.

Lex Fridman (01:37.460)

And frankly, my Real Madrid fandom

Lex Fridman (01:42.220)

sort of predates the Ronaldo era,

Magnus Carlsen (01:47.840)

the second Ronaldo, not the first one.

Lex Fridman (01:50.380)

So I always liked Ronaldo,

Lex Fridman (01:51.880)

but I always kind of thought that Messi was better.

Lex Fridman (01:56.640)

And I went to quite a number of Madrid games

Lex Fridman (02:00.200)

and they've always been super helpful to me down there.

Lex Fridman (02:03.760)

The only thing is that, like they asked me,

Magnus Carlsen (02:06.820)

they were gonna do an interview

Lex Fridman (02:08.600)

and they were gonna ask me who my favorite player was.

Lex Fridman (02:10.980)

And I said somebody else,

Lex Fridman (02:14.320)

I think I said Isco at that point,

Lex Fridman (02:15.920)

and I was like, okay, take two now you say Ronaldo.

Lex Fridman (02:19.480)

So for them it was very important,

Lex Fridman (02:22.600)

but it wasn't that huge to me.

Lex Fridman (02:26.520)

So Messi over Maradona.

Magnus Carlsen (02:29.080)

Yeah, but I think just like with chess,

Lex Fridman (02:32.480)

it's hard to compare eras.

Magnus Carlsen (02:34.640)

Obviously the improvements in football

Lex Fridman (02:36.480)

have been like in technique and such

Magnus Carlsen (02:39.600)

have been even greater than they have been in chess,

Lex Fridman (02:43.240)

but it's always a weird discussion to have.

Lex Fridman (02:48.240)

But just as a fan,

Lex Fridman (02:50.320)

what do you think is beautiful about the game?

Lex Fridman (02:54.400)

What defines greatness?

Lex Fridman (02:55.760)

Is it, you know, with Messi,

Magnus Carlsen (02:58.160)

one, he's really good at finishing,

Lex Fridman (03:00.080)

two, very good at assist,

Magnus Carlsen (03:02.280)

like three, there's just magic.

Lex Fridman (03:03.640)

It's just beautiful to see the play.

Lex Fridman (03:05.480)

So it's not just about the finishing.

Lex Fridman (03:06.960)

There's some, it's like Maradona's hand of God.

Magnus Carlsen (03:09.800)

There's some creativity on the pitch.

Lex Fridman (03:13.240)

Is that important or is it very important

Magnus Carlsen (03:15.840)

to get the World Cups and the big championships

Lex Fridman (03:18.200)

and that kind of stuff?

Magnus Carlsen (03:19.240)

I think the World Cup is pretty overrated,

Lex Fridman (03:22.080)

seeing as it's such a small sample size.

Lex Fridman (03:26.600)

So it sort of annoys me always when, you know,

Lex Fridman (03:31.400)

titles are always appreciated so much,

Magnus Carlsen (03:35.960)

even though that particular title can be a lot of luck

Lex Fridman (03:42.000)

or at least some luck.

Lex Fridman (03:45.160)

So I do appreciate the statistics a bit

Lex Fridman (03:50.840)

and all the statistics say that Messi's

Magnus Carlsen (03:54.000)

the best finisher of all time,

Lex Fridman (03:55.840)

which I think helps a lot.

Lex Fridman (03:58.440)

And then there's the intangibles as well.

Lex Fridman (04:01.400)

The flip side of that is the small sample size

Magnus Carlsen (04:05.080)

is what really creates the magic.

Lex Fridman (04:10.120)

It's so, it's just like the Olympics.

Magnus Carlsen (04:12.680)

You basically train your whole life for this.

Lex Fridman (04:15.240)

You live your whole life for this and it's a rare moment.

Magnus Carlsen (04:17.520)

One mistake and it's all over.

Lex Fridman (04:20.600)

That's, for some reason, a lot of people

Magnus Carlsen (04:23.920)

either break under that pressure

Lex Fridman (04:25.440)

or rise up under that pressure.

Lex Fridman (04:26.920)

You don't admire the magic of that?

Lex Fridman (04:28.800)

No, I do.

Magnus Carlsen (04:29.920)

I just think that rising under pressure

Lex Fridman (04:34.000)

and breaking under the pressure

Magnus Carlsen (04:36.200)

is often a really oversimplified take

Lex Fridman (04:41.200)

on what's happening.

Magnus Carlsen (04:44.440)

Yeah, we do romanticize the game.

Lex Fridman (04:46.800)

Well, let me ask you another ridiculous question.

Magnus Carlsen (04:48.880)

You're also a fan of basketball.

Lex Fridman (04:50.840)

Yes.

Magnus Carlsen (04:53.160)

Let me ask the goat question.

Lex Fridman (04:55.720)

I'm biased because I went to high school in Chicago,

Magnus Carlsen (05:00.040)

Chicago Bulls during the Michael Jordan era.

Lex Fridman (05:03.400)

Let me ask the Jordan versus LeBron James question.

Magnus Carlsen (05:07.360)

Let's continue on this thread of greatness.

Lex Fridman (05:10.240)

Which one do you pick or somebody else?

Magnus Carlsen (05:13.240)

Magic Johnson.

Lex Fridman (05:14.080)

So I'll give you a completely different answer.

Magnus Carlsen (05:15.760)

Uh oh.

Lex Fridman (05:17.640)

Depending on my mood and depending on whom I talk to,

Magnus Carlsen (05:21.400)

I pick one of the two and then I try to argue for that.

Lex Fridman (05:24.600)

With the quantum mechanical thing.

Magnus Carlsen (05:25.680)

Well, can you, what, again, what would,

Lex Fridman (05:30.560)

if you were to argue for either one,

Magnus Carlsen (05:35.240)

statistically, I think LeBron James

Lex Fridman (05:36.920)

is going to surpass Jordan.

Magnus Carlsen (05:38.680)

Yeah, no doubt.

Lex Fridman (05:39.840)

And so again, there's a debate between.

Lex Fridman (05:44.920)

Unquantifiable greatness, no?

Lex Fridman (05:46.840)

I mean, that's the whole, that's the whole debate.

Magnus Carlsen (05:50.160)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (05:51.000)

So it's, well, it's quantifiable versus unquantifiable.

Magnus Carlsen (05:54.000)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (05:54.840)

What's more important?

Lex Fridman (05:55.680)

And you're depending on mood all over the place.

Lex Fridman (05:58.240)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (05:59.560)

But what do you lean in general with these folks,

Lex Fridman (06:02.520)

with soccer, with anything in life,

Lex Fridman (06:05.720)

towards the unquantifiable more?

Lex Fridman (06:07.800)

No, definitely towards the quantifiable.

Lex Fridman (06:10.640)

So when you're unsure, lean towards the numbers.

Lex Fridman (06:12.600)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (06:13.440)

But see, like, it's later generations.

Lex Fridman (06:15.800)

There's something, that's what people say about Maradona

Magnus Carlsen (06:18.000)

is, you know, he took a arguably somewhat mediocre team

Lex Fridman (06:23.600)

to a World Cup.

Lex Fridman (06:25.320)

So there's that also uplifting nature of the player

Lex Fridman (06:28.760)

to be able to rise up, it is a team sport.

Lex Fridman (06:31.200)

So are you gonna, like, are you gonna punish Messi

Lex Fridman (06:36.080)

for taking a mediocre Argentine squad

Magnus Carlsen (06:40.000)

to the final in 2014 and punish him

Lex Fridman (06:43.480)

because they lost to a great team very narrowly

Lex Fridman (06:47.560)

after they missed?

Lex Fridman (06:49.280)

The internet does.

Magnus Carlsen (06:50.600)

He set up, like, a great chance for Higuain

Lex Fridman (06:53.320)

in the first half, which he, which he fluffed.

Lex Fridman (06:57.560)

And then, yeah, eventually they lost the game.

Lex Fridman (07:00.160)

Yeah, they do criticize Cristiano Ronaldo,

Magnus Carlsen (07:02.520)

Messi for being on really strong squads

Lex Fridman (07:04.920)

in terms of the club teams and saying,

Magnus Carlsen (07:07.880)

yeah, okay, it's easy when you have like Ronaldinho

Lex Fridman (07:10.880)

or whoever on your team.

Magnus Carlsen (07:13.400)

It would be very interesting

Lex Fridman (07:14.880)

just if the league could make a decision.

Magnus Carlsen (07:19.520)

Yeah, just random, random allocation.

Lex Fridman (07:21.760)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (07:25.720)

And just every single game, just keep reallocating

Lex Fridman (07:28.360)

or maybe once a season or every season you get random.

Lex Fridman (07:32.360)

But let's say every, every player,

Lex Fridman (07:37.880)

if let's say they sign a five year contract for a team,

Magnus Carlsen (07:41.640)

like one of them, you're gonna get randomly allocated

Lex Fridman (07:43.920)

to, to let's say a bottom half team.

Magnus Carlsen (07:48.400)

I bet you there's gonna be so much corruption around that.

Lex Fridman (07:50.760)

It could be random.

Magnus Carlsen (07:51.600)

Obviously it wouldn't, wouldn't ever happen or work,

Lex Fridman (07:54.960)

but I think it's interesting to think about.

Lex Fridman (07:57.680)

So on chess, let's zoom out.

Lex Fridman (08:01.520)

If you break down your approach to chess

Magnus Carlsen (08:04.480)

when you're at your best,

Lex Fridman (08:06.920)

what do you think,

Lex Fridman (08:10.920)

what do you think contributes to that approach?

Lex Fridman (08:12.480)

Is it memory recall, specific lines and positions?

Lex Fridman (08:15.280)

Is it intuition?

Lex Fridman (08:16.560)

How much of it is intuition?

Lex Fridman (08:18.160)

How much of it is pure calculation?

Lex Fridman (08:20.280)

How much of it is messing with the strategy of the opponent?

Lex Fridman (08:23.360)

So the game theory aspect in terms of what contributes

Lex Fridman (08:27.000)

to the highest level of play that you do.

Magnus Carlsen (08:30.800)

I think the answer differs a little bit now

Lex Fridman (08:35.680)

from what it did eight years ago.

Magnus Carlsen (08:39.200)

For instance, like I've, I feel like I've had like two peaks

Lex Fridman (08:42.400)

and in my career in 2014,

Magnus Carlsen (08:46.520)

well, 2013, 2014, and also in 2019.

Lex Fridman (08:50.600)

And in those years, I was very different

Magnus Carlsen (08:56.400)

in terms of, of my strength,

Lex Fridman (09:00.160)

strength as specifically in 2019,

Magnus Carlsen (09:03.040)

I benefited a lot from opening preparation

Lex Fridman (09:07.680)

while in 2013, 2014,

Magnus Carlsen (09:09.880)

I mostly tried to avoid my opponent's preparation

Lex Fridman (09:15.040)

rather than that being a, being a strength.

Lex Fridman (09:19.120)

So I'm mentioning that also because it's something,

Lex Fridman (09:22.600)

something you didn't, didn't mention.

Magnus Carlsen (09:26.360)

I think like my intuitive understanding of chess has

Lex Fridman (09:31.080)

over those years always been a little bit better

Magnus Carlsen (09:35.720)

than the others, even though it has evolved as well.

Lex Fridman (09:41.000)

Certainly there are, there are things that I understand now

Magnus Carlsen (09:44.400)

that I didn't understand back then,

Lex Fridman (09:46.840)

but that's not only for me, that's for, for others as well.

Magnus Carlsen (09:52.040)

I was younger back then.

Lex Fridman (09:53.160)

So I played with more energy,

Magnus Carlsen (09:55.040)

which meant that I could play better

Lex Fridman (09:56.600)

in long drawn out games,

Magnus Carlsen (10:01.760)

which was also a necessity for me

Lex Fridman (10:03.800)

because I didn't, I couldn't,

Magnus Carlsen (10:05.400)

couldn't beat people in the, in the openings.

Lex Fridman (10:09.240)

But in terms of calculation,

Magnus Carlsen (10:12.480)

that's always been a weird issue for me.

Lex Fridman (10:16.200)

Like I've always been really, really bad

Magnus Carlsen (10:20.120)

at solving exercises in chess.

Lex Fridman (10:22.360)

Like that's been like a blind spot for me.

Magnus Carlsen (10:28.680)

First of all, I found it hard to concentrate on them

Lex Fridman (10:34.440)

and to look, to look deep enough.

Lex Fridman (10:38.840)

So this is like a puzzle, a position, mate in X.

Lex Fridman (10:42.480)

I mean, one thing is mate, but find the best move.

Magnus Carlsen (10:45.520)

That's generally the exercise,

Lex Fridman (10:46.920)

like find the best move, find the best line.

Magnus Carlsen (10:49.800)

You, you just don't connect with it.

Lex Fridman (10:52.000)

Usually like you have to, to look, look deep.

Lex Fridman (10:54.920)

And then when I get these lines during the game,

Lex Fridman (10:58.480)

I very often find the, the, the right solution,

Magnus Carlsen (11:04.160)

even though, even though it's not still

Lex Fridman (11:11.880)

the best part of my game to, to calculate very, very deeply.

Lex Fridman (11:17.120)

But it doesn't feel like calculation you're saying

Lex Fridman (11:19.920)

in terms of.

Lex Fridman (11:20.760)

And it does sometimes, but for me,

Lex Fridman (11:23.840)

it's more like I'm at the board trying to find,

Magnus Carlsen (11:26.240)

trying to find the solution.

Lex Fridman (11:27.480)

And I understand like the training at home

Magnus Carlsen (11:30.200)

is like trying a little bit to, to replicate that.

Lex Fridman (11:33.240)

Like you give somebody half an hour in a position,

Magnus Carlsen (11:37.280)

like in this instance, you might've thought

Lex Fridman (11:40.320)

for half an hour if you play the game,

Lex Fridman (11:42.400)

but I just, I just cannot do it.

Lex Fridman (11:44.960)

One thing I know that I am good at though,

Magnus Carlsen (11:47.800)

is calculating short lines because I calculate them,

Lex Fridman (11:54.560)

them well, I'm good at seeing little details

Lex Fridman (11:58.640)

and I'm also much better than, than most at evaluating,

Lex Fridman (12:05.320)

which I think is something that sets me,

Magnus Carlsen (12:08.640)

sets me apart from, from others.

Lex Fridman (12:11.800)

So evaluating specific position, if I,

Magnus Carlsen (12:15.160)

if I make this move and the position changes in this way,

Lex Fridman (12:20.200)

is this a step in the right direction?

Lex Fridman (12:22.600)

Like in a big picture way?

Lex Fridman (12:24.120)

Yeah.

Magnus Carlsen (12:24.960)

Like you calculate a few moves ahead and then you evaluate

Lex Fridman (12:27.680)

because a lot of, a lot of time, a lot of the times

Magnus Carlsen (12:31.000)

you cannot, the branches become so big

Lex Fridman (12:34.320)

that you cannot calculate everything.

Lex Fridman (12:35.960)

So you have to, yeah.

Lex Fridman (12:37.640)

So you have to, you have to make evaluations based on,

Magnus Carlsen (12:41.200)

you know, based mostly on knowledge

Lex Fridman (12:44.880)

and intuition and somehow I seem to do that pretty well.

Magnus Carlsen (12:49.720)

When you say you're good at short lines,

Lex Fridman (12:51.560)

what's that, what's, what's short?

Magnus Carlsen (12:53.840)

That's usually like lines of two to four moves each.

Lex Fridman (12:59.120)

Okay, so that, that's directly applicable

Magnus Carlsen (13:01.160)

to even faster games like blitz, chess and so on.

Lex Fridman (13:04.040)

Yeah, blitz is a lot about calculating forest lines.

Lex Fridman (13:09.280)

So those, you can see pretty clearly that the players

Lex Fridman (13:14.280)

who struggle at blitz who are great at classical

Magnus Carlsen (13:17.240)

are those who rely on a deep calculating ability

Lex Fridman (13:21.600)

because you simply don't have time for that in blitz.

Magnus Carlsen (13:24.400)

You have to calculate quickly and rely a lot on intuition.

Lex Fridman (13:29.080)

Can you try to, I know it's really difficult.

Lex Fridman (13:30.760)

Can you try to talk through what's actually

Lex Fridman (13:34.240)

being visualized in your head?

Lex Fridman (13:36.280)

Is there, is there a visual component?

Lex Fridman (13:39.200)

Yeah, no, I just visualized the board.

Magnus Carlsen (13:41.280)

I mean, the board is in my head.

Lex Fridman (13:44.800)

Two dimensional?

Magnus Carlsen (13:45.840)

My interpretation is that it is two dimensional.

Lex Fridman (13:49.920)

Like what color is, is it brown tinted?

Lex Fridman (13:52.680)

Is it black?

Lex Fridman (13:53.560)

Is it, like what's the theme?

Lex Fridman (13:56.120)

Is it a big board, small board?

Lex Fridman (13:58.200)

Are the, what do the pawns look like?

Lex Fridman (14:01.920)

Or is it more in the space of concepts?

Lex Fridman (14:04.080)

Like.

Magnus Carlsen (14:05.320)

Yeah, there aren't a lot of colors.

Lex Fridman (14:07.640)

It's mostly, yeah.

Lex Fridman (14:09.080)

So what is it?

Lex Fridman (14:11.200)

Queen's gambit on the ceiling, whatever.

Magnus Carlsen (14:13.040)

I'm trying now to imagine it.

Lex Fridman (14:16.080)

What about when you do the branching,

Lex Fridman (14:17.640)

when you have multiple boards and so on?

Lex Fridman (14:19.040)

What, how does that look?

Lex Fridman (14:20.080)

Are you?

Lex Fridman (14:20.920)

No, but it's only one at a time.

Lex Fridman (14:21.960)

So like.

Lex Fridman (14:22.800)

One position at a time.

Magnus Carlsen (14:23.640)

One position at a time.

Lex Fridman (14:24.480)

So then I go back and that's what, when,

Magnus Carlsen (14:27.400)

when people play, or at least that's what I do.

Lex Fridman (14:30.640)

When I play blindfold chess against several people,

Magnus Carlsen (14:33.400)

then it's just always one board at a time.

Lex Fridman (14:35.840)

And the rest are stored away somewhere.

Lex Fridman (14:39.120)

But how do you store them away?

Lex Fridman (14:40.440)

So like, you went down one branch.

Magnus Carlsen (14:42.520)

You're like, all right, that's, I got that.

Lex Fridman (14:45.480)

I understand that there's some good there,

Magnus Carlsen (14:47.440)

there's some bad there.

Lex Fridman (14:48.720)

Now let me go down another branch.

Lex Fridman (14:50.360)

Like, how do you store away the information?

Lex Fridman (14:52.600)

You just put it on a shelf, kind of?

Magnus Carlsen (14:54.440)

I try and store it away.

Lex Fridman (14:55.960)

Sometimes I have to sort of repeat it because I forget.

Lex Fridman (15:00.400)

And it does happen frequently in games

Lex Fridman (15:02.520)

that you're thinking for,

Magnus Carlsen (15:06.920)

especially if you're thinking for a long,

Lex Fridman (15:08.520)

let's say a half an hour,

Magnus Carlsen (15:09.960)

or even more than that, that you play a move

Lex Fridman (15:12.920)

and then your opponent plays a move,

Magnus Carlsen (15:14.720)

then you play a move and they play a move again.

Lex Fridman (15:17.160)

And you realize, oh, I actually calculated that.

Magnus Carlsen (15:20.120)

I just forgot about it.

Lex Fridman (15:22.280)

So that's obviously what happens

Magnus Carlsen (15:24.280)

when you store the information and you cannot retrieve it.

Lex Fridman (15:26.600)

When you think about a move for 20, 30 minutes,

Lex Fridman (15:30.120)

like how do you break that down?

Lex Fridman (15:32.360)

Can you describe what,

Magnus Carlsen (15:35.360)

like what's the algorithm here

Lex Fridman (15:36.720)

that takes 30 minutes to run?

Magnus Carlsen (15:38.680)

30 minutes is, at least for me, it's usually a waste.

Lex Fridman (15:44.200)

30 minutes usually means that I don't know what to do.

Lex Fridman (15:47.920)

And I'm trying.

Lex Fridman (15:48.760)

You're just running into the wall over and over.

Magnus Carlsen (15:49.840)

Yeah, I'm trying to find something that isn't there.

Lex Fridman (15:52.120)

I think 10 to 15 minutes things

Magnus Carlsen (15:55.640)

in complicated positions can be really, really helpful.

Lex Fridman (16:00.000)

Then you can spend your time pretty efficiently.

Magnus Carlsen (16:05.360)

Just means that the branches are getting wide.

Lex Fridman (16:10.360)

There's a lot to run through,

Magnus Carlsen (16:15.560)

both in terms of calculation

Lex Fridman (16:17.280)

and lots you have to evaluate as well.

Lex Fridman (16:20.000)

And then based on that 10 to 15 minute thing,

Lex Fridman (16:24.960)

you have a pretty good idea what to do.

Magnus Carlsen (16:29.280)

I mean, it's very rare that I would think for half an hour

Lex Fridman (16:32.520)

and I would have a eureka moment during the game.

Magnus Carlsen (16:35.600)

Like if I haven't seen it in 10 minutes,

Lex Fridman (16:37.560)

I'm probably not gonna see it at all.

Magnus Carlsen (16:39.800)

You're going to different branches.

Lex Fridman (16:41.280)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (16:42.120)

And like after 15 minutes, it's like.

Lex Fridman (16:43.840)

But it mainly to the middle game,

Magnus Carlsen (16:45.280)

because when you get to the end game,

Lex Fridman (16:47.120)

it's usually brute force calculation

Magnus Carlsen (16:50.320)

that makes you spend so much time.

Lex Fridman (16:52.920)

So middle game is normally,

Magnus Carlsen (16:55.600)

it's a complicated mix of brute force calculation

Lex Fridman (16:59.520)

and like creativity and evaluation.

Lex Fridman (17:05.800)

So end game, it's easier in that sense.

Lex Fridman (17:10.000)

Well, you're good at every aspect of chess,

Lex Fridman (17:14.280)

but you're also your end game is legendary.

Lex Fridman (17:16.600)

It baffles experts.

Lex Fridman (17:18.320)

So can you linger on that then try to explain

Lex Fridman (17:21.040)

what the heck is going on there?

Magnus Carlsen (17:22.240)

Like if you look at game six

Lex Fridman (17:23.480)

of the previous world championship,

Magnus Carlsen (17:26.560)

the longest game ever played in chess,

Lex Fridman (17:31.360)

it was I think his queen versus your rook knight in two pawns.

Magnus Carlsen (17:38.960)

There's so many options there.

Lex Fridman (17:40.360)

It's such an interesting little dance

Lex Fridman (17:42.560)

and it's kind of not obvious that it wouldn't be a draw.

Lex Fridman (17:45.280)

So how do you escape it not being a draw

Lex Fridman (17:47.960)

and you win that match?

Lex Fridman (17:49.720)

No, I knew that for most of the time,

Magnus Carlsen (17:53.360)

it was a theoretical draw

Lex Fridman (17:55.800)

since chess with seven or less pieces on the board is solved.

Lex Fridman (18:01.880)

So you can, like people watching online,

Lex Fridman (18:04.360)

they can just check it.

Magnus Carlsen (18:05.320)

They can check and they can check a so called table base

Lex Fridman (18:09.480)

and they, it just gonna spit out win for white,

Magnus Carlsen (18:13.600)

win for black or draw.

Lex Fridman (18:15.040)

So, and also I knew that,

Magnus Carlsen (18:18.120)

I knew that didn't know that position specifically,

Lex Fridman (18:21.360)

but I knew that it had to be a draw.

Lex Fridman (18:23.760)

So for me, it was about staying alert.

Lex Fridman (18:29.640)

First of all, trying to look for the best way

Magnus Carlsen (18:33.920)

to put my pieces, but yeah,

Lex Fridman (18:37.720)

those end games are a bit, they're a bit unusual.

Magnus Carlsen (18:40.480)

They don't happen too often.

Lex Fridman (18:43.120)

So what I'm usually good at is I'm using my strength

Magnus Carlsen (18:47.440)

that I also use in middle games

Lex Fridman (18:50.120)

is that I evaluate well

Lex Fridman (18:53.160)

and I calculate short variations quite.

Lex Fridman (18:56.520)

Even for the end game, short variations matter?

Magnus Carlsen (18:58.440)

Yes, it does matter in some simpler end games.

Lex Fridman (19:01.840)

Yeah, but also like there are these theoretical end games

Magnus Carlsen (19:07.000)

with very few pieces like rook knights

Lex Fridman (19:10.320)

and two pawns versus Queens,

Lex Fridman (19:12.160)

but a lot of end games are simply defined

Lex Fridman (19:14.640)

by the Queens being exchanged

Lex Fridman (19:16.800)

and there are a lot of other pieces left

Lex Fridman (19:18.680)

and then it's usually not brute force.

Magnus Carlsen (19:21.680)

It's usually more of understanding and evaluation

Lex Fridman (19:26.120)

and then I can use my strengths very well.

Lex Fridman (19:30.800)

Why are you so damn good at the end game?

Lex Fridman (19:32.560)

Isn't there a lot of moves from when the end game starts

Magnus Carlsen (19:36.480)

to when the end game finishes and you have a few pieces

Lex Fridman (19:38.640)

and you have to figure out,

Lex Fridman (19:39.880)

it's like a sequence of little games that happens, right?

Lex Fridman (19:43.520)

Like little pattern.

Magnus Carlsen (19:44.840)

Like how does it being able to evaluate a single position

Lex Fridman (19:47.880)

lead you to evaluate a long sequence of positions

Lex Fridman (19:51.880)

that eventually lead to a checkmate?

Lex Fridman (19:53.840)

Well, I think if you evaluate well at the start,

Magnus Carlsen (19:57.680)

you know what plans to go for

Lex Fridman (19:59.640)

and then usually the play from there

Lex Fridman (1:00:02.440)

So Nepo, he's even better at calculating short lines

Lex Fridman (1:00:08.720)

than I am.

Lex Fridman (1:00:11.080)

But he can sometimes lack a little bit of depth.

Lex Fridman (1:00:16.520)

In short lines, he's an absolute calculation monster.

Magnus Carlsen (1:00:19.920)

He's extremely quick.

Lex Fridman (1:00:22.880)

But he can sometimes lack a bit of depth.

Magnus Carlsen (1:00:25.080)

Also recently, he's improved his openings quite a bit.

Lex Fridman (1:00:28.800)

So now he has a lot of good ideas.

Lex Fridman (1:00:33.520)

And he's very, very solid.

Lex Fridman (1:00:36.880)

Ding is not quite as well prepared.

Lex Fridman (1:00:39.720)

But he has an excellent understanding

Lex Fridman (1:00:42.560)

of dynamics and imbalances in chess, I would say.

Lex Fridman (1:00:48.920)

What do you mean by imbalances?

Lex Fridman (1:00:51.440)

Imbalances like bishops against knights

Lex Fridman (1:00:54.360)

and material imbalances.

Lex Fridman (1:00:55.800)

He can take advantage of those.

Magnus Carlsen (1:00:57.600)

Yes, I would say he's very, very good at that

Lex Fridman (1:01:00.440)

and understanding the dynamic factors,

Magnus Carlsen (1:01:04.360)

as we call them, like material versus time, especially.

Lex Fridman (1:01:10.440)

I think Nepo got the better of him and the candidates.

Lex Fridman (1:01:12.920)

So what's your sense why Ding has

Lex Fridman (1:01:14.800)

an edge in the championship?

Magnus Carlsen (1:01:17.080)

I feel like individual past results hasn't necessarily

Lex Fridman (1:01:21.320)

been a great indicator of world championship results.

Magnus Carlsen (1:01:25.960)

I feel like overall chess strength is more important.

Lex Fridman (1:01:32.000)

To be fair, I only think Ding has a very small edge.

Magnus Carlsen (1:01:34.840)

Difference is not big at all.

Lex Fridman (1:01:36.680)

But our individual head to head record

Magnus Carlsen (1:01:39.960)

was probably the main reason that a lot of people

Lex Fridman (1:01:42.720)

thought Nepo had a good chance against me as well.

Magnus Carlsen (1:01:45.680)

It was like 4 to 1 in his favor before the match.

Lex Fridman (1:01:51.560)

But that was just another example

Magnus Carlsen (1:01:53.320)

of why that may not necessarily mean anything.

Lex Fridman (1:01:56.640)

Also in our case, it was a very, very low sample size,

Magnus Carlsen (1:02:00.360)

I think, about the size of the match in total, 14 games.

Lex Fridman (1:02:05.600)

And that generally doesn't mean much.

Lex Fridman (1:02:09.200)

How close were those games, would you say, in your mind

Lex Fridman (1:02:11.920)

for the previous championship?

Lex Fridman (1:02:14.040)

So that game six was a turning point where you won.

Lex Fridman (1:02:18.440)

Was there any doubt in your mind that if you

Magnus Carlsen (1:02:21.480)

do a much larger sample size that you'll

Lex Fridman (1:02:24.000)

get the better of Nepo?

Magnus Carlsen (1:02:25.360)

No, no, larger sample size is always good for me.

Lex Fridman (1:02:28.520)

So world championship, it's a great parallel to football

Magnus Carlsen (1:02:33.600)

because it's a low scoring game.

Lex Fridman (1:02:36.440)

And if the better player or the better team scores,

Magnus Carlsen (1:02:41.320)

they win most of the time.

Lex Fridman (1:02:44.160)

Oh, that's generally for championships or in general?

Magnus Carlsen (1:02:47.280)

Yeah, for championships.

Lex Fridman (1:02:48.960)

They generally, generally win because the other slightly

Magnus Carlsen (1:02:54.040)

weaker team, they're good enough to defend

Lex Fridman (1:02:57.120)

to make it very, very difficult for the others.

Lex Fridman (1:03:00.000)

But when they actually have to create the chances,

Lex Fridman (1:03:02.760)

then they have no chance.

Lex Fridman (1:03:04.040)

And then it very often ends with a blowout

Lex Fridman (1:03:06.640)

as it did in our match.

Magnus Carlsen (1:03:08.920)

If I hadn't won game six, it probably

Lex Fridman (1:03:11.280)

would have been very, very close.

Magnus Carlsen (1:03:13.160)

He might have edged it.

Lex Fridman (1:03:14.760)

There's obviously a bigger chance

Magnus Carlsen (1:03:16.200)

that I would have edged it.

Lex Fridman (1:03:18.280)

But this is just what happens a lot in chess,

Lex Fridman (1:03:21.240)

but also in football that matches are close

Lex Fridman (1:03:24.080)

and then they somebody scores, somebody scores

Lex Fridman (1:03:27.800)

and then things change.

Lex Fridman (1:03:30.000)

And this gives people the illusion

Magnus Carlsen (1:03:32.640)

that the matchup was very close.

Lex Fridman (1:03:35.960)

Well, actually, it just means that the nature of the game

Magnus Carlsen (1:03:40.240)

makes the matches close very often.

Lex Fridman (1:03:43.760)

But it's always much more likely that one of the teams

Magnus Carlsen (1:03:47.560)

is going to or one of the players

Lex Fridman (1:03:49.120)

is going to break away than the others.

Lex Fridman (1:03:51.480)

And in other matches as well, even though a lot of people

Lex Fridman (1:03:56.080)

before the match in 2016 against Karjakin,

Magnus Carlsen (1:04:01.440)

there were people who thought before the match

Lex Fridman (1:04:04.320)

that I was massively overrated as a favorite

Lex Fridman (1:04:07.600)

and that essentially the match was pretty, pretty close,

Lex Fridman (1:04:12.920)

like whatever, 60, 40, or some people even said like 55, 45.

Lex Fridman (1:04:18.920)

And what I felt was that the match went very, very wrong

Lex Fridman (1:04:23.120)

for me and I still won.

Lex Fridman (1:04:25.880)

And some people saw that as an indication

Lex Fridman (1:04:28.200)

that the pre match probabilities were probably

Magnus Carlsen (1:04:30.240)

a bit closer than people thought.

Lex Fridman (1:04:31.640)

Well, I would look at it in the way that everything went wrong

Lex Fridman (1:04:35.760)

and I still won, which probably means

Lex Fridman (1:04:38.600)

that I was a pretty big favorite to begin with.

Magnus Carlsen (1:04:41.000)

I do have a question to you about that match, but first,

Lex Fridman (1:04:43.800)

so Sergei Karjakin was originally a qualifier

Magnus Carlsen (1:04:46.880)

for the candidate tournament, but was disqualified

Lex Fridman (1:04:50.160)

for breaching the FIDE code of ethics

Magnus Carlsen (1:04:52.400)

after publicly expressing approval

Lex Fridman (1:04:54.120)

for the 2022 Russian invasion in Ukraine.

Magnus Carlsen (1:04:57.880)

You look at the Cold War and some of the US

Lex Fridman (1:05:00.400)

versus Russian games of the past,

Magnus Carlsen (1:05:02.480)

does politics, does some of this geopolitics,

Lex Fridman (1:05:05.880)

politics ever creep its way into the game?

Lex Fridman (1:05:09.360)

Do you feel the pressure, the immensity of that

Lex Fridman (1:05:11.520)

as it does sometimes for the Olympics,

Magnus Carlsen (1:05:13.600)

these big nations playing each other,

Lex Fridman (1:05:15.640)

competing against each other,

Magnus Carlsen (1:05:17.120)

almost like fighting out in a friendly way,

Lex Fridman (1:05:22.200)

the battles, the tensions that they have

Lex Fridman (1:05:23.880)

in the space of geopolitics?

Lex Fridman (1:05:26.080)

Yeah, I think it still does.

Lex Fridman (1:05:27.640)

So the president of the World Chess Federation

Lex Fridman (1:05:30.920)

who was just reelected is a Russian.

Magnus Carlsen (1:05:33.920)

Like I like him personally, for sure,

Lex Fridman (1:05:36.840)

but he is quite connected to the Kremlin.

Lex Fridman (1:05:39.640)

And it's quite clear that the Kremlin

Lex Fridman (1:05:42.920)

considers it at least a semi important goal

Magnus Carlsen (1:05:45.640)

to bring the chess crown home to Russia.

Lex Fridman (1:05:49.360)

So it's still definitely a factor.

Lex Fridman (1:05:52.960)

And I mean, I can answer for in the Karjakin case,

Lex Fridman (1:05:56.720)

like I don't have a strong opinion

Magnus Carlsen (1:06:00.120)

on whether he should have been banned or not.

Lex Fridman (1:06:03.920)

Obviously, I don't agree with anything

Magnus Carlsen (1:06:05.800)

that he says.

Lex Fridman (1:06:08.480)

But in principle, I think that you should ban

Magnus Carlsen (1:06:14.400)

either no Russians or all Russians.

Lex Fridman (1:06:17.000)

I'm generally not particularly against either,

Lex Fridman (1:06:22.560)

but I don't love banning wrong opinions,

Lex Fridman (1:06:27.480)

even if they are as reprehensible as his have been.

Magnus Carlsen (1:06:32.480)

Yeah, there's something about the World Chess Championships

Lex Fridman (1:06:36.440)

or the Olympics where it feels like banning

Magnus Carlsen (1:06:39.440)

is counterproductive to the alleviating

Lex Fridman (1:06:41.520)

some of the conflicts.

Magnus Carlsen (1:06:43.040)

We don't know.

Lex Fridman (1:06:43.880)

This is the thing though.

Magnus Carlsen (1:06:45.200)

We really don't know about the long term conflicts.

Lex Fridman (1:06:48.920)

And a lot of people try to do the right thing in this sense,

Magnus Carlsen (1:06:53.280)

which I don't really blame at all.

Lex Fridman (1:06:54.800)

It's just that we don't know.

Lex Fridman (1:06:57.760)

And I guess sometimes there are other ways

Lex Fridman (1:07:00.880)

you wanna try and help as well.

Magnus Carlsen (1:07:04.120)

See, like within the competition,

Lex Fridman (1:07:05.920)

within some of those battles of US versus Russia

Magnus Carlsen (1:07:08.440)

or so on of the past,

Lex Fridman (1:07:10.120)

there's also between the individuals,

Magnus Carlsen (1:07:14.160)

maybe you'll disagree with this,

Lex Fridman (1:07:15.360)

but from a spectator perspective,

Magnus Carlsen (1:07:16.920)

there's still a camaraderie.

Lex Fridman (1:07:18.840)

Like at the end of the day,

Magnus Carlsen (1:07:20.800)

there's a thing that unites you,

Lex Fridman (1:07:22.360)

which is this like appreciation

Magnus Carlsen (1:07:25.320)

of the fight over the chessboard.

Lex Fridman (1:07:29.280)

Even if you hate each other.

Magnus Carlsen (1:07:30.520)

Yeah, for sure.

Lex Fridman (1:07:31.560)

I think for every match that's been,

Magnus Carlsen (1:07:35.840)

you would briefly discuss the game

Lex Fridman (1:07:37.680)

with your opponent after the game,

Magnus Carlsen (1:07:40.200)

no matter how much you hate each other.

Lex Fridman (1:07:41.800)

And I think that's lovely.

Lex Fridman (1:07:43.960)

And Kasparov, I mean, he was quoted,

Lex Fridman (1:07:46.800)

like when somebody in his team asked him like,

Lex Fridman (1:07:48.880)

why are you talking to Karpov after the game?

Lex Fridman (1:07:52.280)

Like you hate that guy.

Lex Fridman (1:07:54.320)

And he's like, yeah, sure.

Lex Fridman (1:07:55.280)

But he's the only one who understands me.

Magnus Carlsen (1:07:57.560)

Yeah, the only one who understands.

Lex Fridman (1:07:59.280)

So that's, no, I think that's really lovely.

Lex Fridman (1:08:01.680)

And I would love to see that in other areas as well,

Lex Fridman (1:08:06.280)

that you can, regardless of what happens,

Magnus Carlsen (1:08:09.320)

you can have a good chat about the game.

Lex Fridman (1:08:12.120)

You can just talk about the ideas

Magnus Carlsen (1:08:15.080)

with people who understand what you understand.

Lex Fridman (1:08:18.800)

So if you're not playing the world championships,

Magnus Carlsen (1:08:21.760)

there's a lot of people who are saying

Lex Fridman (1:08:24.400)

that perhaps the world championships don't matter anymore.

Lex Fridman (1:08:27.720)

Do you think there's some truth to that?

Lex Fridman (1:08:30.160)

I said that back a long time ago as well,

Magnus Carlsen (1:08:32.560)

that for me, I don't know if it never happened.

Lex Fridman (1:08:37.840)

So I don't know what would have happened,

Lex Fridman (1:08:39.400)

but I was thinking like the moment that I realized

Lex Fridman (1:08:43.000)

that I'm not the best player in the world,

Magnus Carlsen (1:08:44.480)

like I felt like morally I have to renounce

Lex Fridman (1:08:47.440)

the world championship title, you know,

Magnus Carlsen (1:08:49.680)

because it doesn't mean anything

Lex Fridman (1:08:51.440)

as long as you're not the best player.

Lex Fridman (1:08:53.560)

So the ratings really tell a bigger, a clearer story.

Lex Fridman (1:08:58.920)

I think so, at least over time.

Magnus Carlsen (1:09:01.360)

Like I'm a lot more proud of my streak

Lex Fridman (1:09:05.080)

of being rated number one in the world,

Magnus Carlsen (1:09:06.800)

which is now since I think the summer of 2011.

Lex Fridman (1:09:13.040)

I'm a lot more proud of that than the world championships.

Lex Fridman (1:09:17.720)

How much anxiety or even fear do you have

Lex Fridman (1:09:21.520)

before making a difficult decision on the chessboard?

Lex Fridman (1:09:24.440)

So it's a high stakes game.

Lex Fridman (1:09:26.680)

How nervous do you get?

Lex Fridman (1:09:28.840)

How much anxiety do you have in all that calculations?

Lex Fridman (1:09:31.000)

You're sitting there for 10, 15 minutes

Magnus Carlsen (1:09:33.640)

because you're in a fog.

Lex Fridman (1:09:35.080)

There's always a possibility of a blunder, of a mistake.

Lex Fridman (1:09:38.080)

Are you anxious about it?

Lex Fridman (1:09:39.320)

Are you afraid of it?

Magnus Carlsen (1:09:40.880)

Really depends.

Lex Fridman (1:09:42.880)

I have been at times.

Magnus Carlsen (1:09:45.880)

I think the most nervous I ever been was game 10

Lex Fridman (1:09:50.520)

of the world championships in 2018.

Magnus Carlsen (1:09:54.480)

I know that was just a thrilling game.

Lex Fridman (1:09:58.480)

I was black.

Magnus Carlsen (1:10:00.080)

I basically abandoned the queen side at some point

Lex Fridman (1:10:02.840)

to attack him on the king side.

Lex Fridman (1:10:04.480)

And I knew that my attack, if it doesn't work,

Lex Fridman (1:10:08.920)

I'm going to lose, but I had so much adrenaline.

Lex Fridman (1:10:12.080)

So that was fine.

Lex Fridman (1:10:13.360)

I thought I was going to win.

Magnus Carlsen (1:10:14.920)

Then at some point I realized that it's not so clear

Lex Fridman (1:10:18.160)

and that my time was ticking and I was just getting

Lex Fridman (1:10:20.840)

so nervous.

Lex Fridman (1:10:21.960)

I still remember what happened.

Magnus Carlsen (1:10:25.360)

Like we played this time trouble phase

Lex Fridman (1:10:28.120)

where he had very little time, but I had even less.

Lex Fridman (1:10:31.520)

And I just remember, I kind of remember much of it,

Lex Fridman (1:10:35.120)

just that when it was over, I was just so relieved

Magnus Carlsen (1:10:38.400)

because then it was clear that the position

Lex Fridman (1:10:40.160)

was probably gonna be routed in a draw.

Magnus Carlsen (1:10:43.520)

Otherwise I'm often nervous before games,

Lex Fridman (1:10:47.360)

but when I get there, it's all business.

Lex Fridman (1:10:50.720)

And especially when I'm playing well,

Lex Fridman (1:10:53.760)

I'm never afraid of losing when I play

Magnus Carlsen (1:10:57.920)

because I trust my instincts.

Lex Fridman (1:11:01.120)

I trust my skills.

Lex Fridman (1:11:03.480)

How much psychological intimidation is there

Lex Fridman (1:11:06.120)

from you to the other person, from the other person to you?

Magnus Carlsen (1:11:09.840)

I think people would play a lot better

Lex Fridman (1:11:11.880)

if they played against an anonymous me.

Magnus Carlsen (1:11:15.080)

I would love to have a tournament online

Lex Fridman (1:11:21.400)

where let's say you play 10 of the best players in the world

Lex Fridman (1:11:25.440)

and for each round you don't know who you're playing.

Lex Fridman (1:11:30.480)

That's an interesting question.

Magnus Carlsen (1:11:31.840)

There's these videos where people eat McDonald's

Lex Fridman (1:11:35.000)

or Burger King or Diet Coke versus Diet Pepsi.

Magnus Carlsen (1:11:38.560)

Would people be able to tell they're playing you

Lex Fridman (1:11:42.600)

from the style of play, do you think?

Lex Fridman (1:11:45.040)

Or from the strength of play?

Lex Fridman (1:11:48.360)

If there was a decent sample size, sure.

Lex Fridman (1:11:51.240)

And what about you?

Lex Fridman (1:11:52.080)

Would you be able to tell others?

Lex Fridman (1:11:55.200)

In just one game?

Lex Fridman (1:11:58.160)

Very unlikely.

Lex Fridman (1:11:59.240)

What sample size would you need to tell accurately?

Lex Fridman (1:12:02.200)

I feel like this is science.

Magnus Carlsen (1:12:03.600)

Yeah, I think 20 games would help a lot.

Lex Fridman (1:12:06.720)

Per person?

Magnus Carlsen (1:12:07.560)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:12:09.120)

But I know that they've already developed AI bots

Magnus Carlsen (1:12:13.600)

that are pretty good at recognizing somebody's style.

Lex Fridman (1:12:16.960)

Okay.

Magnus Carlsen (1:12:17.800)

Which is quite fascinating.

Lex Fridman (1:12:21.800)

And it'd be fascinating if those bots

Magnus Carlsen (1:12:23.720)

were able to summarize the style somehow.

Lex Fridman (1:12:26.000)

Maybe great attacking chess,

Magnus Carlsen (1:12:28.440)

like some of the same characteristics

Lex Fridman (1:12:29.760)

you've been describing like great at short line calculations

Magnus Carlsen (1:12:33.600)

all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:12:34.440)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:12:35.760)

Or did you just talk shit?

Lex Fridman (1:12:37.760)

No, but really all the best chess players,

Magnus Carlsen (1:12:40.600)

there are basically just two camps.

Lex Fridman (1:12:42.200)

People who are good at longer lines or shorter lines.

Magnus Carlsen (1:12:46.240)

It's the hare and the tortoise, basically.

Lex Fridman (1:12:49.280)

And sometimes, you know,

Magnus Carlsen (1:12:51.800)

I feel like I'm the closest you can get

Lex Fridman (1:12:55.040)

to a high bridge of those.

Magnus Carlsen (1:12:58.680)

Because you got both,

Lex Fridman (1:13:00.040)

you're good in every position.

Lex Fridman (1:13:02.080)

So the middle game and end game.

Lex Fridman (1:13:03.600)

Yeah, and also I can think to some extent

Magnus Carlsen (1:13:06.600)

both rapidly and deeply,

Lex Fridman (1:13:08.960)

which a lot of people, they can't do both.

Lex Fridman (1:13:11.920)

But I mean, to answer your question from before,

Lex Fridman (1:13:14.320)

I think, yeah,

Magnus Carlsen (1:13:15.640)

I sometimes can get a little bit intimidated

Lex Fridman (1:13:18.120)

by my opponent,

Lex Fridman (1:13:18.960)

but it's mostly if there's something unknown.

Lex Fridman (1:13:23.880)

It's mostly if it's something

Magnus Carlsen (1:13:25.840)

that I don't understand fully.

Lex Fridman (1:13:28.400)

And I do think, especially when I'm playing,

Magnus Carlsen (1:13:30.880)

well, people, they just play more timidly against me

Lex Fridman (1:13:34.640)

than they do against each other.

Magnus Carlsen (1:13:36.040)

Sometimes without even realizing it.

Lex Fridman (1:13:39.600)

And I certainly use that to my advantage.

Magnus Carlsen (1:13:42.880)

If I sense that my opponent is apprehensive,

Lex Fridman (1:13:46.360)

if I sense that they are not gonna necessarily

Magnus Carlsen (1:13:49.720)

take all their chances,

Lex Fridman (1:13:51.360)

it just means that I can take more risk.

Lex Fridman (1:13:53.360)

And I always try and find that balance.

Lex Fridman (1:13:58.400)

To shake them up a little bit.

Magnus Carlsen (1:13:59.680)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:14:00.520)

What's been the toughest loss of your career

Lex Fridman (1:14:03.200)

that you remember?

Lex Fridman (1:14:04.320)

Would that be the World Championship match?

Magnus Carlsen (1:14:08.200)

Oh yeah, for sure.

Lex Fridman (1:14:09.880)

Game eight in 2016.

Lex Fridman (1:14:12.360)

And who was it against?

Lex Fridman (1:14:13.400)

Against Karjakin in New York.

Lex Fridman (1:14:16.440)

Can you take it through the story of that game?

Lex Fridman (1:14:19.320)

Where were you before that game

Lex Fridman (1:14:22.280)

in terms of game one through seven?

Lex Fridman (1:14:26.160)

Yeah, so game one and two, not much happened.

Magnus Carlsen (1:14:29.160)

Game three and four, I was winning in both of them.

Lex Fridman (1:14:32.720)

And normally, I should definitely have converted both.

Magnus Carlsen (1:14:37.720)

I couldn't, partly due to good defense on his part,

Lex Fridman (1:14:43.400)

but mostly because I just, I messed up.

Lex Fridman (1:14:48.280)

And then after that, games five, six, and seven,

Lex Fridman (1:14:53.760)

not much happened.

Magnus Carlsen (1:14:56.200)

I was getting impatient at that point.

Lex Fridman (1:15:00.080)

So for game eight, I was probably ready

Magnus Carlsen (1:15:04.360)

to take a little bit more risks than I had

Lex Fridman (1:15:07.400)

before, which I guess was insane

Magnus Carlsen (1:15:11.360)

because I knew that he couldn't beat me

Lex Fridman (1:15:14.480)

unless I beat myself.

Magnus Carlsen (1:15:17.800)

Like he wasn't strong enough to outplay me.

Lex Fridman (1:15:20.320)

And that was leading to impatience somehow?

Lex Fridman (1:15:22.400)

And impatience.

Lex Fridman (1:15:23.560)

No, because I knew that I was better.

Magnus Carlsen (1:15:25.960)

I knew that I was better.

Lex Fridman (1:15:27.000)

I knew that I just needed to win one game

Lex Fridman (1:15:28.880)

and then the match is over.

Lex Fridman (1:15:30.320)

That's what happened in 2021 as well.

Magnus Carlsen (1:15:32.680)

Like when I won the first game against Nebo,

Lex Fridman (1:15:34.680)

I knew that the match was over

Magnus Carlsen (1:15:35.840)

unless I like fuck up royally,

Lex Fridman (1:15:38.160)

then he's not gonna be able to beat me.

Lex Fridman (1:15:42.240)

So what happened was that I played

Lex Fridman (1:15:44.920)

a kind of an innocuous opening as White,

Magnus Carlsen (1:15:48.160)

just trying to get a game,

Lex Fridman (1:15:49.400)

trying to get him out of book as soon as possible.

Magnus Carlsen (1:15:51.920)

Then...

Lex Fridman (1:15:52.760)

Okay, can you elaborate?

Magnus Carlsen (1:15:53.600)

Innocuous, get him out of the book.

Lex Fridman (1:15:56.960)

No, basically I set up pretty defensively as White.

Magnus Carlsen (1:16:00.040)

I wasn't really crossing into his half at the start at all.

Lex Fridman (1:16:04.360)

I was just, I played more like a system

Magnus Carlsen (1:16:07.200)

more than like a concrete opening.

Lex Fridman (1:16:09.920)

It was like, I'm gonna set up my pieces this way.

Magnus Carlsen (1:16:12.480)

You can set them up however you want.

Lex Fridman (1:16:14.840)

And then later where sort of the armies are gonna meet.

Magnus Carlsen (1:16:18.240)

I'm not gonna try and bother you at the start.

Lex Fridman (1:16:20.560)

And that means you're gonna have

Magnus Carlsen (1:16:22.520)

with as many pieces as possible

Lex Fridman (1:16:24.000)

kind of pure chess in the middle game

Magnus Carlsen (1:16:26.040)

without any of the lines,

Lex Fridman (1:16:28.960)

the standard lines in the opening.

Magnus Carlsen (1:16:31.080)

Exactly.

Lex Fridman (1:16:32.160)

And so there was at some point

Magnus Carlsen (1:16:33.680)

a couple of exchanges,

Lex Fridman (1:16:34.720)

then some maneuvering, a little bit better.

Magnus Carlsen (1:16:38.120)

Then he was sort of equalizing

Lex Fridman (1:16:40.000)

and then I started to take too many risks.

Lex Fridman (1:16:42.280)

And I was still sort of fine,

Lex Fridman (1:16:44.480)

but then at some point I realized

Magnus Carlsen (1:16:48.480)

that I'd gone a bit too far

Lex Fridman (1:16:50.640)

and I had to be really careful.

Magnus Carlsen (1:16:52.280)

Then I just froze.

Lex Fridman (1:16:53.920)

I just completely froze.

Lex Fridman (1:16:57.120)

Mentally?

Lex Fridman (1:16:57.960)

Yeah, mentally.

Lex Fridman (1:16:58.800)

What happened?

Lex Fridman (1:16:59.720)

I realized that all the thoughts of I might lose this.

Lex Fridman (1:17:05.480)

What have I done?

Lex Fridman (1:17:07.360)

Why did I take so many risks?

Magnus Carlsen (1:17:08.840)

I knew that I could have drawn at any moment.

Lex Fridman (1:17:11.040)

Just be patient.

Magnus Carlsen (1:17:12.560)

Don't give him these opportunities.

Lex Fridman (1:17:15.600)

What triggered that phase transition in your mind?

Magnus Carlsen (1:17:18.840)

No, it was just a position on the board.

Lex Fridman (1:17:22.640)

Realizing there was one particular move he played

Magnus Carlsen (1:17:25.200)

that I missed.

Lex Fridman (1:17:26.040)

And then I realized that this could potentially

Magnus Carlsen (1:17:30.960)

not go my way.

Lex Fridman (1:17:32.400)

So then I made another couple of mistakes

Lex Fridman (1:17:35.440)

and he, to his credit,

Lex Fridman (1:17:37.600)

once he realized he had the chance,

Magnus Carlsen (1:17:39.600)

he knew that this was his one chance.

Lex Fridman (1:17:43.200)

He had to take it.

Lex Fridman (1:17:44.960)

And so he did.

Lex Fridman (1:17:46.720)

And yeah, that's the worst I've ever felt

Magnus Carlsen (1:17:51.240)

after a chess game.

Lex Fridman (1:17:54.000)

I realized that I'm probably gonna lose my title

Magnus Carlsen (1:17:57.640)

against somebody who's not even close to my level.

Lex Fridman (1:18:02.040)

And I've done it because of my own stupidity, most of all.

Lex Fridman (1:18:08.040)

And that was really, really...

Lex Fridman (1:18:12.720)

At the time, I was all in my own head.

Magnus Carlsen (1:18:16.160)

That was hard to deal with.

Lex Fridman (1:18:18.480)

And I felt like I didn't really recover too much

Magnus Carlsen (1:18:22.440)

for the next game.

Lex Fridman (1:18:24.400)

So what I did, there was a free day after the eighth game.

Lex Fridman (1:18:27.120)

So I did something that I never did

Lex Fridman (1:18:30.040)

at any other world championship.

Magnus Carlsen (1:18:31.480)

Like after game eight, I just,

Lex Fridman (1:18:35.720)

I got drunk with my team.

Magnus Carlsen (1:18:38.880)

And...

Lex Fridman (1:18:39.720)

That's not a standard procedure.

Magnus Carlsen (1:18:40.720)

No, no.

Lex Fridman (1:18:41.920)

That's the only time that's happened

Magnus Carlsen (1:18:43.840)

in the world championship during the match.

Lex Fridman (1:18:46.400)

So yeah, I just tried to forget.

Lex Fridman (1:18:50.000)

But still before game nine...

Lex Fridman (1:18:52.200)

Game nine, I was a little bit more relaxed,

Lex Fridman (1:18:55.480)

but I was still a bit nervous.

Lex Fridman (1:18:56.680)

Then game nine, I almost lost as well.

Magnus Carlsen (1:18:59.760)

Then only game 10.

Lex Fridman (1:19:02.080)

Game 10, I was still, I wasn't in a great mood.

Magnus Carlsen (1:19:04.520)

I was really, really tense.

Lex Fridman (1:19:07.240)

The opening was good.

Magnus Carlsen (1:19:09.080)

I had some advantage.

Lex Fridman (1:19:10.760)

I was getting optimistic.

Magnus Carlsen (1:19:11.920)

Then I made one mistake.

Lex Fridman (1:19:13.840)

He could have forced a draw.

Lex Fridman (1:19:15.280)

And then all the negativity came back.

Lex Fridman (1:19:18.000)

Like, I was thinking during the game,

Magnus Carlsen (1:19:20.240)

like how am I going to play for a win with Black

Lex Fridman (1:19:22.440)

in the next game?

Lex Fridman (1:19:23.280)

Like, what am I doing?

Lex Fridman (1:19:26.400)

And then, you know, eventually it ended well.

Magnus Carlsen (1:19:29.720)

It didn't find the right line.

Lex Fridman (1:19:32.880)

I ground him down.

Magnus Carlsen (1:19:33.880)

Actually, I played at some point pretty well

Lex Fridman (1:19:36.320)

in the end game.

Lex Fridman (1:19:38.200)

And after that game, like there was such a weight.

Lex Fridman (1:19:43.080)

Lifted? Lifted.

Magnus Carlsen (1:19:44.120)

No, after that, there was like no thought

Lex Fridman (1:19:47.640)

of losing the match whatsoever.

Magnus Carlsen (1:19:49.280)

I knew that, okay, I'd basically gotten away with,

Lex Fridman (1:19:54.840)

not with murder, but gotten away with something.

Lex Fridman (1:19:59.120)

What can you say about the after game eight?

Lex Fridman (1:20:02.920)

Where are the places you've gone in your mind?

Lex Fridman (1:20:05.720)

Do you go to some dark places?

Lex Fridman (1:20:07.440)

We're talking about like depression.

Lex Fridman (1:20:09.160)

Do you think about quitting at that point?

Lex Fridman (1:20:12.440)

No, I mean, I think about quitting

Magnus Carlsen (1:20:14.720)

every time I lose a classical game.

Lex Fridman (1:20:17.080)

Or at least I used to.

Magnus Carlsen (1:20:18.680)

Like, especially if it's in a stupid way,

Lex Fridman (1:20:21.320)

I'm thinking like, okay, if I'm gonna play like this,

Magnus Carlsen (1:20:25.200)

if I'm gonna do things that I know are wrong,

Lex Fridman (1:20:27.880)

then, you know, I might as well quit.

Magnus Carlsen (1:20:30.160)

No, that's happened a bunch of times.

Lex Fridman (1:20:34.040)

And I've definitely gotten a bit more carefree

Magnus Carlsen (1:20:37.400)

about losing these days,

Lex Fridman (1:20:38.840)

which it's not necessarily a good thing.

Magnus Carlsen (1:20:41.000)

Like my hatred of losing led to me not losing a lot.

Lex Fridman (1:20:46.000)

Losing a lot and it also lit the fire under me

Magnus Carlsen (1:20:49.400)

that I think my performance after losses

Lex Fridman (1:20:52.560)

in classical chess over the last 10 years

Magnus Carlsen (1:20:56.040)

is like over 2,900.

Lex Fridman (1:20:58.040)

Like I really play well after a loss,

Magnus Carlsen (1:21:01.440)

even though it's really, really unpleasant.

Lex Fridman (1:21:03.320)

So apparently like I don't think the way

Magnus Carlsen (1:21:07.960)

that I dealt with them is particularly healthy,

Lex Fridman (1:21:09.920)

but it's worked.

Magnus Carlsen (1:21:11.600)

It's worked so far.

Lex Fridman (1:21:12.800)

But then you've discovered now a love for winning

Magnus Carlsen (1:21:15.760)

to where ultimately longevity wise creates more fun.

Lex Fridman (1:21:20.360)

Yeah, for sure.

Magnus Carlsen (1:21:22.600)

What's the perfect day in the life of Magnus Carlsen

Lex Fridman (1:21:26.200)

on a day of a big chess match?

Magnus Carlsen (1:21:28.680)

It doesn't have to be world championship,

Lex Fridman (1:21:30.360)

but if it's a chess match you care about,

Lex Fridman (1:21:33.720)

what time do you wake up?

Lex Fridman (1:21:35.840)

What do you eat?

Magnus Carlsen (1:21:37.240)

Oh, it depends on when the game is,

Lex Fridman (1:21:38.920)

but let's say the game is at three,

Magnus Carlsen (1:21:42.600)

I'll probably wake up pretty late at about 11.

Lex Fridman (1:21:49.440)

Then I'll go for a walk,

Magnus Carlsen (1:21:55.120)

might listen to some podcasts.

Lex Fridman (1:21:57.560)

Maybe I'll spend a little bit of time

Magnus Carlsen (1:22:00.160)

looking at some NBA game from last night or whatever.

Lex Fridman (1:22:04.160)

So not chess related stuff?

Magnus Carlsen (1:22:05.480)

No, no, no, no.

Lex Fridman (1:22:06.920)

Then I'll get back, I'll have a big lunch,

Magnus Carlsen (1:22:11.240)

like usually like a big omelet

Lex Fridman (1:22:13.040)

with a bunch of salad and stuff.

Magnus Carlsen (1:22:15.440)

Then go to the game, win like a very nice clean game.

Lex Fridman (1:22:21.440)

Perfect day.

Magnus Carlsen (1:22:22.280)

Just go back after, relax.

Lex Fridman (1:22:24.920)

Like the things that make me the happiest at tournaments

Magnus Carlsen (1:22:28.800)

is just having a good routine and feeling well.

Lex Fridman (1:22:33.560)

I don't like it when too much is happening around me.

Lex Fridman (1:22:36.840)

So the tournament that I came from now was

Lex Fridman (1:22:41.480)

the Chess Olympiad, which is the team event.

Lex Fridman (1:22:44.040)

So we were a team Norway.

Lex Fridman (1:22:46.280)

We did horribly.

Magnus Carlsen (1:22:49.040)

I did okay, but the team in general did horribly.

Lex Fridman (1:22:52.200)

You won that Italy?

Magnus Carlsen (1:22:54.320)

No, no, Italy beat us, but Uzbekistan won in the end.

Lex Fridman (1:22:58.320)

They were this amazing team of young players.

Magnus Carlsen (1:23:01.000)

It was really impressive.

Lex Fridman (1:23:02.920)

But the thing is like we had a good comradery in the team.

Magnus Carlsen (1:23:05.560)

We had our meals together.

Lex Fridman (1:23:07.320)

We played a bit of football, went swimming,

Lex Fridman (1:23:10.200)

and I couldn't understand why things went wrong.

Lex Fridman (1:23:13.320)

And I still don't understand.

Lex Fridman (1:23:14.360)

But the thing is for me, it was all very nice,

Lex Fridman (1:23:17.160)

but now I'm so happy to be on my own at a tournament

Magnus Carlsen (1:23:19.840)

just to have my own routines, not see too many people.

Lex Fridman (1:23:24.080)

Otherwise just have like a very small team of people

Magnus Carlsen (1:23:27.520)

that I see.

Lex Fridman (1:23:28.400)

You are a kind of celebrity now.

Lex Fridman (1:23:31.000)

So people within the chess tournament and outside

Lex Fridman (1:23:35.600)

would recognize you, want to socialize,

Magnus Carlsen (1:23:37.640)

want to tell you about how much you mean to them,

Lex Fridman (1:23:39.600)

how much you inspire them, all that kind of stuff.

Magnus Carlsen (1:23:41.800)

Does that get in the way for you

Lex Fridman (1:23:43.920)

when you're like trying to really focus on the match?

Lex Fridman (1:23:46.840)

Are you able to block that?

Lex Fridman (1:23:49.120)

Like are you able to enjoy those little interactions

Lex Fridman (1:23:51.920)

and still keep your focus?

Lex Fridman (1:23:53.400)

Yeah, most of the time that's fine

Magnus Carlsen (1:23:56.120)

as long as it's not too much.

Lex Fridman (1:23:57.680)

But I have to admit, when I'm at home in Norway,

Magnus Carlsen (1:24:02.000)

I rarely go out without big headphones and something.

Lex Fridman (1:24:10.320)

Oh, like a disguise?

Magnus Carlsen (1:24:11.960)

No, not a disguise, just to block out the world.

Lex Fridman (1:24:15.240)

Yeah.

Magnus Carlsen (1:24:16.080)

Otherwise...

Lex Fridman (1:24:17.560)

Don't make eye contact?

Magnus Carlsen (1:24:18.720)

Yeah, no, so the thing is people in general are nice.

Lex Fridman (1:24:23.360)

I mean, people, they wish me well,

Lex Fridman (1:24:25.960)

and they don't bother me.

Lex Fridman (1:24:29.440)

Also, when I have the headphones on,

Magnus Carlsen (1:24:31.680)

I don't notice as much people turning around and all of that

Lex Fridman (1:24:35.440)

so I can be more of in my own world.

Lex Fridman (1:24:39.920)

So I like that.

Lex Fridman (1:24:40.840)

Yeah, what about in this perfect day after the game?

Lex Fridman (1:24:45.800)

Do you try to analyze what happened?

Lex Fridman (1:24:47.520)

Do you try to think through systematically

Magnus Carlsen (1:24:49.800)

or do you just kind of loosely think about like...

Lex Fridman (1:24:52.200)

No, I just loosely think about it.

Magnus Carlsen (1:24:53.680)

I've never been very structured in that sense.

Lex Fridman (1:24:57.880)

I know that it was always recommended

Magnus Carlsen (1:25:00.240)

that you analyze your own games,

Lex Fridman (1:25:03.040)

but I generally felt that I mostly had a good idea

Magnus Carlsen (1:25:06.880)

about that.

Lex Fridman (1:25:07.720)

Like nowadays, I will loosely see what the engine says

Magnus Carlsen (1:25:12.800)

at a certain point if I'm curious about that.

Lex Fridman (1:25:15.400)

Otherwise, I usually move on to the next.

Lex Fridman (1:25:20.000)

What about diet?

Lex Fridman (1:25:21.320)

You said omelet and salad and so on.

Magnus Carlsen (1:25:23.160)

I heard in your conversation with the other Magnus,

Lex Fridman (1:25:26.920)

Magnus number two, about you had like this bet about meat.

Magnus Carlsen (1:25:31.960)

One of you are gonna go vegan if you lose,

Lex Fridman (1:25:34.000)

I forget which bet.

Magnus Carlsen (1:25:34.840)

Vegetarian though.

Lex Fridman (1:25:36.160)

Vegetarian, sorry.

Lex Fridman (1:25:37.480)

And you both have an admiration for meat.

Lex Fridman (1:25:42.880)

Is there some aspect about optimal performance

Lex Fridman (1:25:45.720)

that you look for in food?

Lex Fridman (1:25:46.840)

Like maybe eating only like once or twice a day

Magnus Carlsen (1:25:50.760)

or a particular kind of food,

Lex Fridman (1:25:52.360)

like meat heavy diet.

Lex Fridman (1:25:54.080)

Is there anything like that?

Lex Fridman (1:25:55.120)

Or are you just trying to have fun with the food?

Magnus Carlsen (1:25:57.480)

I think whenever I'm at tournaments,

Lex Fridman (1:26:01.080)

like it's very natural to eat,

Magnus Carlsen (1:26:03.760)

at least for me to eat only twice a day.

Lex Fridman (1:26:06.120)

So usually I do that when I'm at home as well.

Lex Fridman (1:26:08.800)

So you do eat before the tournament though.

Lex Fridman (1:26:11.000)

You don't play fasted.

Magnus Carlsen (1:26:12.920)

No, no, no, no.

Lex Fridman (1:26:14.720)

But I try not to eat too heavy before the game

Magnus Carlsen (1:26:18.840)

or in general to avoid sugary stuff

Lex Fridman (1:26:22.520)

to have a pretty stable blood sugar level.

Magnus Carlsen (1:26:26.760)

Cause that's the easiest way to make mistake

Lex Fridman (1:26:29.040)

that your energy levels just suddenly drop

Lex Fridman (1:26:33.560)

and they don't necessarily need to be too high

Lex Fridman (1:26:37.080)

as long as they're pretty stable, yeah.

Magnus Carlsen (1:26:39.320)

Have you ever tried playing fasted,

Lex Fridman (1:26:41.360)

like intermittent fasting?

Lex Fridman (1:26:44.600)

So playing without having eaten.

Lex Fridman (1:26:46.960)

I mean, the reason I ask, you know,

Magnus Carlsen (1:26:50.640)

especially when you do a low carb diet,

Lex Fridman (1:26:52.160)

when I've done a person at low carb diet,

Magnus Carlsen (1:26:54.400)

I'm able to fast for a long time,

Lex Fridman (1:26:55.880)

like eat once a day, maybe twice a day.

Lex Fridman (1:26:58.520)

But I just, the mind is most focused

Lex Fridman (1:27:00.680)

on like really difficult thinking tasks when it's fasted.

Magnus Carlsen (1:27:05.880)

It's an interesting,

Lex Fridman (1:27:06.720)

and a lot of people kind of talk about that.

Magnus Carlsen (1:27:09.280)

Yeah, but you're able to kind of like zoom in

Lex Fridman (1:27:11.480)

and if you're doing a low carb diet,

Magnus Carlsen (1:27:13.120)

you don't have the energy stable.

Lex Fridman (1:27:15.400)

You know, that is true.

Magnus Carlsen (1:27:17.000)

Maybe that will be interesting to try.

Lex Fridman (1:27:18.840)

So what's happened for me,

Magnus Carlsen (1:27:21.120)

I played a few tournaments where I've had food poisoning

Lex Fridman (1:27:24.520)

and then that generally means

Magnus Carlsen (1:27:26.320)

that you're both sleep deprived and you have no energy.

Lex Fridman (1:27:31.080)

And what I've found is that it makes me,

Magnus Carlsen (1:27:36.600)

it makes me very calm, of course,

Lex Fridman (1:27:38.040)

because I don't have the energy

Lex Fridman (1:27:40.600)

and it makes me super creative.

Lex Fridman (1:27:42.880)

Interesting.

Magnus Carlsen (1:27:43.720)

Sleep deprived probably I think in general

Lex Fridman (1:27:45.480)

makes you creative.

Magnus Carlsen (1:27:47.120)

Just the first thing that goes away

Lex Fridman (1:27:48.760)

is the ability to do the simple things.

Magnus Carlsen (1:27:51.800)

That's what it affects you the most.

Lex Fridman (1:27:54.760)

Like you cannot be precise.

Lex Fridman (1:27:56.560)

So that's the only thing I'm worried about.

Lex Fridman (1:27:58.600)

Like if I'm fasted that I won't be precise when I play.

Lex Fridman (1:28:06.280)

But you might be more creative.

Lex Fridman (1:28:08.320)

It's an interesting trial.

Magnus Carlsen (1:28:09.160)

Fasted, yeah, potentially.

Lex Fridman (1:28:12.000)

What about you have been known to

Magnus Carlsen (1:28:14.000)

on a rare occasion play drunk.

Lex Fridman (1:28:16.600)

Is there a mathematical formula

Magnus Carlsen (1:28:18.360)

for sort of on the X axis how many drinks you had

Lex Fridman (1:28:22.240)

and on the Y axis your performance slash creativity?

Magnus Carlsen (1:28:26.760)

Is there like an optimal for,

Lex Fridman (1:28:28.360)

like one of the,

Magnus Carlsen (1:28:29.600)

would you suggest for the FIDE World Championship

Lex Fridman (1:28:31.800)

that people would be required to drink?

Lex Fridman (1:28:34.120)

Would that change things in interesting ways?

Lex Fridman (1:28:36.440)

Yeah, not at all.

Magnus Carlsen (1:28:38.200)

Maybe for rapid, but for Blitz,

Lex Fridman (1:28:40.880)

think if you're playing Blitz,

Magnus Carlsen (1:28:41.880)

you're mostly playing on short calculation and intuition.

Lex Fridman (1:28:47.400)

And I think those are probably enhanced

Magnus Carlsen (1:28:50.480)

if you've had a little bit of, a little bit to drink.

Lex Fridman (1:28:54.200)

Can you explain the physiology of why that's,

Lex Fridman (1:28:58.840)

why it's enhanced or the?

Lex Fridman (1:29:01.080)

You're just, you're thinking less.

Magnus Carlsen (1:29:03.240)

You're more confident.

Lex Fridman (1:29:04.840)

Oh yeah, it's confidence.

Magnus Carlsen (1:29:06.160)

I think it's just confidence.

Lex Fridman (1:29:07.840)

I think also like a lot of people feel like they're better

Magnus Carlsen (1:29:11.760)

at speaking languages, for instance,

Lex Fridman (1:29:15.240)

if they've drunk a little bit,

Magnus Carlsen (1:29:17.000)

it's just like removing these barriers.

Lex Fridman (1:29:19.960)

I think that it's a little bit of the same in chess.

Magnus Carlsen (1:29:25.240)

In 2012, I played the World Blitz Championship.

Lex Fridman (1:29:27.600)

And then I was doing horribly for a long time.

Magnus Carlsen (1:29:33.080)

I also had food poisoning there.

Lex Fridman (1:29:34.920)

I couldn't play at all for three days.

Lex Fridman (1:29:37.560)

So before the last break,

Lex Fridman (1:29:39.160)

I was like in the middle of the pack, like in,

Magnus Carlsen (1:29:43.520)

I don't know, 20th place or something.

Lex Fridman (1:29:46.960)

And so I decided like, as the last, last gasp,

Magnus Carlsen (1:29:51.200)

I'm going to go to the mini bar and just have a few drinks.

Lex Fridman (1:29:54.880)

And what happened is that I came back

Lex Fridman (1:29:58.080)

and I was suddenly relaxed and I was playing fast

Lex Fridman (1:30:02.280)

and I was playing confidence.

Lex Fridman (1:30:03.520)

And I thought I was playing so well.

Lex Fridman (1:30:05.640)

I wasn't playing nearly as well as I thought,

Lex Fridman (1:30:08.600)

but it still helped me.

Lex Fridman (1:30:10.080)

Like I won my remaining eight games.

Lex Fridman (1:30:11.880)

And if there had been one more round,

Lex Fridman (1:30:14.560)

I probably would have won the whole thing.

Lex Fridman (1:30:16.040)

But finally I was second.

Lex Fridman (1:30:18.200)

So generally I wouldn't recommend that,

Lex Fridman (1:30:20.960)

but maybe as the last resort sometimes,

Lex Fridman (1:30:23.120)

like if you feel that you have the ability,

Magnus Carlsen (1:30:25.920)

like obviously none of this is remotely relevant

Lex Fridman (1:30:29.480)

if you don't feel like you have the ability to begin with.

Lex Fridman (1:30:31.800)

But if you feel like you have the ability,

Lex Fridman (1:30:34.080)

there are just factors that make it impossible

Magnus Carlsen (1:30:39.320)

for you to show it.

Lex Fridman (1:30:42.040)

Like numbing your mind a bit can probably be a good thing.

Magnus Carlsen (1:30:45.200)

Yeah, well, it's interesting, especially during training,

Lex Fridman (1:30:47.920)

you have all kinds of sports that have interacted

Magnus Carlsen (1:30:51.040)

with a lot of athletes and grappling sports.

Lex Fridman (1:30:54.640)

It's different when you train under extreme exhaustion.

Magnus Carlsen (1:30:57.080)

For example, you start becoming,

Lex Fridman (1:30:59.320)

you start to discover interesting things.

Magnus Carlsen (1:31:01.480)

You start being more creative.

Lex Fridman (1:31:02.920)

A lot of people, at least in Brazilian jiu jitsu,

Magnus Carlsen (1:31:07.840)

they'll smoke weed.

Lex Fridman (1:31:09.480)

It creates this kind of anxiety and relaxation

Magnus Carlsen (1:31:12.580)

that kind of enables that creative aspect.

Lex Fridman (1:31:16.040)

It's interesting for training.

Magnus Carlsen (1:31:17.440)

Of course you can't rely on any one of those things too much,

Lex Fridman (1:31:20.420)

but it's cool to throw in like a few drinks

Magnus Carlsen (1:31:22.520)

every once in a while to, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:31:25.080)

One, first of all, to relax and have fun.

Lex Fridman (1:31:28.320)

And two, to kind of try things differently,

Lex Fridman (1:31:30.580)

to unlock a different part of your brain.

Magnus Carlsen (1:31:32.480)

Yeah, for sure.

Lex Fridman (1:31:33.720)

What about supplements?

Lex Fridman (1:31:35.880)

Do you, are you a coffee guy?

Lex Fridman (1:31:38.440)

Oh no.

Magnus Carlsen (1:31:40.720)

I quite like the taste of coffee.

Lex Fridman (1:31:44.280)

But the thing is I've never had a job.

Lex Fridman (1:31:48.040)

So I've never needed to wake up early.

Lex Fridman (1:31:50.720)

So my thought is basically that if I'm tired, I'm tired.

Magnus Carlsen (1:31:55.760)

That's fine.

Lex Fridman (1:31:56.920)

Then I'll, you know, then I'll work it out.

Lex Fridman (1:32:01.560)

So I don't wanna ever make my brain get used to coffee.

Lex Fridman (1:32:08.920)

Like if you see me drinking coffee,

Magnus Carlsen (1:32:10.440)

that's, that probably means that I'm massively,

Lex Fridman (1:32:16.160)

massively hungover and I don't,

Magnus Carlsen (1:32:19.080)

I just want to try anything to make my brain work.

Lex Fridman (1:32:24.420)

Yeah, that's interesting.

Lex Fridman (1:32:25.260)

But for a lot of people, like you said, taste of coffee,

Lex Fridman (1:32:27.280)

for a lot of people coffee is part

Magnus Carlsen (1:32:29.560)

of a certain kind of ritual.

Lex Fridman (1:32:31.240)

Yeah, for sure.

Magnus Carlsen (1:32:32.080)

That they enjoy, you know.

Lex Fridman (1:32:32.920)

So, but you can have rituals without that.

Magnus Carlsen (1:32:34.920)

I know that I would enjoy it a lot.

Lex Fridman (1:32:36.320)

Yeah, just you don't wanna rely on it.

Magnus Carlsen (1:32:39.040)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:32:40.840)

I also like the taste, so there's no problem there.

Lex Fridman (1:32:44.240)

What about exercise?

Lex Fridman (1:32:47.680)

So how does that, what like, what, you know,

Magnus Carlsen (1:32:51.860)

a lot of people talk about the extreme

Lex Fridman (1:32:56.880)

stress that chest puts in your body,

Magnus Carlsen (1:32:59.000)

physically and mentally.

Lex Fridman (1:33:00.380)

How do you prepare for that, to be physically and mentally?

Magnus Carlsen (1:33:02.880)

Is it just through playing chess,

Lex Fridman (1:33:04.160)

or do you do cardio and any of that kind of stuff?

Magnus Carlsen (1:33:07.240)

This is kind of it up and down.

Lex Fridman (1:33:08.980)

Like, as I said in 2013, I was in, I was in great shape.

Magnus Carlsen (1:33:15.540)

Like, I mean, generally I was exercising,

Lex Fridman (1:33:18.880)

doing sports every day, either playing football

Magnus Carlsen (1:33:22.400)

or tennis or even other, other sports.

Lex Fridman (1:33:26.840)

Otherwise, if I couldn't do that,

Magnus Carlsen (1:33:28.360)

I would try and take my bike for a ride.

Lex Fridman (1:33:34.000)

I had a few training camps and I played tennis

Magnus Carlsen (1:33:36.680)

against one of my seconds.

Lex Fridman (1:33:38.660)

Like, he's not a super fit guy,

Lex Fridman (1:33:42.000)

but he's always been very good at tennis.

Lex Fridman (1:33:43.680)

And I never like played in any organized way.

Lex Fridman (1:33:47.320)

And that was like, that was the perfect exercise

Lex Fridman (1:33:50.280)

because I was running around enough

Magnus Carlsen (1:33:54.400)

to make the games pretty competitive.

Lex Fridman (1:33:58.600)

And it meant that he had to run a bit less as well.

Lex Fridman (1:34:01.880)

But he was just, he said like,

Lex Fridman (1:34:05.480)

he was shocked that if we played like for two hours,

Magnus Carlsen (1:34:10.480)

I wouldn't flinch at all.

Lex Fridman (1:34:13.480)

Interesting.

Lex Fridman (1:34:14.320)

So like a combination of fun

Lex Fridman (1:34:16.960)

and the differential between skill

Magnus Carlsen (1:34:20.300)

result in good cardio.

Lex Fridman (1:34:21.720)

Yeah, but it's just that, so in those days I was pretty,

Magnus Carlsen (1:34:27.320)

I was pretty fit in that sense.

Lex Fridman (1:34:29.200)

I've always liked doing sports, but at times, you know,

Magnus Carlsen (1:34:32.880)

I think in winter, especially,

Lex Fridman (1:34:34.960)

like I never had like a schedule.

Lex Fridman (1:34:37.740)

So at times I'll let myself go a little bit.

Lex Fridman (1:34:42.200)

And I've always kind of done it more for fun

Magnus Carlsen (1:34:45.640)

than like for a concrete benefit.

Lex Fridman (1:34:48.520)

But now I'm at least after the pandemic,

Magnus Carlsen (1:34:51.920)

I was not in great shape.

Lex Fridman (1:34:52.960)

So now I'm trying to get back, get better,

Magnus Carlsen (1:34:56.820)

get better habits and so on.

Lex Fridman (1:35:00.080)

But I feel like I've always been the poster boy

Magnus Carlsen (1:35:06.080)

for making being fit a big thing in chess.

Lex Fridman (1:35:11.760)

And I always felt that it was not really a deserve

Magnus Carlsen (1:35:14.760)

because I never liked doing weights much at all.

Lex Fridman (1:35:19.880)

I run a bit at times, but I never liked it too much.

Magnus Carlsen (1:35:23.960)

You just love playing sports.

Lex Fridman (1:35:24.800)

I just love playing sports.

Lex Fridman (1:35:26.520)

So that I think people confuse that

Lex Fridman (1:35:28.680)

because I'm not like massively athletic,

Lex Fridman (1:35:31.240)

but I do, I am decent at sports

Lex Fridman (1:35:35.520)

and that sort of helped build that perception.

Magnus Carlsen (1:35:39.440)

Even though others who are top level chess players,

Lex Fridman (1:35:42.760)

they're more fit like Karana, for instance,

Magnus Carlsen (1:35:46.480)

he's really, really, his body is really, really strong.

Lex Fridman (1:35:51.520)

It's just that he doesn't.

Magnus Carlsen (1:35:52.480)

He like goes to the gym and.

Lex Fridman (1:35:53.800)

Yeah, if he doesn't play sports, that's the difference.

Lex Fridman (1:35:57.440)

And the thing about sports is also is just,

Lex Fridman (1:36:01.320)

it's an escape.

Magnus Carlsen (1:36:02.440)

It helps you forget for a brief moment

Lex Fridman (1:36:05.400)

about like the obsessions, the pursuits of the main thing,

Magnus Carlsen (1:36:09.260)

which is chess.

Lex Fridman (1:36:10.100)

Yeah, for sure.

Lex Fridman (1:36:12.360)

And I think it's, it also helps your main pursuit

Lex Fridman (1:36:16.440)

to feel that you're even if not mastering,

Lex Fridman (1:36:20.200)

but like doing well in something, in something else.

Lex Fridman (1:36:24.200)

Like I found that if I just juggle a ball,

Magnus Carlsen (1:36:28.480)

that makes me feel better before a game.

Lex Fridman (1:36:32.280)

So a skilled activity.

Magnus Carlsen (1:36:34.680)

Juggle of football, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:36:35.720)

Yeah, skilled activity that you can improve on over time.

Magnus Carlsen (1:36:39.920)

It like flexes the same kind of muscle,

Lex Fridman (1:36:42.360)

but on the thing that you're much worse at.

Magnus Carlsen (1:36:44.320)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:36:45.320)

It focuses you, relaxes you, that's really interesting.

Magnus Carlsen (1:36:47.920)

What's the perfect day in the life of Magnus Carlsen

Lex Fridman (1:36:52.200)

when he's training?

Lex Fridman (1:36:53.920)

So like, what's a good training regimen

Lex Fridman (1:36:55.960)

in terms of, you know, daily kind of training

Magnus Carlsen (1:36:59.480)

that you have to put in across many days, months, and years

Lex Fridman (1:37:04.040)

to just keep yourself sharp in terms of chess?

Magnus Carlsen (1:37:07.080)

I would say when I'm at home, I do very little

Lex Fridman (1:37:10.480)

deliberate practice.

Magnus Carlsen (1:37:12.220)

I've never been that guy at all.

Lex Fridman (1:37:14.020)

Like I could never force myself to just sit down and work.

Lex Fridman (1:37:18.880)

So deliberate practice, just so maybe you can educate me,

Lex Fridman (1:37:22.400)

for some grandmasters, what would that look like?

Lex Fridman (1:37:25.560)

Just doing puzzles kind of thing?

Lex Fridman (1:37:27.660)

Or like?

Magnus Carlsen (1:37:28.500)

Yeah, doing puzzles and opening analysis.

Lex Fridman (1:37:30.560)

That would be the main things.

Lex Fridman (1:37:33.120)

Studying games?

Lex Fridman (1:37:34.700)

Just studying games, yeah, a little bit.

Lex Fridman (1:37:38.820)

But I feel like that's something that I do.

Lex Fridman (1:37:43.360)

But it's not deliberate, it's like reading an article

Magnus Carlsen (1:37:47.040)

or reading a book.

Lex Fridman (1:37:48.120)

Got it.

Magnus Carlsen (1:37:48.960)

Like I love chess books, I'll read just anything

Lex Fridman (1:37:52.680)

and I'll find something interesting.

Lex Fridman (1:37:54.520)

So chess books that are like on openings

Lex Fridman (1:37:57.200)

and stuff like that, or chess books

Lex Fridman (1:37:58.640)

that go over different games?

Lex Fridman (1:38:00.520)

Yeah, books on, so there are three main categories.

Magnus Carlsen (1:38:05.520)

There are books on openings and there are books

Lex Fridman (1:38:07.440)

on strategy and there are books on chess history

Lex Fridman (1:38:09.520)

and I find all of them very, very interesting.

Lex Fridman (1:38:12.740)

Like what fraction of the day would you say

Lex Fridman (1:38:14.440)

you have a chess board floating somewhere in your head?

Lex Fridman (1:38:18.280)

Meaning like you're thinking about it.

Magnus Carlsen (1:38:21.380)

Probably be a better question to ask,

Lex Fridman (1:38:23.580)

how many hours a day I don't have a chess board floating.

Magnus Carlsen (1:38:26.640)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:38:27.480)

I mean it could be just floating there and nothing's

Magnus Carlsen (1:38:30.640)

happening, but like.

Lex Fridman (1:38:32.520)

I often do it parallel to some other activity though.

Lex Fridman (1:38:35.860)

And what does that look like?

Lex Fridman (1:38:37.080)

Like are you daydreaming like different,

Lex Fridman (1:38:39.900)

is it actual positions you're just fucking around with?

Lex Fridman (1:38:42.240)

Like fumbling with different pieces in your head?

Magnus Carlsen (1:38:45.560)

Often I've looked at a random game on my phone for instance

Lex Fridman (1:38:50.120)

or in a book and then my brain just keeps going

Magnus Carlsen (1:38:53.920)

at the same position analyzing it and often it goes

Lex Fridman (1:38:56.840)

all the way to the end game.

Lex Fridman (1:38:58.560)

And those are actual games or you conjure up like fake games?

Lex Fridman (1:39:02.280)

No, they were often based on real games

Lex Fridman (1:39:05.040)

and then I'm thinking like oh, but it wouldn't be

Lex Fridman (1:39:07.800)

more interesting if the pieces were a little bit different

Lex Fridman (1:39:10.600)

and then often I play it out from there.

Lex Fridman (1:39:12.920)

So you don't have, like you don't sit behind a computer

Magnus Carlsen (1:39:17.460)

or a chess board and you lay out the pieces and then you're.

Lex Fridman (1:39:20.960)

No, I'm not at all a poster boy for deliberate practice.

Magnus Carlsen (1:39:25.000)

I could never, I could never work that way.

Lex Fridman (1:39:27.640)

My first coach, he gave me some exercises

Magnus Carlsen (1:39:33.120)

that are at home sometimes, but he realized at some point

Lex Fridman (1:39:38.120)

that wasn't gonna work.

Magnus Carlsen (1:39:39.320)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:39:40.380)

Because I wouldn't do it really or enjoy it.

Lex Fridman (1:39:44.200)

So what he would do instead is that at the school

Lex Fridman (1:39:48.640)

where I had the trainings with him,

Magnus Carlsen (1:39:50.100)

there was this massive chess library.

Lex Fridman (1:39:54.200)

So he was just like yeah, pick out books.

Magnus Carlsen (1:39:56.800)

You can have anything, you can have anything you want.

Lex Fridman (1:40:00.360)

Just pick out books you like

Lex Fridman (1:40:01.680)

and then you give it back the next time.

Lex Fridman (1:40:03.360)

So that's what I did instead.

Magnus Carlsen (1:40:05.240)

Yeah, I just absolutely raided the,

Lex Fridman (1:40:08.160)

then my next tournament I will try out one of the openings

Magnus Carlsen (1:40:11.880)

from that book if it was an opening book and so on.

Lex Fridman (1:40:14.480)

Does it feel like a struggle, like challenging?

Magnus Carlsen (1:40:17.560)

Like to be thinking those positions

Lex Fridman (1:40:19.520)

or is it fun and relaxing?

Magnus Carlsen (1:40:20.940)

No, it's completely fine.

Lex Fridman (1:40:22.360)

I don't.

Magnus Carlsen (1:40:24.320)

Like if it's a difficult position to figure out,

Lex Fridman (1:40:26.240)

you know, like to calculate.

Magnus Carlsen (1:40:27.760)

Then I go on to something else.

Lex Fridman (1:40:29.240)

Okay.

Magnus Carlsen (1:40:30.360)

Like if I can't figure it out, then you know, I go on.

Lex Fridman (1:40:35.280)

Change it so that it's easier to figure out.

Magnus Carlsen (1:40:37.680)

There was a point in your life

Lex Fridman (1:40:38.920)

where Kasparov was interested in being your coach

Magnus Carlsen (1:40:42.280)

or at least training with you.

Lex Fridman (1:40:43.520)

Why did you choose not to go with him?

Magnus Carlsen (1:40:45.540)

That's a pretty bold move.

Lex Fridman (1:40:47.840)

Was there a good reason for this?

Magnus Carlsen (1:40:49.120)

No, the first like homework exercise he gave me

Lex Fridman (1:40:54.580)

was to analyze, like he picked out, I think,

Magnus Carlsen (1:40:58.440)

three or four of my worst losses

Lex Fridman (1:41:00.200)

and he wanted me to analyze them and give him my thoughts.

Lex Fridman (1:41:05.440)

And it wasn't that there were painful losses or anything

Lex Fridman (1:41:08.340)

that that was a problem.

Magnus Carlsen (1:41:10.540)

I just didn't really enjoy that.

Lex Fridman (1:41:14.200)

Also, I felt that this whole structured approach

Lex Fridman (1:41:19.440)

and everything.

Lex Fridman (1:41:20.280)

Yeah.

Magnus Carlsen (1:41:21.120)

I just felt like from the start, it was a hassle.

Lex Fridman (1:41:23.560)

So I loved the idea of being able to pick his brain

Lex Fridman (1:41:28.160)

but everything else, I just, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:41:32.160)

couldn't see myself, couldn't see myself enjoying.

Lex Fridman (1:41:35.800)

And at the end of the day,

Lex Fridman (1:41:38.480)

I did then and always have played for fun.

Magnus Carlsen (1:41:42.200)

That's always been the main reason, so.

Lex Fridman (1:41:45.200)

It's great that you had the confidence

Magnus Carlsen (1:41:46.560)

to sort of basically turn down the approach

Lex Fridman (1:41:50.460)

of one of the greatest chess players of all time.

Magnus Carlsen (1:41:52.760)

At that time, probably the greatest chess player

Lex Fridman (1:41:54.640)

of all time.

Magnus Carlsen (1:41:55.780)

I don't think I thought of it that way.

Lex Fridman (1:41:58.200)

I just thought this is not for me.

Magnus Carlsen (1:42:00.120)

I wouldn't try another way.

Lex Fridman (1:42:01.680)

I don't think I was particularly thinking

Magnus Carlsen (1:42:03.260)

that this is my one opportunity or anything.

Lex Fridman (1:42:06.240)

It was just, yeah, I don't enjoy this.

Magnus Carlsen (1:42:08.320)

Let's try something else.

Lex Fridman (1:42:09.600)

When you were 13, you faced Kasparov

Lex Fridman (1:42:12.520)

and he wasn't able to beat you.

Lex Fridman (1:42:15.600)

Can you go through that match?

Lex Fridman (1:42:16.960)

What did that feel like?

Lex Fridman (1:42:17.880)

How important was that?

Lex Fridman (1:42:19.040)

Was that, how epic was that?

Lex Fridman (1:42:20.980)

We played three games.

Magnus Carlsen (1:42:22.740)

I lost two and I drew one.

Lex Fridman (1:42:25.660)

Right, but one draw.

Magnus Carlsen (1:42:27.040)

No, the one draw.

Lex Fridman (1:42:29.320)

And but didn't you say

Lex Fridman (1:42:30.400)

that you kind of had a better position in that?

Lex Fridman (1:42:32.800)

Yeah, I remember that day very well.

Magnus Carlsen (1:42:35.000)

There was a Blitz game.

Lex Fridman (1:42:36.440)

This was a rapid tournament

Lex Fridman (1:42:38.400)

and there was a Blitz tournament the day before

Lex Fridman (1:42:41.240)

which determined the pairings for the rapid.

Magnus Carlsen (1:42:46.000)

For people who don't know,

Lex Fridman (1:42:47.400)

super short games are called bullet.

Magnus Carlsen (1:42:49.320)

Kind of short games are called Blitz.

Lex Fridman (1:42:51.880)

Semi short games are called rapid.

Magnus Carlsen (1:42:54.440)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:42:56.080)

And classic chess, I guess, is like very super long.

Magnus Carlsen (1:42:59.000)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:43:00.120)

Yeah, basically, bullet is just never played

Magnus Carlsen (1:43:02.420)

over the board.

Lex Fridman (1:43:03.260)

So in terms of over the board chess,

Magnus Carlsen (1:43:05.200)

Blitz is the shortest.

Lex Fridman (1:43:06.600)

Rapid is like a hybrid between classical and Blitz.

Magnus Carlsen (1:43:11.300)

You need to have the skills to both

Lex Fridman (1:43:12.800)

and then classical is long.

Magnus Carlsen (1:43:15.040)

The Blitz tournament, which didn't go so well.

Lex Fridman (1:43:18.480)

Like I got a couple of wins,

Lex Fridman (1:43:19.640)

but I was beaten badly in a lot of games,

Lex Fridman (1:43:22.200)

including by Gary.

Lex Fridman (1:43:24.040)

And so there was the pairing that I had to play him

Lex Fridman (1:43:27.280)

which was pretty exciting.

Lex Fridman (1:43:28.720)

So I remember I was so tired after the Blitz tournament.

Lex Fridman (1:43:31.640)

Like I slept for 12 hours or something.

Magnus Carlsen (1:43:34.440)

Then I woke up like,

Lex Fridman (1:43:35.840)

okay, I'll turn on my computer.

Magnus Carlsen (1:43:37.480)

I'll search chess space for Kasparov

Lex Fridman (1:43:41.240)

and we'll go from there.

Lex Fridman (1:43:44.280)

So before that, I hadn't spent like a lot of time

Lex Fridman (1:43:47.160)

specifically studying his games.

Magnus Carlsen (1:43:49.080)

It was super intimidating

Lex Fridman (1:43:51.040)

because a lot of these openings I knew.

Magnus Carlsen (1:43:54.360)

I was like, oh, he was the first one to play that.

Lex Fridman (1:43:56.840)

Oh, that was his idea.

Magnus Carlsen (1:43:57.920)

I actually didn't know that.

Lex Fridman (1:43:59.640)

So I was a bit intimidated before we played.

Magnus Carlsen (1:44:02.560)

Then of course the first game,

Lex Fridman (1:44:04.600)

he arrived a bit late because they changed the time

Magnus Carlsen (1:44:08.680)

from the first day to the other, which was a bit strange.

Lex Fridman (1:44:11.640)

But everybody else had noticed it but him.

Magnus Carlsen (1:44:15.280)

Then he tried to surprise me in the opening.

Lex Fridman (1:44:17.720)

I think like psychologically,

Magnus Carlsen (1:44:19.880)

the situation was not so easy for him.

Lex Fridman (1:44:21.520)

Like clearly it would be embarrassing for him

Magnus Carlsen (1:44:23.440)

if he didn't win both games against me.

Lex Fridman (1:44:26.840)

Then like I was spending way too much time on my moves

Magnus Carlsen (1:44:30.800)

because I was playing Kasparov.

Lex Fridman (1:44:32.200)

I was double checking everything too much.

Magnus Carlsen (1:44:33.800)

Like normally I would be playing pretty fast in those days.

Lex Fridman (1:44:37.520)

And then at some point I calculated better than him.

Magnus Carlsen (1:44:42.240)

He missed a crucial detail and had a much better position.

Lex Fridman (1:44:46.640)

I couldn't convert it though.

Magnus Carlsen (1:44:48.000)

I knew what line I had to go for

Lex Fridman (1:44:50.880)

in order to have a chance to win.

Lex Fridman (1:44:52.960)

But I thought like, I'll play a bit more carefully.

Lex Fridman (1:44:55.720)

Maybe I can win still.

Magnus Carlsen (1:44:56.800)

I couldn't.

Lex Fridman (1:44:58.280)

And then I lost the second game pretty badly,

Magnus Carlsen (1:45:01.760)

which it wasn't majorly upsetting,

Lex Fridman (1:45:04.440)

but I felt that I had two black games

Magnus Carlsen (1:45:07.320)

against Kasparov both in the blitz and the rapid

Lex Fridman (1:45:09.680)

and I lost both of them without any fight whatsoever.

Magnus Carlsen (1:45:12.800)

I wasn't happy about that at all.

Lex Fridman (1:45:14.600)

That was like less than I thought I could be able to do.

Lex Fridman (1:45:19.080)

So to me, yeah, I was proud of that, but it was a gimmick.

Lex Fridman (1:45:25.840)

That was like a very strong IAM that had GM strength.

Magnus Carlsen (1:45:30.400)

I was like, it can happen that a player of that strength

Lex Fridman (1:45:35.240)

makes a draw against Gary once in a while.

Lex Fridman (1:45:37.640)

But I mean, I understand that I'm 13,

Lex Fridman (1:45:40.520)

but like still I felt a bit more gimmicky than anything.

Magnus Carlsen (1:45:44.680)

I mean, I guess it's a good thing that made me noticed,

Lex Fridman (1:45:48.880)

but apart from that, it wasn't.

Lex Fridman (1:45:51.640)

And for people who don't know,

Lex Fridman (1:45:52.960)

IAM is international master and GM is grand master.

Lex Fridman (1:45:56.160)

And you were just on the, I guess,

Lex Fridman (1:45:58.000)

on the verge of becoming a youngest grand master ever.

Magnus Carlsen (1:46:01.280)

I was the second youngest ever.

Lex Fridman (1:46:04.200)

I think I'm like the seventh youngest now.

Magnus Carlsen (1:46:06.160)

I mean, these kids these days.

Lex Fridman (1:46:08.040)

Kids these days.

Magnus Carlsen (1:46:08.960)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:46:10.480)

Yeah, but I was the youngest grand master at the time

Magnus Carlsen (1:46:15.440)

in the world.

Lex Fridman (1:46:16.320)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:46:17.160)

So there is a, you say it's gimmicky,

Lex Fridman (1:46:20.080)

but there's a romantic notions,

Lex Fridman (1:46:22.880)

especially as things have turned out, right?

Lex Fridman (1:46:26.520)

No, for sure.

Lex Fridman (1:46:27.440)

And have you talked to Gary since then about that?

Lex Fridman (1:46:30.480)

No, not really.

Magnus Carlsen (1:46:31.560)

I think he's immersed.

Lex Fridman (1:46:33.960)

He's still bitter, you think?

Magnus Carlsen (1:46:35.200)

No, I don't think he's bitter,

Lex Fridman (1:46:36.960)

but I think the game in itself was a bit embarrassing for him.

Magnus Carlsen (1:46:41.760)

Even he can't see past like...

Lex Fridman (1:46:45.480)

No, no, no.

Magnus Carlsen (1:46:46.320)

I think he's completely fine with that.

Lex Fridman (1:46:47.680)

I think like in retrospect, it's a good story.

Magnus Carlsen (1:46:51.000)

He appreciates that.

Lex Fridman (1:46:53.280)

I don't think that's the problem,

Lex Fridman (1:46:54.440)

but it never made sense for me to broach the subject with him.

Lex Fridman (1:46:58.360)

Yeah, it's funny just having interacted with Gary,

Magnus Carlsen (1:47:03.040)

now having talked to you,

Lex Fridman (1:47:04.920)

there is a little thing you still hate losing.

Magnus Carlsen (1:47:08.560)

No matter how beautiful like that moment is,

Lex Fridman (1:47:11.200)

because it's like, in a way it's a passing of the baton

Lex Fridman (1:47:14.480)

from like one great champion to another, right?

Lex Fridman (1:47:17.840)

But you still just don't like the fact

Magnus Carlsen (1:47:19.880)

that you didn't play a good game from Gary's perspective.

Lex Fridman (1:47:22.960)

Like he still is just annoyed probably

Magnus Carlsen (1:47:24.800)

that he could have played better.

Lex Fridman (1:47:27.280)

And we did, so we did work together in 2009, quite a lot.

Lex Fridman (1:47:33.240)

And that corporation ended early 2010,

Lex Fridman (1:47:38.720)

but we did play a lot of training games in 2009,

Magnus Carlsen (1:47:42.240)

which was interesting because he was still very, very strong.

Lex Fridman (1:47:47.120)

And at that time it was fairly equal.

Magnus Carlsen (1:47:49.920)

Like he was out playing me quite a bit,

Lex Fridman (1:47:51.400)

but I was fighting well, so it was pretty even then.

Lex Fridman (1:47:57.200)

So I mean, I appreciate those games a lot more

Lex Fridman (1:47:59.720)

than some random game from when I was 13.

Lex Fridman (1:48:03.440)

And maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about,

Lex Fridman (1:48:07.160)

but I've always found it, at least based on that game,

Magnus Carlsen (1:48:12.480)

you couldn't tell that I was gonna take his,

Lex Fridman (1:48:15.280)

that I was gonna take his spot.

Magnus Carlsen (1:48:17.040)

Like I made a horrible blunder and lost to an Uzbek kid

Lex Fridman (1:48:22.360)

in the World Rapid Championship in 2018.

Lex Fridman (1:48:28.800)

And I mean, granted he was part of the team

Lex Fridman (1:48:30.680)

that now won gold in the Chess Olympia,

Lex Fridman (1:48:32.880)

but he wasn't the crucial part.

Lex Fridman (1:48:34.120)

He barely played any games.

Magnus Carlsen (1:48:35.640)

Like it wasn't like I would think

Lex Fridman (1:48:37.240)

that he would become world champion because he beat me.

Magnus Carlsen (1:48:39.800)

I'm always skeptical of those who said

Lex Fridman (1:48:42.200)

that they knew that I was gonna be world champion

Magnus Carlsen (1:48:44.520)

after that game or at all at that time.

Lex Fridman (1:48:48.320)

I mean, it was easy to see

Magnus Carlsen (1:48:50.080)

that I would become a very, very strong player.

Lex Fridman (1:48:52.720)

Everybody could see that,

Lex Fridman (1:48:53.760)

but to be the best in the world or one of the best ever,

Lex Fridman (1:48:57.400)

that's hard to say.

Magnus Carlsen (1:48:59.440)

It is hard to say, but I do remember seeing Messi

Lex Fridman (1:49:01.600)

when he was 16 and 17.

Lex Fridman (1:49:05.320)

But hasn't that happened with other players though?

Lex Fridman (1:49:07.600)

Yeah, but I just had a personal experience.

Magnus Carlsen (1:49:10.840)

He did look different than, there's like magic there.

Lex Fridman (1:49:14.400)

Maybe you can't tell he would be one of the greatest ever,

Lex Fridman (1:49:18.360)

but there's still magic.

Lex Fridman (1:49:19.920)

But you're right.

Magnus Carlsen (1:49:20.760)

Most of the time we try to project,

Lex Fridman (1:49:22.800)

we see a young kid being an older person

Lex Fridman (1:49:25.320)

and you start to think,

Lex Fridman (1:49:26.520)

okay, this could be the next great person.

Magnus Carlsen (1:49:28.280)

Then we forget when they don't become that.

Lex Fridman (1:49:30.200)

Yeah, exactly.

Magnus Carlsen (1:49:31.040)

That's I think what happens.

Lex Fridman (1:49:33.320)

But when it does become.

Magnus Carlsen (1:49:34.800)

Or maybe some people are just so good

Lex Fridman (1:49:38.240)

at seeing these patterns that they can actually see.

Magnus Carlsen (1:49:40.040)

Aren't you supposed to do that kind of thing

Lex Fridman (1:49:41.440)

with fantasy football, like see the long shot

Lex Fridman (1:49:44.040)

and bet on them and then they turn out to be good?

Lex Fridman (1:49:46.480)

That's the whole point.

Magnus Carlsen (1:49:47.320)

No, you make a lot of long shot bets

Lex Fridman (1:49:49.600)

and then some of them come good.

Lex Fridman (1:49:52.000)

And then people call you a genius for making the bet.

Lex Fridman (1:49:54.440)

Well, let me ask you the goat question again,

Magnus Carlsen (1:49:56.760)

from fantasy perspective.

Lex Fridman (1:49:59.200)

Can you make the case for the greatest chess player

Magnus Carlsen (1:50:02.720)

of all time for each yourself, Magnus Carlsen,

Lex Fridman (1:50:07.080)

for Garry Kasparov, I don't know who else,

Magnus Carlsen (1:50:09.240)

Bobby Fischer, Mikhail Atal, anyone else,

Lex Fridman (1:50:12.400)

for Hikaru Nakamura?

Magnus Carlsen (1:50:16.400)

Just kidding.

Lex Fridman (1:50:17.240)

Yeah, I think I can make a case for myself,

Magnus Carlsen (1:50:22.040)

for Garry and for Fischer.

Lex Fridman (1:50:23.640)

So I'll start with Fischer.

Magnus Carlsen (1:50:25.600)

For him, it's very, very simple.

Lex Fridman (1:50:30.240)

He was ahead of his time, but that's like intangible.

Magnus Carlsen (1:50:33.560)

You can say that about a lot of people.

Lex Fridman (1:50:35.840)

But he had a peak from 1970 to 72

Magnus Carlsen (1:50:40.840)

when he was so much better than the others.

Lex Fridman (1:50:43.680)

He won 20 games in a row.

Magnus Carlsen (1:50:46.040)

Also the way that he played was so powerful

Lex Fridman (1:50:49.720)

and with so few mistakes

Magnus Carlsen (1:50:51.520)

that he just had no opposition there.

Lex Fridman (1:50:54.200)

So he had just a peak that's been better than anybody.

Magnus Carlsen (1:51:00.200)

The gap between first and second was the highest.

Lex Fridman (1:51:02.000)

The gap between him and others was greater

Magnus Carlsen (1:51:04.760)

than it's ever been in history at any other time.

Lex Fridman (1:51:08.760)

And that would be the argument for him.

Magnus Carlsen (1:51:12.840)

For Garry, he's played in a very competitive era

Lex Fridman (1:51:18.400)

and he's beaten several generations.

Magnus Carlsen (1:51:21.440)

He was the best, well, he was the consensus best player,

Lex Fridman (1:51:26.480)

I would say for almost 20 years,

Magnus Carlsen (1:51:29.520)

which nobody else has done at least in recent time.

Lex Fridman (1:51:36.520)

So the longevity.

Magnus Carlsen (1:51:38.040)

The longevity for sure.

Lex Fridman (1:51:39.680)

Also at his peak, he was not quite the level of Fisher

Magnus Carlsen (1:51:46.160)

in terms of the gap, but it was similar to,

Lex Fridman (1:51:49.520)

or I think even a little bit better than mine.

Magnus Carlsen (1:51:52.880)

As for me, I'm of course unbeaten

Lex Fridman (1:51:57.400)

as a world champion in five tries.

Magnus Carlsen (1:52:00.200)

I've been world number one for 11 years straight

Lex Fridman (1:52:04.440)

in an even more competitive era than Garry.

Magnus Carlsen (1:52:07.680)

I have the highest chest rating of all time.

Lex Fridman (1:52:10.040)

I have the longest streak ever without losing a game.

Magnus Carlsen (1:52:15.320)

I think for me, the main argument would be about the era

Lex Fridman (1:52:19.120)

where the engines have leveled the playing field so much

Magnus Carlsen (1:52:26.800)

that it's harder to dominate.

Lex Fridman (1:52:28.680)

And still, I haven't always been a clear number one,

Lex Fridman (1:52:32.640)

but I've been number one for 11 years.

Lex Fridman (1:52:35.000)

And for a lot of the time, the gap has been pretty big.

Lex Fridman (1:52:39.440)

So I think there are decent arguments for all of them.

Lex Fridman (1:52:43.360)

I've said before, and I haven't changed my mind

Magnus Carlsen (1:52:45.680)

that Garry generally edges it

Lex Fridman (1:52:48.040)

because of the longevity in the competitive era,

Lex Fridman (1:52:51.680)

but there are arguments.

Lex Fridman (1:52:55.000)

But people also talk about you

Magnus Carlsen (1:52:56.760)

in terms of the style of play.

Lex Fridman (1:52:58.280)

So it's not just about dominance or the height or the,

Magnus Carlsen (1:53:01.440)

it's like just the creative genius of it.

Lex Fridman (1:53:05.360)

Yeah, but I'm not interested in that.

Magnus Carlsen (1:53:07.200)

In terms of greatest of all time,

Lex Fridman (1:53:11.600)

I'm not interested in questions of style.

Lex Fridman (1:53:16.240)

So for Messi, you don't give credit for the style,

Lex Fridman (1:53:20.280)

for the stylistic.

Magnus Carlsen (1:53:21.160)

I like, no, I like watching it, I just.

Lex Fridman (1:53:24.320)

But you're not gonna give points for the,

Lex Fridman (1:53:27.280)

so Messi gets the best ever because of the finishing.

Lex Fridman (1:53:30.400)

Yeah, it's the, no, it's not because of the finishing,

Magnus Carlsen (1:53:34.360)

it's because of his overall impact on the game.

Lex Fridman (1:53:37.520)

It's higher than anybody else's.

Magnus Carlsen (1:53:39.360)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (1:53:41.440)

He contributes, he just contributes more to winning

Magnus Carlsen (1:53:45.280)

than anybody else does.

Lex Fridman (1:53:46.960)

What's, so you're somebody who was advocated for

Lex Fridman (1:53:51.000)

and has done quite a bit of study of classic games.

Lex Fridman (1:53:53.760)

What would you say is, I mean, maybe the number one

Lex Fridman (1:53:58.760)

or maybe top three games of chess ever played?

Lex Fridman (1:54:01.960)

That doesn't interest me at all.

Magnus Carlsen (1:54:04.440)

You don't think of them, that was very curious.

Lex Fridman (1:54:05.760)

No, I don't think of it.

Magnus Carlsen (1:54:06.600)

I mean, I try to, I find the games interesting.

Lex Fridman (1:54:09.000)

I try to learn from them, but like trying to rank them

Magnus Carlsen (1:54:12.200)

has never interested me.

Lex Fridman (1:54:13.200)

What games pop out to you as like super interesting then?

Magnus Carlsen (1:54:16.600)

Is there things like where idea, like old school games

Lex Fridman (1:54:20.640)

where there was like interesting ideas that you go back,

Magnus Carlsen (1:54:25.640)

that you go back or like you find surprising

Lex Fridman (1:54:29.240)

and pretty cool that those ideas are developed like that?

Lex Fridman (1:54:34.280)

Is there something that jumps to mind?

Lex Fridman (1:54:35.440)

Yeah, there are several games of young Kasparov,

Magnus Carlsen (1:54:40.360)

like before he became world champion.

Lex Fridman (1:54:43.200)

If you're gonna ask for like my favorite player

Magnus Carlsen (1:54:45.880)

or favorite style, that's probably.

Lex Fridman (1:54:47.760)

Young Kasparov.

Magnus Carlsen (1:54:48.760)

Young Kasparov.

Lex Fridman (1:54:49.600)

Can you describe stylistically or in any other way

Lex Fridman (1:54:52.720)

what young Kasparov was like that you like?

Lex Fridman (1:54:57.080)

It was just an overflow energy in his play.

Lex Fridman (1:54:59.880)

So aggressive.

Lex Fridman (1:55:00.920)

Yeah, extremely aggressive, dynamic chess.

Magnus Carlsen (1:55:04.240)

It probably appeals to me a lot because these are the things

Lex Fridman (1:55:09.800)

that I cannot do as well,

Magnus Carlsen (1:55:13.280)

that it just feels very special to me.

Lex Fridman (1:55:15.720)

But yeah, in terms of games,

Magnus Carlsen (1:55:17.760)

I never thought about that too much.

Lex Fridman (1:55:23.120)

Is there memories, big or small, weird, surprising,

Lex Fridman (1:55:29.360)

just any kind of beautiful anecdote from your chess career?

Lex Fridman (1:55:33.880)

Like stuff that pops out that people might not know about?

Magnus Carlsen (1:55:37.040)

Just stuff when you look back, it just makes you smile.

Lex Fridman (1:55:39.960)

No, so I'll tell you about the most satisfying

Magnus Carlsen (1:55:45.040)

tournament victory of my career.

Lex Fridman (1:55:46.640)

So that was the Norwegian championship under 11 in 2000.

Magnus Carlsen (1:55:52.280)

Before that tournament, I was super anxious

Lex Fridman (1:55:56.800)

because I started like kind of late at chess.

Magnus Carlsen (1:56:00.000)

I played my first tournament when I was eight and a half.

Lex Fridman (1:56:02.720)

And a lot of my competitors had already played

Magnus Carlsen (1:56:05.080)

for a couple of years or even three, four years

Lex Fridman (1:56:09.040)

at that point.

Lex Fridman (1:56:10.440)

And the first time I,

Lex Fridman (1:56:12.040)

so I played the under 11 championship in 99.

Magnus Carlsen (1:56:15.360)

I was like a little over the middle of the pack.

Lex Fridman (1:56:18.040)

I'd never played against any of them before.

Lex Fridman (1:56:20.000)

So I didn't know what to expect at all.

Lex Fridman (1:56:22.120)

And then over the next year,

Magnus Carlsen (1:56:24.680)

I was just like edging a little bit closer.

Lex Fridman (1:56:26.680)

In each tournament, I felt like I was getting

Magnus Carlsen (1:56:28.720)

a little bit better.

Lex Fridman (1:56:29.960)

And when we had the championship,

Magnus Carlsen (1:56:32.520)

I knew that I was ready,

Lex Fridman (1:56:34.520)

that I was now at the same level of the best players.

Magnus Carlsen (1:56:38.800)

I was so anxious to show it.

Lex Fridman (1:56:41.240)

I remember I was just,

Magnus Carlsen (1:56:42.840)

the feeling of excitement and nervousness

Lex Fridman (1:56:45.560)

before the tournament was incredible.

Magnus Carlsen (1:56:47.840)

The tournament was weird because I started out,

Lex Fridman (1:56:51.520)

I gave away a draw to a weaker player,

Magnus Carlsen (1:56:56.280)

whom I shouldn't have drawn to.

Lex Fridman (1:56:57.920)

And then I drew against the other guy

Magnus Carlsen (1:57:01.640)

who was clearly like the best or second best.

Lex Fridman (1:57:05.560)

And at that point, I thought it was over

Magnus Carlsen (1:57:08.400)

because I thought he wouldn't give away points to others.

Lex Fridman (1:57:12.840)

And then the very next day he lost to somebody.

Lex Fridman (1:57:16.120)

So then the rest of the tournament,

Lex Fridman (1:57:18.280)

it was just like,

Magnus Carlsen (1:57:19.200)

I was always like playing my game and watching his.

Lex Fridman (1:57:21.960)

And we both won the rest of our games,

Lex Fridman (1:57:24.680)

but it meant that I was half a point ahead.

Lex Fridman (1:57:27.080)

Like the feeling when I realized that I was gonna win,

Magnus Carlsen (1:57:32.320)

that was just so amazing.

Lex Fridman (1:57:34.280)

It was like the first time that I was the best at my age.

Lex Fridman (1:57:41.560)

And at that point.

Lex Fridman (1:57:43.720)

You were hooked.

Magnus Carlsen (1:57:44.560)

Yeah, at that point I realized,

Lex Fridman (1:57:48.240)

I could actually be very good at this.

Lex Fridman (1:57:49.840)

So you kind of saw,

Lex Fridman (1:57:51.800)

what did you think your ceiling would be?

Lex Fridman (1:57:53.680)

Did you see that one day you could be the number one?

Lex Fridman (1:57:57.320)

No, I didn't think that was possible at all.

Magnus Carlsen (1:58:01.160)

But.

Lex Fridman (1:58:02.000)

When did you first?

Magnus Carlsen (1:58:02.840)

I could be the best in Norway.

Lex Fridman (1:58:05.160)

The best in Norway?

Magnus Carlsen (1:58:06.120)

At that point.

Lex Fridman (1:58:07.040)

When did you first?

Magnus Carlsen (1:58:07.880)

Because like I started relatively late.

Lex Fridman (1:58:09.960)

Right, so yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:58:10.800)

And also like,

Lex Fridman (1:58:14.240)

I knew that I studied a lot more than the others.

Magnus Carlsen (1:58:17.000)

I knew that I had a passion that they didn't have.

Lex Fridman (1:58:19.720)

They saw chess as something like,

Magnus Carlsen (1:58:24.800)

it was a hobby.

Lex Fridman (1:58:26.600)

It was like an activity.

Magnus Carlsen (1:58:27.920)

It was like going to football practice

Lex Fridman (1:58:32.080)

or any other sports.

Magnus Carlsen (1:58:34.040)

Like you go,

Lex Fridman (1:58:35.040)

you practice like once or twice a week,

Lex Fridman (1:58:37.480)

and then you play a tournament at the weekend.

Lex Fridman (1:58:39.480)

That's what you did.

Magnus Carlsen (1:58:41.120)

For me, it wasn't like that.

Lex Fridman (1:58:42.480)

Like I would go with my books and my board

Magnus Carlsen (1:58:46.000)

every day after school.

Lex Fridman (1:58:49.240)

And I would just constantly

Magnus Carlsen (1:58:53.320)

be trying to learn new things.

Lex Fridman (1:58:55.640)

I had like two hours of internet time

Magnus Carlsen (1:58:59.400)

on the computer each week.

Lex Fridman (1:59:01.040)

And I would always spend them on chess.

Magnus Carlsen (1:59:04.880)

Like I think before I was 13 or 14,

Lex Fridman (1:59:10.520)

I'd never opened a browser

Magnus Carlsen (1:59:15.280)

for any other reason than to play chess.

Lex Fridman (1:59:19.160)

Would you describe that as love or as obsession

Lex Fridman (1:59:22.000)

or something in between?

Lex Fridman (1:59:23.880)

It's everything?

Magnus Carlsen (1:59:24.960)

Yeah, everything.

Lex Fridman (1:59:25.800)

Yeah, everything, so I mean,

Magnus Carlsen (1:59:30.360)

it wasn't hard for me to tell at that point

Lex Fridman (1:59:32.560)

that I had something that the other kids didn't

Magnus Carlsen (1:59:36.480)

because I was never the one to grasp something

Lex Fridman (1:59:41.040)

very, very quickly.

Lex Fridman (1:59:41.960)

But once I started, I always got hooked

Lex Fridman (1:59:44.160)

and then I never stopped learning.

Lex Fridman (1:59:46.240)

What would you say,

Lex Fridman (1:59:47.320)

you've talked about the middle game

Magnus Carlsen (1:59:49.280)

as a place where you can play pure chess.

Lex Fridman (1:59:52.640)

What do you think is beautiful to you about chess?

Magnus Carlsen (1:59:56.320)

Like the thing when you were 11.

Lex Fridman (1:59:58.560)

What is beautiful to me is when your opponent

Magnus Carlsen (20:02.000)

is often pretty simple.

Lex Fridman (20:04.760)

Let's say you understand how to arrange your pieces

Lex Fridman (20:11.320)

and often also how to arrange your pawns

Lex Fridman (20:14.880)

early in the end game then that makes all the difference

Lex Fridman (20:21.480)

and after that is like what we call technique very often

Lex Fridman (20:28.320)

that it's technique basically just means

Magnus Carlsen (20:31.640)

that the moves are simple and these are moves

Lex Fridman (20:36.160)

that a lot of players could make

Magnus Carlsen (20:39.440)

not only the very strongest ones.

Lex Fridman (20:42.080)

These are moves that are kind of understood

Lex Fridman (20:44.560)

and known.

Lex Fridman (20:45.840)

So with the evaluation,

Magnus Carlsen (20:47.120)

you're just constantly improving a little bit

Lex Fridman (20:49.280)

and that just leads to suffocating the position

Lex Fridman (20:51.880)

and then eventually to the win

Lex Fridman (20:53.080)

as long as you're doing the evaluation well,

Magnus Carlsen (20:55.560)

one step at a time.

Lex Fridman (20:56.680)

To some extent.

Magnus Carlsen (20:57.920)

Also, yeah, I said like if you evaluate it better

Lex Fridman (21:01.160)

and thus accumulated some small advantages

Magnus Carlsen (21:05.440)

then you can often make your life pretty easy

Lex Fridman (21:10.600)

towards the end of the end game.

Lex Fridman (21:12.160)

So you said in 2019 sort of the second phase

Lex Fridman (21:16.360)

of why you're so damn good.

Magnus Carlsen (21:18.160)

You did a lot of opening preparation.

Lex Fridman (21:21.040)

What's the goal for you of the opening game of chess?

Lex Fridman (21:26.760)

Is it to throw the opponent off from any prepared lines?

Lex Fridman (21:31.040)

Is there something you could put into words

Lex Fridman (21:33.080)

about why you're so damn good at the openings?

Lex Fridman (21:35.960)

Again, these things have changed a lot over time.

Magnus Carlsen (21:40.000)

Back in Kasparov's days, for instance,

Lex Fridman (21:43.200)

he very often got huge advantages

Magnus Carlsen (21:46.840)

from the opening as white.

Lex Fridman (21:49.440)

Can you explain why?

Magnus Carlsen (21:51.120)

There were several reasons for that.

Lex Fridman (21:54.400)

First of all, he worked harder.

Magnus Carlsen (21:56.520)

He was more creative in finding ideas.

Lex Fridman (21:59.320)

He was able to look places others didn't.

Magnus Carlsen (22:03.120)

Also, he had a very strong team of people

Lex Fridman (22:05.600)

who had specific strengths in openings that he could use.

Lex Fridman (22:11.680)

So they would come up with ideas

Lex Fridman (22:13.000)

and he would integrate those ideas into...

Magnus Carlsen (22:15.800)

Yeah, and he would also very often

Lex Fridman (22:17.280)

come up with them himself.

Magnus Carlsen (22:19.840)

Also, at the start, he had some of the first computer engines

Lex Fridman (22:26.920)

to work for him to find his ideas,

Magnus Carlsen (22:31.480)

to look deeper, to verify his ideas.

Lex Fridman (22:34.360)

He was better at using them than a lot of others.

Magnus Carlsen (22:39.160)

Now, I feel like the playing field is a lot more level.

Lex Fridman (22:44.240)

There are both computer engines, neural networks,

Lex Fridman (22:48.960)

and hybrid engines available to practically anybody.

Lex Fridman (22:53.840)

So it's much harder to find ideas now

Magnus Carlsen (22:59.000)

that actually give you an advantage

Lex Fridman (23:03.320)

with the white pieces.

Magnus Carlsen (23:05.240)

I mean, people don't expect to find those ideas anymore.

Lex Fridman (23:08.360)

Now it's all about finding ideas

Magnus Carlsen (23:11.720)

that are missed by the engines.

Lex Fridman (23:15.840)

Either they're missed entirely

Magnus Carlsen (23:18.960)

or they're missed at low depth

Lex Fridman (23:22.280)

and using them to gain some advantage

Magnus Carlsen (23:26.040)

in the sense that you have more knowledge.

Lex Fridman (23:28.440)

And it's also good to know that usually

Magnus Carlsen (23:34.240)

these are not complete bluffs, these are like semi bluffs

Lex Fridman (23:37.360)

so that you know that even if your opponent

Magnus Carlsen (23:39.520)

makes all the right moves, you can still make a draw.

Lex Fridman (23:43.320)

And also at the start of 2019,

Magnus Carlsen (23:46.960)

neural networks had just started to be a thing in chess.

Lex Fridman (23:50.680)

And I'm not entirely sure,

Lex Fridman (23:52.960)

but there were at least some players

Lex Fridman (23:55.120)

even in the top events who you could see did not use them

Magnus Carlsen (24:00.320)

or did not use them in the right way.

Lex Fridman (24:02.320)

And then you could gain a huge advantage

Magnus Carlsen (24:04.920)

because a lot of positions,

Lex Fridman (24:06.720)

they were being evaluated differently

Magnus Carlsen (24:09.520)

by the neural networks than traditional chess engines

Lex Fridman (24:13.000)

because they simply think about chess

Magnus Carlsen (24:15.920)

in a very, very different way.

Lex Fridman (24:18.760)

So short answer is these days,

Magnus Carlsen (24:21.760)

it's all about surprising your opponent

Lex Fridman (24:25.240)

and taking it into positions where you have more knowledge.

Lex Fridman (24:29.360)

So is there some sense in which it's okay

Lex Fridman (24:31.960)

to make suboptimal quote unquote moves?

Magnus Carlsen (24:34.840)

No, you have to.

Lex Fridman (24:36.240)

I mean, you have to because the best moves

Magnus Carlsen (24:39.560)

have been analyzed to death mostly.

Lex Fridman (24:42.600)

So that's a kind of, when you say semi bluff,

Magnus Carlsen (24:44.640)

that's a kind of sacrifice.

Lex Fridman (24:46.600)

You're sacrificing the optimal move,

Magnus Carlsen (24:50.000)

the optimal position so that you can take the opponent.

Lex Fridman (24:53.960)

I mean, that's a game theoretic sense.

Magnus Carlsen (24:55.880)

You take the opponent to something they didn't prepare well.

Lex Fridman (24:59.080)

Yeah, but you could also look at it another way

Magnus Carlsen (25:02.400)

that regardless, like if you turn on whatever engine

Lex Fridman (25:07.320)

you turn on, like if you try to analyze

Magnus Carlsen (25:09.520)

either from the starting position

Lex Fridman (25:11.480)

or the starting position of some popular opening,

Magnus Carlsen (25:15.000)

like if you analyze long enough,

Lex Fridman (25:17.480)

it's always gonna end up in a draw.

Lex Fridman (25:19.400)

So in that sense, you may not be going

Lex Fridman (25:23.200)

for like the objective, the tries

Magnus Carlsen (25:26.040)

that are objectively the most difficult to draw against,

Lex Fridman (25:29.800)

but you are trying to look at least

Magnus Carlsen (25:32.640)

at the less obvious paths.

Lex Fridman (25:35.400)

How much do you use engines?

Lex Fridman (25:37.680)

Do you use Leela, Stockfish in your preparations?

Lex Fridman (25:41.920)

My team does.

Magnus Carlsen (25:43.600)

Personally, I try not to use them too much

Lex Fridman (25:47.880)

on my own because I know that when I play,

Magnus Carlsen (25:51.920)

you obviously cannot have help from engines.

Lex Fridman (25:54.960)

And often I feel like often having imperfect

Magnus Carlsen (26:01.000)

or knowledge about a position or some engine knowledge

Lex Fridman (26:05.080)

can be a lot worse than having no knowledge.

Lex Fridman (26:09.520)

So I try to look at engines as little as possible.

Lex Fridman (26:13.400)

So yeah, so your team uses them for research

Magnus Carlsen (26:15.840)

for a generation of ideas.

Lex Fridman (26:17.320)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (26:18.160)

But you are relying primarily on your human resources.

Lex Fridman (26:23.600)

Yeah, for sure.

Magnus Carlsen (26:24.440)

You can evaluate well.

Lex Fridman (26:26.000)

You don't lean.

Magnus Carlsen (26:26.840)

Yeah, I can evaluate as a human.

Lex Fridman (26:29.000)

I can know what they find unpleasant and so on.

Lex Fridman (26:33.320)

And it's very often the case for me to some extent,

Lex Fridman (26:38.480)

but a lot for others that you arrive in a position

Lex Fridman (26:43.320)

and your opponent plays a move that you didn't expect

Lex Fridman (26:46.240)

and if you didn't expect it,

Magnus Carlsen (26:49.520)

you know that it's probably not a great move

Lex Fridman (26:51.840)

since it hasn't been expected by the engine.

Lex Fridman (26:54.520)

But if it's not obvious why it's not a good move,

Lex Fridman (27:00.480)

it's usually very, very hard to figure it out.

Lex Fridman (27:03.840)

And so then looking at the engines doesn't necessarily help

Lex Fridman (27:08.360)

because at that point, like you're facing a human,

Magnus Carlsen (27:10.920)

you have to sort of think as a human.

Lex Fridman (27:14.040)

I was chatting with Demis Ashabis, CEO of DeepMind

Magnus Carlsen (27:16.720)

a couple of days ago and he asked me to ask you

Lex Fridman (27:19.080)

about what you first felt when you saw the play of AlphaZero.

Magnus Carlsen (27:24.920)

Like interesting ideas in your creativity.

Lex Fridman (27:28.720)

Did you feel fear that the machine is taking over?

Lex Fridman (27:31.480)

Were you inspired?

Lex Fridman (27:34.000)

And what was going on in your mind and heart?

Magnus Carlsen (27:37.240)

Funny thing about Demis is he doesn't play chess at all

Lex Fridman (27:42.240)

like an AI, he plays in a very, very human way.

Magnus Carlsen (27:48.560)

No, I was hugely inspired when I saw the games at first.

Lex Fridman (27:54.360)

And in terms of man versus machine,

Magnus Carlsen (27:58.200)

I mean that battle was kind of lost for humans

Lex Fridman (28:02.080)

even before I entered top level chess.

Lex Fridman (28:07.960)

So that's never been an issue for me.

Lex Fridman (28:10.440)

I never liked playing against computers much anyway.

Lex Fridman (28:14.200)

So that's completely fine.

Lex Fridman (28:16.080)

But it was amazing to see how they quote unquote

Magnus Carlsen (28:20.400)

thought about chess in such a different way

Lex Fridman (28:23.480)

and in a way that you could mistake for creativity.

Magnus Carlsen (28:27.640)

Mistake for creativity, strong words.

Lex Fridman (28:30.480)

Is it wild to you how many sacrifices it's willing to make

Magnus Carlsen (28:33.400)

that like sacrifice pieces and then wait

Lex Fridman (28:36.000)

for prolonged periods of time

Lex Fridman (28:37.320)

before doing anything with that?

Lex Fridman (28:38.960)

Is that weird to you that that's part of chess?

Magnus Carlsen (28:42.440)

No, it's one of the things that's hardest to replicate

Lex Fridman (28:46.520)

as a human as well, or at least for my playing style

Magnus Carlsen (28:50.640)

that usually when I sacrifice, I feel like I'm,

Lex Fridman (28:56.360)

I don't do it unless I feel like I'm getting something

Magnus Carlsen (28:58.880)

like tangible in return and.

Lex Fridman (29:03.360)

Like a few moves down the line.

Magnus Carlsen (29:05.000)

A few moves down the line,

Lex Fridman (29:06.200)

you can see that you can either retrieve the material

Magnus Carlsen (29:08.760)

or you can put your opponent's king under pressure

Lex Fridman (29:12.240)

or have some very like very concrete positional advantage

Magnus Carlsen (29:16.680)

that sort of compensates for it.

Lex Fridman (29:20.520)

For instance, in chess,

Lex Fridman (29:22.840)

so bishops and knights are fairly equivalent.

Lex Fridman (29:26.720)

We both give them three points,

Lex Fridman (29:28.600)

but bishops are a little bit better.

Lex Fridman (29:30.320)

And especially a bishop pair is a lot better

Magnus Carlsen (29:33.360)

than a bishop and a knight.

Lex Fridman (29:36.080)

So, or especially two knights depends on the position,

Lex Fridman (29:40.440)

but like on average they are.

Lex Fridman (29:44.120)

So like sacrificing a pawn in order to get a bishop pair,

Magnus Carlsen (29:49.720)

that's one of the most common sacrifices in chess.

Lex Fridman (29:52.360)

Oh, you're okay making that sacrifice?

Magnus Carlsen (29:53.560)

Yeah, I mean, it depends on the situation,

Lex Fridman (29:55.720)

but generally that's fine.

Lex Fridman (29:57.600)

And there are a lot of openings that are based on that,

Lex Fridman (2:00:01.880)

can predict every single one of your moves

Lex Fridman (2:00:04.320)

and they still lose.

Lex Fridman (2:00:06.200)

How does that happen?

Magnus Carlsen (2:00:07.120)

No, like it means that at some point early,

Lex Fridman (2:00:10.680)

your planning, your evaluation has been better.

Lex Fridman (2:00:14.160)

So that you play just very simply, very clearly.

Lex Fridman (2:00:17.200)

It looks like you did nothing special

Lex Fridman (2:00:19.960)

and your opponent lost without a chance.

Lex Fridman (2:00:22.320)

So you're, how do you think about that?

Magnus Carlsen (2:00:24.720)

By the way, are you basically narrowed down

Lex Fridman (2:00:26.680)

this gigantic tree of options

Magnus Carlsen (2:00:29.200)

to where your opponent has less and less and less options

Lex Fridman (2:00:32.880)

to win, to escape, and then they're trapped.

Magnus Carlsen (2:00:35.400)

That's it.

Lex Fridman (2:00:36.240)

Essentially.

Magnus Carlsen (2:00:37.640)

Is there some aspect to the patterns themselves,

Lex Fridman (2:00:40.080)

to the positions, to the elegance of like

Magnus Carlsen (2:00:45.600)

the dynamics of the game that you just find beautiful

Lex Fridman (2:00:48.800)

that doesn't, that where you forget about the opponent?

Magnus Carlsen (2:00:53.960)

General, I try and create harmony on the board.

Lex Fridman (2:00:58.280)

Like what I would usually find harmonious is that

Magnus Carlsen (2:01:02.560)

the pieces work together, that they protect each other

Lex Fridman (2:01:08.720)

and that there are no pieces that are suboptimally placed.

Magnus Carlsen (2:01:13.640)

Or if they are suboptimally placed,

Lex Fridman (2:01:17.000)

they can be improved pretty easily.

Magnus Carlsen (2:01:19.080)

Like I hate when I have one piece that I know

Lex Fridman (2:01:23.320)

is badly placed and I can't improve it.

Magnus Carlsen (2:01:26.000)

When, yeah, when you're thinking about the harmony

Lex Fridman (2:01:28.840)

of the pieces, when you're looking at the position,

Magnus Carlsen (2:01:30.560)

you're evaluating it, are you looking at the whole board

Lex Fridman (2:01:36.760)

or is it like a bunch of groupings of pieces overlapping?

Magnus Carlsen (2:01:42.280)

I would like dancing together kind of thing.

Lex Fridman (2:01:44.480)

I would say it's more of the latter

Magnus Carlsen (2:01:47.320)

that would be more precise that you look.

Lex Fridman (2:01:50.600)

I mean, I look mostly closer to the middle,

Lex Fridman (2:01:55.000)

but then I would focus on one,

Lex Fridman (2:01:57.640)

like there are usually like one grouping of pieces

Magnus Carlsen (2:02:00.080)

on one side and then some more closer to the other side.

Lex Fridman (2:02:04.520)

So I would think of it a little bit that way.

Magnus Carlsen (2:02:08.280)

So, and everything's kind of gravitating to the middle.

Lex Fridman (2:02:11.920)

If it's going well, then yes.

Lex Fridman (2:02:13.920)

And in harmony.

Lex Fridman (2:02:15.160)

Yeah, in harmony.

Magnus Carlsen (2:02:16.640)

Or like if you can control the middle,

Lex Fridman (2:02:20.200)

you can more easily attack on both sides.

Magnus Carlsen (2:02:23.000)

That applies to pretty much any game.

Lex Fridman (2:02:26.720)

It's as simple as that.

Lex Fridman (2:02:27.640)

And like attacking on one side without control of the middle

Lex Fridman (2:02:32.760)

would feel very nonharmonious for me.

Magnus Carlsen (2:02:37.560)

Like I talked about the 10th game

Lex Fridman (2:02:40.040)

in the World Championship.

Magnus Carlsen (2:02:43.640)

Like that's the time I was the most nervous.

Lex Fridman (2:02:45.920)

And it was because it was the kind of attack that I hate

Magnus Carlsen (2:02:50.040)

where you just have to, you're abandoned one side

Lex Fridman (2:02:53.480)

and the attack has to work.

Magnus Carlsen (2:02:57.640)

There was one side and part of the middle as well,

Lex Fridman (2:03:00.080)

which I didn't control at all.

Lex Fridman (2:03:01.880)

And that's like the opposite of harmony for me.

Lex Fridman (2:03:05.640)

What advice would you give to chess players

Lex Fridman (2:03:10.520)

of different levels, how to improve in chess?

Lex Fridman (2:03:14.560)

Very beginner, complete beginner.

Lex Fridman (2:03:16.920)

I mean, at every level, is there something you can say?

Lex Fridman (2:03:19.800)

It's very hard for me to say.

Magnus Carlsen (2:03:21.760)

Because I mean, the easiest way is like love chess,

Lex Fridman (2:03:26.540)

be obsessed.

Magnus Carlsen (2:03:28.080)

Well, that's a really important statement.

Lex Fridman (2:03:29.320)

But that doesn't work for everybody.

Lex Fridman (2:03:31.920)

So I feel like it can feel like a grind.

Lex Fridman (2:03:34.600)

So you're saying the less it can feel like a grind,

Magnus Carlsen (2:03:37.560)

the better, at least for you.

Lex Fridman (2:03:40.800)

That's for sure.

Lex Fridman (2:03:41.640)

But I'm also very, very skeptical about giving advice

Lex Fridman (2:03:46.600)

because I think, again, my way only works

Magnus Carlsen (2:03:50.920)

if you have some combination of talent and obsession.

Lex Fridman (2:03:56.280)

So I'm not sure that I'd generally recommend it.

Magnus Carlsen (2:03:59.600)

Like what I've done doesn't go with

Lex Fridman (2:04:02.920)

what most coaches suggest for their kids.

Magnus Carlsen (2:04:06.520)

I've been lucky that I've had coaches from early on

Lex Fridman (2:04:09.720)

that have been very, very hands off

Lex Fridman (2:04:11.840)

and just allowed me to do my thing, basically.

Lex Fridman (2:04:16.040)

Well, there's a lot to be said

Magnus Carlsen (2:04:17.120)

about cultivating the obsession.

Lex Fridman (2:04:21.440)

Like really letting that flourish

Magnus Carlsen (2:04:24.700)

to where you spend a lot of hours

Lex Fridman (2:04:28.080)

like with the chessboard in your head

Lex Fridman (2:04:29.760)

and it doesn't feel like a struggle.

Lex Fridman (2:04:31.760)

No, so like just letting me do my thing.

Magnus Carlsen (2:04:35.920)

Like if you give me a bunch of work,

Lex Fridman (2:04:37.280)

it will probably feel like a chore.

Lex Fridman (2:04:38.520)

And if you don't give me,

Lex Fridman (2:04:39.620)

I will spend all of that time on my own

Magnus Carlsen (2:04:42.920)

without thinking that it's work

Lex Fridman (2:04:45.160)

or without thought that I'm doing this to improve my chess.

Magnus Carlsen (2:04:49.760)

Well, in terms of learning stuff, like books,

Lex Fridman (2:04:52.200)

there's one thing that's relatively novel

Magnus Carlsen (2:04:56.280)

from your perspective that people are starting now

Lex Fridman (2:04:58.120)

is there's YouTube.

Magnus Carlsen (2:04:59.040)

There's a lot of good YouTubers.

Lex Fridman (2:05:00.920)

You're a part time YouTuber.

Magnus Carlsen (2:05:02.840)

You have stuff on YouTube, I guess.

Lex Fridman (2:05:04.360)

Yeah, I have, but if you've seen my YouTube,

Magnus Carlsen (2:05:06.900)

it's mostly like, it's carefree.

Lex Fridman (2:05:10.560)

It's generally not high effort content.

Lex Fridman (2:05:13.040)

Yeah, but do you like any particular YouTubers?

Lex Fridman (2:05:17.580)

I could just recommend like stuff I've seen.

Lex Fridman (2:05:19.480)

So Aged Madar, Gotham Chess, Botez Live.

Lex Fridman (2:05:25.060)

I really like St. Louis Chess Club,

Magnus Carlsen (2:05:27.680)

Daniel Narodetsky, and John Bartholomew.

Lex Fridman (2:05:32.200)

Those are good channels,

Lex Fridman (2:05:33.040)

but is there something you can recommend?

Lex Fridman (2:05:34.720)

No, all of them are good.

Magnus Carlsen (2:05:37.400)

You know, the best recommendation I could give

Lex Fridman (2:05:41.880)

is Aged Madar, purely.

Lex Fridman (2:05:45.560)

How much did he pay you to say that?

Lex Fridman (2:05:47.120)

No, so the thing about that is that I haven't really,

Magnus Carlsen (2:05:51.200)

I have, so I can tell you I've never watched

Lex Fridman (2:05:53.560)

any of his videos from start to finish.

Magnus Carlsen (2:05:56.800)

I'm not like, I'm not the target audience, obviously.

Lex Fridman (2:05:59.960)

But I think the only chess YouTube video

Magnus Carlsen (2:06:03.840)

that my dad has ever watched from start to finish

Lex Fridman (2:06:07.080)

is Aged Madar, and he said, like,

Magnus Carlsen (2:06:11.080)

I watched one of his videos,

Lex Fridman (2:06:12.300)

I wanted to know what it was all about,

Magnus Carlsen (2:06:14.600)

because I think Aged Madar is like the same strength

Lex Fridman (2:06:19.040)

as my father, or maybe just a little bit weaker,

Magnus Carlsen (2:06:21.200)

like 1900 or something.

Lex Fridman (2:06:23.280)

My father is probably about 2000.

Lex Fridman (2:06:25.720)

And my father has played chess his whole life.

Lex Fridman (2:06:28.120)

He loves, he absolutely loves the game.

Magnus Carlsen (2:06:30.200)

It was like, that's the only time he's actually sat through

Lex Fridman (2:06:32.960)

one of those videos, and he said, like,

Magnus Carlsen (2:06:34.880)

yeah, I get it, I enjoy it.

Lex Fridman (2:06:36.560)

So that's the best recommendation I could give.

Magnus Carlsen (2:06:39.360)

That's the only channel that my father actually enjoys.

Lex Fridman (2:06:44.280)

This is hilarious.

Magnus Carlsen (2:06:45.120)

I talked to him before this to ask him

Lex Fridman (2:06:47.360)

if he has any questions for you.

Lex Fridman (2:06:48.960)

And he said, no, just do your thing, you know.

Lex Fridman (2:06:52.040)

No, he's so careful, he wouldn't do that.

Magnus Carlsen (2:06:54.800)

He did mention jokingly about Evan's Gambit, I think.

Lex Fridman (2:06:59.600)

Is that a thing?

Lex Fridman (2:07:00.440)

Evan's Gambit?

Lex Fridman (2:07:01.420)

It's some weird thing he made up.

Magnus Carlsen (2:07:03.080)

It might be an inside joke.

Lex Fridman (2:07:04.640)

I don't know, but he asked me to.

Magnus Carlsen (2:07:06.720)

Well, anyway.

Lex Fridman (2:07:07.640)

Yeah, I didn't even get the...

Magnus Carlsen (2:07:10.200)

It's something he made up.

Lex Fridman (2:07:11.860)

I didn't even realize that he plays the Evan's Gambit.

Magnus Carlsen (2:07:15.120)

Like, he plays a lot of Gambits that are...

Lex Fridman (2:07:17.040)

Wait, Evan's Gambit is a thing?

Magnus Carlsen (2:07:18.380)

Yeah, yeah, that's a thing.

Lex Fridman (2:07:19.400)

Like, that's an old opening from the 1800s.

Magnus Carlsen (2:07:22.600)

Captain Evans apparently invented it.

Lex Fridman (2:07:25.160)

Why would he mention that particular one?

Magnus Carlsen (2:07:26.640)

Yeah, I don't know.

Lex Fridman (2:07:27.480)

Is there something hilarious about that one?

Magnus Carlsen (2:07:28.940)

I don't know.

Lex Fridman (2:07:29.780)

I don't think I've ever faced the Evan's Gambit in a game.

Magnus Carlsen (2:07:34.360)

I feel like both of you are trolling me right now.

Lex Fridman (2:07:37.000)

But I mean, he's played a lot of other Gambits.

Magnus Carlsen (2:07:42.800)

Maybe this is the one he wanted to mention.

Lex Fridman (2:07:45.440)

So this, maybe this is called the Evan's Gambit as well.

Lex Fridman (2:07:48.880)

But I just know it as like the 2G4 Gambit.

Lex Fridman (2:07:52.480)

Maybe this is the one.

Magnus Carlsen (2:07:53.760)

Like this one, he has played a bunch.

Lex Fridman (2:08:00.520)

And he's been telling me a lot about his games

Magnus Carlsen (2:08:03.640)

in this line.

Lex Fridman (2:08:04.480)

It's like, oh, it's not so bad.

Lex Fridman (2:08:06.480)

And I'm like, yeah, but you're a pawn down.

Lex Fridman (2:08:08.960)

Yeah, but I can sort of see it.

Magnus Carlsen (2:08:10.760)

I can sort of understand it.

Lex Fridman (2:08:12.840)

And he's like, he's proud of the fact

Magnus Carlsen (2:08:15.560)

that nobody like told him to play this line or anything.

Lex Fridman (2:08:17.760)

He came up with it himself.

Lex Fridman (2:08:19.920)

And there's this, I'll tell you another story

Lex Fridman (2:08:23.080)

about my father.

Lex Fridman (2:08:23.920)

So there's this line that I call,

Lex Fridman (2:08:26.840)

that I called the Henry Carlson line.

Lex Fridman (2:08:31.760)

So at some point, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:08:34.120)

he never knew a lot of openings in chess,

Lex Fridman (2:08:36.280)

but I taught him a couple of openings as black.

Lex Fridman (2:08:40.960)

It's the, it's the Sveshnikov's Sicilian

Magnus Carlsen (2:08:45.460)

that I played a lot myself also

Lex Fridman (2:08:48.200)

during the world championship in 2018.

Magnus Carlsen (2:08:52.280)

I won a bunch of games in 2019 as well.

Lex Fridman (2:08:55.040)

So that's one opening.

Lex Fridman (2:08:55.880)

And I also taught him as black

Lex Fridman (2:08:57.040)

to play the Rogozin defense.

Lex Fridman (2:08:59.960)

And then, so the Rogozin defense goes like,

Lex Fridman (2:09:02.920)

goes like this.

Magnus Carlsen (2:09:05.160)

It's characterized by this bishop move.

Lex Fridman (2:09:10.680)

And so he would play those openings pretty,

Magnus Carlsen (2:09:14.200)

pretty exclusively as black

Lex Fridman (2:09:16.120)

in the tournaments that he did play.

Lex Fridman (2:09:17.720)

And also the Sveshnikov Sicilian is like,

Lex Fridman (2:09:20.720)

that's the only, two of my sisters play,

Magnus Carlsen (2:09:23.760)

have played a bunch of chess tournaments as well.

Lex Fridman (2:09:26.040)

And that's the only opening they know as well.

Lex Fridman (2:09:28.960)

So my family's portrait is very narrow.

Lex Fridman (2:09:32.240)

So, so this is the, this is the system.

Magnus Carlsen (2:09:35.560)

Black goes here and then we all from white takes the pawn

Lex Fridman (2:09:37.960)

and black takes the pawn.

Lex Fridman (2:09:40.360)

So at some point I was watching one of my,

Lex Fridman (2:09:43.720)

my father's online blitz game, blitz game.

Lex Fridman (2:09:47.440)

And as white, he played this, this.

Lex Fridman (2:09:52.440)

So this is called the Karkhan defense.

Magnus Carlsen (2:09:54.320)

He took the pawn.

Lex Fridman (2:09:58.160)

It was taken back, then he went with the knight.

Magnus Carlsen (2:10:02.040)

His opponent went here and then he played a bishop here.

Lex Fridman (2:10:05.280)

So I, I'd never seen this opening before.

Lex Fridman (2:10:08.240)

And I was like, wow, how on earth did he come up with that?

Lex Fridman (2:10:13.360)

And he said, no, I just played the Rogozin

Magnus Carlsen (2:10:15.360)

with the different colors

Lex Fridman (2:10:16.520)

because if the knight was here,

Magnus Carlsen (2:10:18.000)

it would be the same position.

Lex Fridman (2:10:19.640)

I was like, I never, I was like,

Lex Fridman (2:10:22.080)

how, how am I like one of the best players in the world?

Lex Fridman (2:10:27.200)

And I've never thought about that.

Lex Fridman (2:10:28.960)

So I actually started playing,

Lex Fridman (2:10:30.800)

I started playing this line as white

Magnus Carlsen (2:10:34.080)

with pretty decent result and then results.

Lex Fridman (2:10:36.560)

And it actually became kind of popular

Lex Fridman (2:10:39.400)

and everybody who asked about the line,

Lex Fridman (2:10:42.680)

it's like, I would always tell them,

Magnus Carlsen (2:10:43.680)

yeah, that's the Henry Carlson.

Lex Fridman (2:10:45.960)

I wouldn't necessarily explain why it was called that.

Magnus Carlsen (2:10:48.280)

I would just always call it that.

Lex Fridman (2:10:50.080)

So I really hope at this point, at some point,

Magnus Carlsen (2:10:52.960)

this line will be, will find its rightful name.

Lex Fridman (2:10:56.680)

In the, yeah, finds its way into the history books.

Lex Fridman (2:10:59.920)

Can you, what, what, what'd you learn about life

Lex Fridman (2:11:02.760)

from your dad?

Lex Fridman (2:11:03.880)

What role has your dad played in your life?

Lex Fridman (2:11:08.360)

He's taught me a lot of things, but most of all,

Magnus Carlsen (2:11:11.640)

as long as you win a chess, then everything else is fine.

Lex Fridman (2:11:15.080)

I think my, especially my father,

Lex Fridman (2:11:21.560)

but my parents in general, they,

Lex Fridman (2:11:23.400)

they always wanted me to get a good education

Lex Fridman (2:11:28.120)

and find a job and so on.

Lex Fridman (2:11:31.920)

Even though my father loves chess

Lex Fridman (2:11:33.240)

and he wanted me to play chess,

Lex Fridman (2:11:35.080)

I don't think he had any plans for me to be professional.

Magnus Carlsen (2:11:40.080)

I think things changed at some point.

Lex Fridman (2:11:42.680)

Like I was less and less interested in school

Lex Fridman (2:11:46.440)

and for a long time, we were kind of going back and forth,

Lex Fridman (2:11:51.440)

fighting about that, especially my father,

Lex Fridman (2:11:54.280)

but also my mother a little bit.

Lex Fridman (2:11:56.200)

It was at times a little bit difficult.

Magnus Carlsen (2:11:58.440)

They wanted you to go to school.

Lex Fridman (2:11:59.760)

Yeah, they sort of wanted me to do more school

Magnus Carlsen (2:12:02.840)

to have more options.

Lex Fridman (2:12:04.160)

And then I think at some point,

Magnus Carlsen (2:12:07.200)

they just gave up, but I think that sort of coincided

Lex Fridman (2:12:11.720)

when I was actually starting to make real money

Magnus Carlsen (2:12:13.560)

off tournaments.

Lex Fridman (2:12:14.400)

And after that, you know, everything's been sort of easy

Lex Fridman (2:12:18.840)

and like terms of the family,

Lex Fridman (2:12:21.040)

like they've never put any pressure on me

Magnus Carlsen (2:12:26.040)

or they've never put any demands on me.

Lex Fridman (2:12:29.080)

There's just, yeah, my ass has to focus on chess.

Magnus Carlsen (2:12:31.240)

That's that, that's the thing.

Lex Fridman (2:12:34.960)

That's, that's, that's it.

Magnus Carlsen (2:12:38.800)

Like, I think they taught me in general

Lex Fridman (2:12:41.400)

to be curious about the world

Lex Fridman (2:12:43.920)

and to get a decent general education,

Lex Fridman (2:12:49.240)

not necessarily from school,

Lex Fridman (2:12:51.240)

but like just knowing about the world around you

Lex Fridman (2:12:55.720)

and knowing history and being, you know,

Magnus Carlsen (2:12:58.240)

just being interested in society.

Lex Fridman (2:13:01.200)

I think in that sense, they've done well.

Lex Fridman (2:13:04.960)

And he's been with you throughout your chess career.

Lex Fridman (2:13:07.880)

I mean, there's something to be said about just family,

Magnus Carlsen (2:13:12.920)

support and love that you have that, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:13:16.000)

this world is a lonely place.

Magnus Carlsen (2:13:18.920)

It's good to have people around you that are like,

Lex Fridman (2:13:21.440)

yeah, they got your back kind of, you know?

Magnus Carlsen (2:13:24.200)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:13:26.000)

It's a cliche, but I think to some extent,

Magnus Carlsen (2:13:29.040)

all the people you surround yourself with,

Lex Fridman (2:13:34.680)

they can help you a lot.

Magnus Carlsen (2:13:36.760)

It's only family that only has their own interests at heart.

Lex Fridman (2:13:41.080)

And so for that reason, like my father's like the only one

Magnus Carlsen (2:13:45.440)

that's been like constantly in the team

Lex Fridman (2:13:49.040)

that he's always been around.

Lex Fridman (2:13:51.360)

And it's for that reason that I know he has my back,

Lex Fridman (2:13:54.160)

no matter what.

Magnus Carlsen (2:13:55.000)

Now there's a cliche question here,

Lex Fridman (2:13:58.920)

but let's try to actually get to some deep truth perhaps.

Lex Fridman (2:14:03.800)

But people who don't know much about chess

Lex Fridman (2:14:06.280)

seem to like to use chess as a metaphor

Magnus Carlsen (2:14:08.840)

for everything in life.

Lex Fridman (2:14:10.720)

But there is some aspect to the decision making

Magnus Carlsen (2:14:14.520)

to the kind of reasoning involved in chess

Lex Fridman (2:14:16.440)

that's transferable to other things.

Lex Fridman (2:14:19.160)

Can you speak to that in your own life and in general?

Lex Fridman (2:14:23.620)

Like the kind of reasoning involved with chess,

Lex Fridman (2:14:27.940)

how much does that transfer to life out there?

Lex Fridman (2:14:32.460)

It just helps you make decisions.

Magnus Carlsen (2:14:34.940)

Of all kinds.

Lex Fridman (2:14:36.100)

Yeah, that would be my main takeaway.

Magnus Carlsen (2:14:38.260)

That you learn to make informed guesses

Lex Fridman (2:14:40.940)

in a limited amount of time.

Magnus Carlsen (2:14:43.820)

I mean, does it frustrate you when you have

Lex Fridman (2:14:47.300)

geopolitical thinkers and leaders?

Magnus Carlsen (2:14:49.340)

You know, Henry Kissinger will often talk about

Lex Fridman (2:14:51.980)

geopolitics as a game of chess or 3D chess.

Lex Fridman (2:14:55.780)

Is that too oversimplified of a projection?

Lex Fridman (2:14:58.300)

Or do you think that the kind of deliberations

Magnus Carlsen (2:15:02.260)

you have on the world stage is similar

Lex Fridman (2:15:04.860)

to the kind of decision making you have on the chessboard?

Magnus Carlsen (2:15:08.660)

Well, I'm never trying to get reelected

Lex Fridman (2:15:11.580)

when I play a game of chess.

Magnus Carlsen (2:15:14.780)

There's no special interest, you have to get happy.

Lex Fridman (2:15:16.820)

Yeah, that kind of helps.

Magnus Carlsen (2:15:18.940)

No, I can understand that.

Lex Fridman (2:15:23.060)

Obviously, for every action, there's a reaction

Lex Fridman (2:15:25.580)

and you have to calculate far ahead.

Lex Fridman (2:15:29.740)

It probably would be a good thing

Magnus Carlsen (2:15:31.620)

if more big players on the international scene

Lex Fridman (2:15:35.860)

thought a little bit more like a chess player in that sense,

Magnus Carlsen (2:15:40.140)

like trying to make good decision

Lex Fridman (2:15:42.460)

based on limited amount of data,

Magnus Carlsen (2:15:46.420)

rather than thinking about other factors,

Lex Fridman (2:15:49.660)

but it's so tough.

Lex Fridman (2:15:51.140)

But it does annoy me when people make moves

Lex Fridman (2:15:55.300)

that they know are wrong for different reasons.

Lex Fridman (2:15:58.260)

And they should know, if they did some calculation,

Lex Fridman (2:16:00.460)

they should know they're wrong.

Magnus Carlsen (2:16:01.300)

Yeah, exactly, that they should know that are wrong.

Lex Fridman (2:16:04.620)

And so much politics is like,

Magnus Carlsen (2:16:08.940)

it's, you're often asked to do something

Lex Fridman (2:16:13.300)

when it would be much better to do nothing.

Magnus Carlsen (2:16:18.940)

Like, no, but that happens in chess all the time,

Lex Fridman (2:16:21.900)

like you have a choice.

Magnus Carlsen (2:16:24.060)

Like I often tell people that in certain situations,

Lex Fridman (2:16:28.540)

you should not try and win,

Magnus Carlsen (2:16:29.820)

you should just let your opponent lose.

Lex Fridman (2:16:32.660)

And that happens in politics all the time.

Lex Fridman (2:16:37.540)

But yeah, just let your opponents

Lex Fridman (2:16:40.540)

continue whatever they're doing,

Lex Fridman (2:16:42.500)

and then you'll win.

Lex Fridman (2:16:43.340)

Don't try to do something just to do something.

Magnus Carlsen (2:16:45.740)

Often, they say in chess that having a bad plan

Lex Fridman (2:16:50.380)

is better than having no plan.

Magnus Carlsen (2:16:52.380)

It's absolute nonsense.

Lex Fridman (2:16:55.100)

I forget what General said it,

Lex Fridman (2:16:56.460)

but it was like, don't interrupt your enemy

Lex Fridman (2:16:59.980)

when they're making a mistake.

Magnus Carlsen (2:17:02.020)

I think they're...

Lex Fridman (2:17:02.860)

Also, Petrosian, the former world champion said,

Magnus Carlsen (2:17:09.460)

when your opponent wants to play Dutch defense,

Lex Fridman (2:17:11.940)

don't stop them.

Magnus Carlsen (2:17:13.420)

I mean, chess players will know that it's the same thing.

Lex Fridman (2:17:16.220)

I mean, chess players will know that it's the same thing.

Magnus Carlsen (2:17:19.780)

Actually, this reminds me,

Lex Fridman (2:17:22.580)

is there something you found really impressive

Lex Fridman (2:17:24.060)

about Queen's Gambit, the TV show?

Lex Fridman (2:17:26.180)

You know, that's one of the things that really captivated

Magnus Carlsen (2:17:28.140)

the public imagination about chess.

Lex Fridman (2:17:30.220)

People who don't play chess became very curious

Magnus Carlsen (2:17:32.500)

about the game, about the beauty of the game,

Lex Fridman (2:17:35.100)

the drama of the game, all that kind of stuff.

Magnus Carlsen (2:17:37.100)

Is there, in terms of accuracy,

Lex Fridman (2:17:38.900)

in terms of the actual games played,

Lex Fridman (2:17:41.260)

that you found impressive?

Lex Fridman (2:17:44.300)

First of all, they did the chess well,

Magnus Carlsen (2:17:46.980)

they did it accurately.

Lex Fridman (2:17:48.260)

And also, they found actual games and positions

Magnus Carlsen (2:17:51.740)

that I'd never seen before.

Lex Fridman (2:17:53.940)

And it really captivated me.

Magnus Carlsen (2:17:55.140)

Like, I would not follow the story at times.

Lex Fridman (2:17:59.500)

I was just trying to, wow,

Lex Fridman (2:18:01.340)

where the hell did I find that game?

Lex Fridman (2:18:03.900)

Just trying to solve the positions.

Magnus Carlsen (2:18:06.020)

So, Beth Harmon, the main character,

Lex Fridman (2:18:09.380)

were you impressed by the play she was doing in the,

Magnus Carlsen (2:18:13.340)

like, was there a particular style

Lex Fridman (2:18:15.340)

that they developed consistently?

Magnus Carlsen (2:18:17.260)

She was just, at the end, she was just totally universal.

Lex Fridman (2:18:20.700)

Like, at the start, she was probably a bit too aggressive,

Lex Fridman (2:18:25.020)

but no, she was absolutely universal.

Lex Fridman (2:18:28.060)

Wait, what adjective are you using?

Magnus Carlsen (2:18:30.980)

Universal in the sense that she could play in any style.

Lex Fridman (2:18:35.940)

Oh, interesting.

Lex Fridman (2:18:37.020)

And was dominant in that way.

Lex Fridman (2:18:38.820)

So, wow, there was a development in style too

Magnus Carlsen (2:18:41.380)

throughout the show.

Lex Fridman (2:18:42.300)

Yeah, for sure.

Magnus Carlsen (2:18:43.140)

It's really interesting they did that.

Lex Fridman (2:18:44.620)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:18:45.860)

And it actually happened with me a bit as well.

Lex Fridman (2:18:49.020)

Like, I started out really aggressive.

Magnus Carlsen (2:18:51.660)

Then I became probably too technical at some point,

Lex Fridman (2:18:56.420)

taking a little bit too few risks

Lex Fridman (2:18:58.180)

and not playing dynamic enough.

Lex Fridman (2:19:00.020)

And then I started to get a little bit better at dynamics

Lex Fridman (2:19:03.300)

so that now I'm,

Lex Fridman (2:19:05.260)

I would say definitely the most universal player

Magnus Carlsen (2:19:07.820)

in terms of style.

Lex Fridman (2:19:11.060)

Are there any skills in chess

Lex Fridman (2:19:12.260)

that are transferable to poker?

Lex Fridman (2:19:14.340)

So as you're playing around with poker a little bit now,

Lex Fridman (2:19:17.700)

how fundamentally different of a game is it?

Lex Fridman (2:19:20.940)

What I find the most transferable probably is

Magnus Carlsen (2:19:24.300)

not letting past decisions dictate future thinking.

Lex Fridman (2:19:30.740)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:19:32.380)

But in terms of the patterns in the betting strategies

Lex Fridman (2:19:34.740)

and all that kind of stuff, what about bluffing?

Magnus Carlsen (2:19:37.620)

I bluff way too much.

Lex Fridman (2:19:40.860)

It does seem you enjoy bluffing

Lex Fridman (2:19:42.420)

and Daniel Negrano was saying that you're quite good at it.

Lex Fridman (2:19:46.780)

But yeah, it has very little material to go by.

Magnus Carlsen (2:19:49.580)

Sample size is small.

Lex Fridman (2:19:50.660)

Yeah.

Magnus Carlsen (2:19:51.580)

No, I mean, I enjoy bluffing

Lex Fridman (2:19:53.300)

for more of the gambling aspects, the thrill of.

Lex Fridman (2:19:57.540)

So not the technical aspect of the bluffing

Lex Fridman (2:19:59.700)

like you would on the chessboard?

Magnus Carlsen (2:20:01.940)

Not bluffing in the same sense, but there is some element.

Lex Fridman (2:20:05.460)

But I do enjoy it on the chessboard.

Magnus Carlsen (2:20:09.100)

Like if I know that like,

Lex Fridman (2:20:11.740)

oh, I successfully scared away my opponent

Magnus Carlsen (2:20:13.900)

from making the best move, that's of course satisfying.

Lex Fridman (2:20:16.620)

In that same way, it might be satisfying in poker, right?

Magnus Carlsen (2:20:20.820)

That you represent something,

Lex Fridman (2:20:22.460)

you scare away your opponent in the same kind of way.

Lex Fridman (2:20:25.180)

And also like you tell a story,

Lex Fridman (2:20:27.540)

you try and tell a story and then they believe it.

Magnus Carlsen (2:20:30.460)

Yeah, tell a story with your betting,

Lex Fridman (2:20:32.700)

with all the different other cues.

Lex Fridman (2:20:36.860)

Do you like the money aspect, the betting strategies?

Lex Fridman (2:20:40.260)

So it's almost like another layer on top of it, right?

Magnus Carlsen (2:20:43.300)

Like it's the uncertainty in the cards,

Lex Fridman (2:20:49.820)

but the betting, there's so much freedom to the betting.

Magnus Carlsen (2:20:53.620)

I'm not very good at that.

Lex Fridman (2:20:54.580)

So I cannot say that I understand it completely.

Magnus Carlsen (2:20:58.820)

You know, when it comes to different sizing and all that,

Lex Fridman (2:21:04.020)

I just haven't studied it enough.

Lex Fridman (2:21:05.660)

How much of luck is part of poker would you say

Lex Fridman (2:21:08.340)

from what you've seen versus skill?

Magnus Carlsen (2:21:12.020)

I mean, it's so different in the sense that you can be

Lex Fridman (2:21:15.340)

one of the best players in the world

Lex Fridman (2:21:16.620)

and lose two, three years in a row

Lex Fridman (2:21:18.620)

without that being like a massive outlier.

Magnus Carlsen (2:21:23.820)

Okay, the thing that more than one person told me

Lex Fridman (2:21:27.700)

that you're very good at is trash talking.

Magnus Carlsen (2:21:31.260)

I don't think I am.

Lex Fridman (2:21:32.860)

A lot of people who make those observations about me,

Magnus Carlsen (2:21:38.460)

I think they just expect very, very little.

Lex Fridman (2:21:40.740)

So they expect from the best chess player in the world,

Magnus Carlsen (2:21:44.940)

that just anything that's non robotic is interesting.

Lex Fridman (2:21:50.620)

Also, when it comes to trash talking,

Magnus Carlsen (2:21:52.580)

like I have the biggest advantage in the world

Lex Fridman (2:21:54.540)

that I'm the best at what I'm doing.

Lex Fridman (2:21:56.260)

So trash talking becomes very, very, very easy

Lex Fridman (2:21:58.540)

because I can back it up.

Magnus Carlsen (2:21:59.980)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:22:01.100)

Yeah, but a lot of people that are extremely good at stuff

Magnus Carlsen (2:22:04.020)

don't trash talk and they're not good at it.

Lex Fridman (2:22:06.140)

I don't think I'm very good at it.

Magnus Carlsen (2:22:07.580)

It's just that I can back it up,

Lex Fridman (2:22:09.980)

which makes it seem that I'm better.

Lex Fridman (2:22:12.140)

And also.

Lex Fridman (2:22:12.980)

You're even doing it now.

Magnus Carlsen (2:22:14.780)

Also being non robotic or not completely robotic helps.

Lex Fridman (2:22:19.020)

Yeah, yeah.

Magnus Carlsen (2:22:20.580)

You're not trash talking, you're just stating facts.

Lex Fridman (2:22:22.460)

That's right.

Magnus Carlsen (2:22:23.420)

Have you ever considered that there will be trash talking

Lex Fridman (2:22:28.340)

and over the chess board and some of the big tournaments,

Magnus Carlsen (2:22:31.540)

like adding that kind of component or even talking,

Lex Fridman (2:22:34.780)

you know, would that completely distract

Lex Fridman (2:22:37.700)

from the game of chess?

Lex Fridman (2:22:38.860)

No, I think it could be fun in,

Magnus Carlsen (2:22:42.740)

when people play off fan games,

Lex Fridman (2:22:44.500)

when they play Blitz games,

Magnus Carlsen (2:22:46.300)

like people trash talk all the time.

Lex Fridman (2:22:48.020)

It's a normal part of the game.

Lex Fridman (2:22:49.620)

So you emphasize fun a lot.

Lex Fridman (2:22:53.500)

Do you think we're living inside of a simulation

Lex Fridman (2:22:57.940)

that is trying to maximize fun?

Lex Fridman (2:23:03.940)

But that's only happened for the last 100 years or so.

Magnus Carlsen (2:23:08.820)

No, that's like the.

Lex Fridman (2:23:10.420)

Fun has always been increasing, I think.

Magnus Carlsen (2:23:12.620)

Yeah, okay.

Lex Fridman (2:23:13.460)

It's always been increasing,

Lex Fridman (2:23:14.300)

but I feel like it's been increasing exponentially.

Lex Fridman (2:23:18.340)

Yeah.

Magnus Carlsen (2:23:19.180)

I mean, or at least the importance of fun.

Lex Fridman (2:23:22.540)

But I guess it depends on the society as well.

Magnus Carlsen (2:23:24.940)

Like in the West, we've had such a Christian influence.

Lex Fridman (2:23:29.740)

And I mean, Christianity hasn't exactly embraced

Magnus Carlsen (2:23:33.860)

the concept of fun over time.

Lex Fridman (2:23:37.260)

Well, actually to push back,

Magnus Carlsen (2:23:38.380)

I think forbidding certain things

Lex Fridman (2:23:40.540)

kind of makes them more fun.

Lex Fridman (2:23:42.260)

So sometimes I think you need to say,

Lex Fridman (2:23:44.740)

you're not allowed to do this.

Lex Fridman (2:23:46.500)

And then a lot of people start doing it

Lex Fridman (2:23:48.340)

and then they have fun doing that

Magnus Carlsen (2:23:49.700)

because it's like it's doing a thing

Lex Fridman (2:23:53.580)

in the face of the resistance of the thing.

Lex Fridman (2:23:55.500)

So whenever there's resistance,

Lex Fridman (2:23:57.060)

that does somehow make it more fun.

Magnus Carlsen (2:23:59.140)

Oppressive regimes has always kind of been

Lex Fridman (2:24:02.420)

kind of good for comedy, no?

Magnus Carlsen (2:24:04.140)

Like, no, but I heard.

Lex Fridman (2:24:06.140)

Yes.

Magnus Carlsen (2:24:06.980)

Supposedly like in the Soviet Union,

Lex Fridman (2:24:08.740)

I don't know about fun,

Lex Fridman (2:24:09.860)

but supposedly comedy, like at least underground,

Lex Fridman (2:24:13.660)

it thrived.

Magnus Carlsen (2:24:14.500)

Yeah, there's a, well, no, it permeates the entire culture.

Lex Fridman (2:24:16.860)

There's a dark humor.

Magnus Carlsen (2:24:18.300)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:24:19.140)

That sort of the cruelty, the absurdity of life

Magnus Carlsen (2:24:21.420)

really brings out the humor amongst the populace

Lex Fridman (2:24:24.860)

plus vodka on top of that.

Lex Fridman (2:24:26.780)

But this idea that, for example, Elon Musk has that

Lex Fridman (2:24:31.860)

the most entertaining outcome is the most likely.

Magnus Carlsen (2:24:36.220)

That it seems like the most absurd, silly, funny thing

Lex Fridman (2:24:39.980)

seems to be the thing that.

Lex Fridman (2:24:41.340)

So it happens more often than it should.

Lex Fridman (2:24:44.700)

And it somehow becomes viral in our modern connected world.

Lex Fridman (2:24:49.140)

And so the fun stuff, the memes spread,

Lex Fridman (2:24:53.340)

and then we start to optimize for the fun meme

Magnus Carlsen (2:24:56.780)

that seems to be a fundamental property

Lex Fridman (2:24:58.820)

of the reality we live in.

Lex Fridman (2:25:01.700)

And so emerges the fun maximizer in all walks of life,

Lex Fridman (2:25:06.460)

like in chess, in poker, in everything.

Magnus Carlsen (2:25:13.340)

I think.

Lex Fridman (2:25:14.180)

You're not skeptical.

Magnus Carlsen (2:25:15.020)

No, I'm not skeptical.

Lex Fridman (2:25:15.900)

I'm just, I'm just taking it all in.

Lex Fridman (2:25:20.260)

But I find it interesting and not at all impossible.

Lex Fridman (2:25:25.020)

Do you ever get lonely?

Magnus Carlsen (2:25:26.700)

Oh yeah, for sure.

Lex Fridman (2:25:28.660)

Like a chess player's life is by definition pretty lonely

Magnus Carlsen (2:25:34.140)

because you have nobody else to blame but yourself

Lex Fridman (2:25:36.620)

when you lose or you don't achieve the results

Magnus Carlsen (2:25:39.700)

that you want to achieve.

Lex Fridman (2:25:41.180)

It's difficult for you to find comfort elsewhere.

Magnus Carlsen (2:25:44.460)

It's in your own mind.

Lex Fridman (2:25:46.220)

Yeah.

Magnus Carlsen (2:25:47.060)

It's you versus yourself, really.

Lex Fridman (2:25:48.460)

Yeah, really.

Lex Fridman (2:25:50.740)

But it's, you know, it's part of the profession.

Lex Fridman (2:25:55.140)

But I think any like sport or activity

Magnus Carlsen (2:25:58.460)

where it's just you and your own mind

Lex Fridman (2:26:02.460)

is just by definition lonely.

Lex Fridman (2:26:04.660)

Are you worried that it destroys you?

Lex Fridman (2:26:06.900)

Oh, not at all.

Magnus Carlsen (2:26:08.020)

As long as I'm aware of it, then it's fine.

Lex Fridman (2:26:10.540)

And I don't think the inherent loneliness

Magnus Carlsen (2:26:15.900)

of my profession really affects the rest of my life

Lex Fridman (2:26:20.420)

in a major way.

Lex Fridman (2:26:23.340)

What role does love play in the human condition

Lex Fridman (2:26:26.660)

and in your lonely life of calculation?

Magnus Carlsen (2:26:30.660)

Well, you know, I'm like everybody else trying, you know...

Lex Fridman (2:26:40.660)

Trying to find love?

Magnus Carlsen (2:26:41.500)

No, not necessarily like trying to find love.

Lex Fridman (2:26:43.860)

Sometimes I am, sometimes I'm not.

Magnus Carlsen (2:26:46.660)

I'm just trying to find my way.

Lex Fridman (2:26:48.460)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:26:49.300)

And my love for the game,

Lex Fridman (2:26:54.540)

obviously it comes and goes a little bit,

Lex Fridman (2:26:55.980)

but there's like, there's always at least some level of love.

Lex Fridman (2:26:59.340)

So that doesn't go away.

Lex Fridman (2:27:01.980)

But I think in other parts of life,

Lex Fridman (2:27:05.660)

I think it's just about doing things that make you happy,

Magnus Carlsen (2:27:11.220)

that give you joy,

Lex Fridman (2:27:12.060)

that also makes you more receptive to love in general.

Lex Fridman (2:27:16.300)

So that has been my approach to love now

Lex Fridman (2:27:20.700)

for quite a while that I'm just trying to live my best life

Lex Fridman (2:27:25.260)

and then the love will come when it comes

Lex Fridman (2:27:30.540)

and in terms of romantic love,

Magnus Carlsen (2:27:33.500)

it has come and gone in my life.

Lex Fridman (2:27:35.820)

It's not there now, but I'm not worried about that.

Magnus Carlsen (2:27:42.740)

I'm more worried about, you know, not worried,

Lex Fridman (2:27:45.540)

but more like trying to just be a good version of myself.

Magnus Carlsen (2:27:50.900)

I cannot always be the best version of myself,

Lex Fridman (2:27:53.060)

but at least try to be good.

Magnus Carlsen (2:27:55.060)

Yeah, and keep your heart open.

Lex Fridman (2:27:56.460)

What is this Daniel Johnson song?

Magnus Carlsen (2:27:59.380)

True love will find you in the end.

Lex Fridman (2:28:01.660)

No, it may or may not.

Lex Fridman (2:28:03.100)

But it will only find you if,

Lex Fridman (2:28:07.300)

oh fuck, how does it go?

Magnus Carlsen (2:28:08.340)

If you're looking, so like you have to be open to it.

Lex Fridman (2:28:10.820)

Yeah.

Magnus Carlsen (2:28:11.660)

It may or may not.

Lex Fridman (2:28:12.820)

Yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:28:13.660)

And no matter what, you're gonna lose it in the end

Lex Fridman (2:28:15.700)

because it all ends, the whole thing ends.

Magnus Carlsen (2:28:17.980)

Yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:28:19.420)

I don't think stressing over that,

Magnus Carlsen (2:28:22.340)

like obviously it's so human

Lex Fridman (2:28:26.380)

that you can't help it to some degree,

Lex Fridman (2:28:28.620)

but I feel like stressing over love,

Lex Fridman (2:28:30.940)

that's the blueprint for whether you're looking

Magnus Carlsen (2:28:34.940)

or you're not looking or you're in a relationship

Lex Fridman (2:28:39.540)

or married or anything,

Magnus Carlsen (2:28:41.540)

like stressing over it is like the blueprint

Lex Fridman (2:28:44.500)

for being unhappy.

Magnus Carlsen (2:28:46.300)

Just to clarify confusion I have,

Lex Fridman (2:28:49.260)

just a quick question.

Lex Fridman (2:28:50.260)

How does the knight move?

Lex Fridman (2:28:52.460)

Ha, so the knight moves in an L

Lex Fridman (2:28:57.020)

and unlike in shogi it can move both forwards and backwards.

Lex Fridman (2:29:02.300)

It is quite a nimble piece.

Magnus Carlsen (2:29:05.780)

It can jump over everything,

Lex Fridman (2:29:08.140)

but it's less happy in open position

Magnus Carlsen (2:29:10.140)

where it has to move from side to side quickly.

Lex Fridman (2:29:14.820)

I am generally more of a bishops guy myself

Magnus Carlsen (2:29:18.180)

for the old debate.

Lex Fridman (2:29:19.540)

I just prefer quality over the intangibles,

Lex Fridman (2:29:24.420)

but I can appreciate a good knight once in a while.

Lex Fridman (2:29:28.420)

Last simple question.

Lex Fridman (2:29:30.660)

What's the meaning of life, Magnus Carlsen?

Lex Fridman (2:29:33.660)

There's obviously no meaning to life.

Lex Fridman (2:29:36.180)

Is that obvious?

Lex Fridman (2:29:37.500)

I think we're here by accident.

Magnus Carlsen (2:29:39.420)

There's no meaning, it ends at some point,

Lex Fridman (2:29:42.220)

but it's still a great thing.

Magnus Carlsen (2:29:43.580)

So.

Lex Fridman (2:29:44.420)

Yeah, you can still have fun even if there's no meaning.

Magnus Carlsen (2:29:47.180)

Yeah, you can still have fun.

Lex Fridman (2:29:48.260)

You can try and pursue your goals, whatever they may be,

Lex Fridman (2:29:52.740)

but I'm pretty sure there's no special meaning

Lex Fridman (2:29:55.660)

and trying to find it also doesn't make

Magnus Carlsen (2:29:59.620)

a whole lot of sense to me.

Lex Fridman (2:30:01.340)

For me, life is both meaningless and meaningful

Magnus Carlsen (2:30:05.700)

for just being here, trying to make,

Lex Fridman (2:30:09.020)

not necessarily the most of it,

Lex Fridman (2:30:10.460)

but the things that make you happy

Lex Fridman (2:30:13.140)

both short term and also long term.

Magnus Carlsen (2:30:15.660)

Yeah, it seems to be full of cool stuff to enjoy.

Lex Fridman (2:30:18.540)

It certainly does.

Lex Fridman (2:30:20.300)

And one of those is having a conversation with you.

Lex Fridman (2:30:23.460)

Magnus, it's a huge honor to talk to you.

Magnus Carlsen (2:30:25.700)

Thank you so much for spending this time with me.

Lex Fridman (2:30:28.100)

I can't wait to see what you do in this world

Lex Fridman (2:30:29.900)

and thank you for creating so much elegance and beauty

Lex Fridman (2:30:32.780)

on the chessboard and beyond.

Lex Fridman (2:30:34.180)

So thanks for talking today, brother.

Lex Fridman (2:30:36.100)

Thank you so much.

Magnus Carlsen (2:30:36.940)

Thanks for having me.

Lex Fridman (2:30:38.540)

And I wanted to say this at the start,

Lex Fridman (2:30:42.660)

but I never really got the chance.

Lex Fridman (2:30:44.180)

I was always a bit apprehensive about doing this podcast

Magnus Carlsen (2:30:49.300)

because you are a very smart guy

Lex Fridman (2:30:50.900)

and your audience is very smart

Lex Fridman (2:30:54.380)

and I always had a bit of imposter syndrome.

Lex Fridman (2:30:58.980)

So I'll tell you this now after the podcast.

Lex Fridman (2:31:03.500)

So please do judge me, but I hope you've enjoyed it.

Lex Fridman (2:31:07.660)

I loved it.

Magnus Carlsen (2:31:08.500)

You're a brilliant man.

Lex Fridman (2:31:09.780)

And I love the fact that you have imposter syndrome

Magnus Carlsen (2:31:12.700)

because a lot of us do.

Lex Fridman (2:31:14.500)

And so that's beautiful to see even at the very top,

Lex Fridman (2:31:17.540)

but you still feel like an imposter.

Lex Fridman (2:31:20.460)

Thank you, brother.

Magnus Carlsen (2:31:21.300)

Thanks for talking today.

Lex Fridman (2:31:22.900)

Thanks for listening to this conversation

Magnus Carlsen (2:31:24.420)

with Magnus Carlsen.

Lex Fridman (2:31:25.660)

To support this podcast,

Magnus Carlsen (2:31:26.940)

please check out our sponsors in the description.

Lex Fridman (2:31:29.740)

And now let me leave you with some words from Bobby Fischer.

Magnus Carlsen (2:31:33.420)

Chess is a war over the board.

Lex Fridman (2:31:36.900)

The object is to crush the opponent's mind.

Magnus Carlsen (2:31:39.500)

Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

Lex Fridman (30:00.040)

that you sacrifice a pawn for the bishop pair,

Lex Fridman (30:03.360)

and then eventually it's some sort of positional equality.

Lex Fridman (30:07.360)

So that's fine.

Lex Fridman (30:08.440)

But the way AlphaZero would sacrifice a knight

Lex Fridman (30:14.640)

or sometimes two pawns, three pawns,

Lex Fridman (30:18.440)

and you could see that it's looking

Lex Fridman (30:20.000)

for some sort of positional domination,

Lex Fridman (30:22.000)

but it's hard to understand.

Lex Fridman (30:24.320)

And it was really fascinating to see.

Magnus Carlsen (30:27.800)

Yeah, in 2019, I was sacrificing a lot of pawns,

Lex Fridman (30:33.520)

especially, and it was a great joy.

Magnus Carlsen (30:36.560)

Unfortunately, it's not so easy to continue to do that.

Lex Fridman (30:40.000)

People have found more solid opening lines since

Magnus Carlsen (30:45.400)

that don't allow me to do that as often.

Lex Fridman (30:48.760)

I'm still trying both to get those positions

Lex Fridman (30:51.200)

and still trying to learn the art of sacrificing pieces.

Lex Fridman (30:56.200)

So Demis also made a comment that was interesting

Magnus Carlsen (31:01.200)

to my new chess brain, which is one of the reasons

Lex Fridman (31:04.440)

that chess is fun is because of the, quote,

Magnus Carlsen (31:06.600)

creative tension between the bishop and the knight.

Lex Fridman (31:09.440)

So you're talking about this interesting difference

Magnus Carlsen (31:13.360)

between the two pieces, that there's some kind of,

Lex Fridman (31:16.520)

how would you convert that?

Magnus Carlsen (31:17.680)

I mean, that's like a poetic statement about chess.

Lex Fridman (31:20.420)

I think he said that, why has chess been played

Lex Fridman (31:22.820)

for such a long time?

Lex Fridman (31:24.020)

Why is it so fun to play at every level?

Magnus Carlsen (31:26.800)

That if you can reduce it to one thing,

Lex Fridman (31:28.640)

is it the bishop and the knight,

Magnus Carlsen (31:31.280)

some kind of weird dynamics that they create in chess.

Lex Fridman (31:34.400)

Is there any truth to that?

Magnus Carlsen (31:36.460)

It sounds very good.

Lex Fridman (31:38.320)

I haven't tried a lot of other games,

Lex Fridman (31:41.000)

but I tried to play a little bit of shogi.

Lex Fridman (31:43.460)

And for my new shogi brain, comparing it to chess,

Lex Fridman (31:48.200)

what annoyed me about that game is how much the pieces suck.

Lex Fridman (31:53.000)

Basically, you have one rook and you have one bishop

Magnus Carlsen (31:55.480)

that move like in chess.

Lex Fridman (31:56.800)

And the rest of the pieces are really not very powerful.

Lex Fridman (32:01.720)

So I think that's one of the attractions of chess,

Lex Fridman (32:05.560)

like how powerful, especially the queen is, which.

Magnus Carlsen (32:10.400)

Interesting.

Lex Fridman (32:11.280)

I kind of think makes it a lot of fun.

Lex Fridman (32:14.480)

So you think power is more fun than like variety?

Lex Fridman (32:19.480)

No, there is a variety in chess as well, though.

Lex Fridman (32:23.520)

But not much more so than like go or something.

Lex Fridman (32:27.720)

No, no, no, no, that's for.

Lex Fridman (32:29.680)

So like knight, I mean, they all move in different ways.

Lex Fridman (32:32.560)

They're all like weird.

Magnus Carlsen (32:33.920)

There's just all these weird patterns and positions

Lex Fridman (32:36.300)

that can emerge.

Magnus Carlsen (32:37.440)

The difference in the pieces create

Lex Fridman (32:39.160)

all kinds of interesting dynamics,

Magnus Carlsen (32:40.440)

I guess is what I'm trying to say.

Lex Fridman (32:41.480)

Yeah, and I guess it is quite fascinating

Magnus Carlsen (32:44.880)

that all those years ago,

Lex Fridman (32:47.080)

they created the knight and the bishop

Magnus Carlsen (32:50.280)

without probably realizing that they would be

Lex Fridman (32:53.720)

almost equally strong with such different qualities.

Magnus Carlsen (32:57.680)

That's crazy that this, you know,

Lex Fridman (32:59.600)

like when you design computer games,

Magnus Carlsen (33:02.040)

it's like an art form.

Lex Fridman (33:03.400)

It's science and an art to balance it.

Magnus Carlsen (33:06.120)

You know, you talk about Starcraft and all those games,

Lex Fridman (33:09.440)

like so that you can have competitive play

Magnus Carlsen (33:12.080)

at the highest level with all those different units.

Lex Fridman (33:16.080)

In the case of chess, it's different pieces.

Lex Fridman (33:19.240)

And they somehow designed a game

Lex Fridman (33:21.440)

that was super competitive.

Lex Fridman (33:22.800)

But there's probably some kind of natural selection

Lex Fridman (33:24.540)

that the chess just wouldn't last if it was designed poorly.

Magnus Carlsen (33:27.560)

Yeah, and I think the rules have changed over time

Lex Fridman (33:32.380)

a little bit, but I would be,

Magnus Carlsen (33:35.120)

I mean, speaking of games and all that,

Lex Fridman (33:37.680)

I'm also interested to play other games like chess 960

Magnus Carlsen (33:42.680)

or Fisher random, as they call it,

Lex Fridman (33:46.040)

like that you have 960 maps instead of one.

Magnus Carlsen (33:50.560)

Yeah, so for people who don't know,

Lex Fridman (33:52.360)

a Fisher random chess, chess 960s.

Magnus Carlsen (33:54.680)

Yeah, that basically just means

Lex Fridman (33:56.160)

that the pawns are in the same way

Lex Fridman (33:57.720)

and the major pieces are distributed randomly

Lex Fridman (34:03.100)

on the last rank.

Magnus Carlsen (34:04.520)

Only that there have to be obviously

Lex Fridman (34:06.400)

bishops of opposite color

Lex Fridman (34:07.800)

and the king has to be in between the rooks

Lex Fridman (34:10.400)

so that you can castle both ways.

Magnus Carlsen (34:12.460)

Oh, you can still castle in chess 960.

Lex Fridman (34:13.800)

You can still castle, but it makes it interesting.

Lex Fridman (34:16.440)

So you still have, it still castles in the same way.

Lex Fridman (34:20.600)

So let's say the king is like here.

Lex Fridman (34:22.960)

Yeah, what happens in that case?

Lex Fridman (34:24.120)

Yeah, let's say the king is in the corner.

Lex Fridman (34:28.120)

So to castle this side,

Lex Fridman (34:29.800)

you have to clear a whole lot of pieces.

Lex Fridman (34:33.400)

Well, what would castling look like though?

Lex Fridman (34:35.320)

No, the king would go here and the rook would go there.

Magnus Carlsen (34:38.080)

Oh, okay.

Lex Fridman (34:39.400)

And that's happened in my games as well.

Magnus Carlsen (34:41.680)

Like I forgot about castling

Lex Fridman (34:43.720)

and I've been like attacking a king over here

Lex Fridman (34:46.800)

and then all of a sudden it escapes to the other side.

Lex Fridman (34:50.560)

I think Fischer chess is good that it's,

Magnus Carlsen (34:57.000)

the maps will generally be worse than regular chess.

Lex Fridman (35:03.320)

Like I think the starting position is as close to ideal

Magnus Carlsen (35:08.480)

for creating a competitive game as possible,

Lex Fridman (35:11.600)

but they will still be like interesting and diverse enough

Magnus Carlsen (35:14.760)

that you can play very interesting games.

Lex Fridman (35:18.440)

So when you say maps, there's 960 different options

Lex Fridman (35:21.060)

and like what fraction of that creates interesting games

Lex Fridman (35:24.840)

at the highest level?

Magnus Carlsen (35:26.080)

This is something that a lot of people are curious about

Lex Fridman (35:28.600)

because when you challenge a great chess player

Magnus Carlsen (35:32.120)

like yourself to look at a random starting position

Lex Fridman (35:38.160)

that feels like it pushes you to play pure chess

Magnus Carlsen (35:41.200)

versus memorizing lines.

Lex Fridman (35:42.400)

Oh yeah, for sure, for sure.

Lex Fridman (35:43.800)

But that's the whole idea.

Lex Fridman (35:45.680)

That's what you want.

Lex Fridman (35:47.280)

How hard is it to play?

Lex Fridman (35:48.120)

I mean, can you talk about what it feels like to you

Lex Fridman (35:50.560)

to play with a random starting position?

Lex Fridman (35:53.020)

Is there some intuition you've been building up?

Magnus Carlsen (35:55.480)

It's very, very different.

Lex Fridman (35:57.220)

And I mean, understandably engines have

Magnus Carlsen (36:02.040)

an even greater advantage in 960

Lex Fridman (36:05.080)

than they have in classical chess.

Magnus Carlsen (36:08.440)

No, it's super interesting.

Lex Fridman (36:10.160)

And that's why also I really wish

Magnus Carlsen (36:13.880)

that we played more classical chess,

Lex Fridman (36:17.800)

like long games, four to seven hours

Lex Fridman (36:21.640)

and in fish random chess, chess 960,

Lex Fridman (36:25.840)

because then you really need that time,

Magnus Carlsen (36:29.720)

even on the first moves.

Lex Fridman (36:31.400)

What usually happens is that you get 15 minutes

Magnus Carlsen (36:34.040)

before the game, you're getting told the position

Lex Fridman (36:36.280)

15 minutes before the game,

Lex Fridman (36:37.780)

and then you can think about it a little bit,

Lex Fridman (36:40.520)

even, you know, check the computer,

Lex Fridman (36:42.760)

but that's all the time you have,

Lex Fridman (36:45.200)

but then you really need to figure it out.

Lex Fridman (36:46.840)

And like some of the positions obviously

Lex Fridman (36:50.880)

are a lot more interesting than the others.

Magnus Carlsen (36:53.360)

In some of them, it appears that like,

Lex Fridman (36:55.320)

if you don't play symmetrically at the start,

Magnus Carlsen (37:00.280)

then you're probably gonna be in a pretty bad position.

Lex Fridman (37:03.840)

What do you mean with the pawns?

Magnus Carlsen (37:04.960)

With the pawns, yeah.

Lex Fridman (37:06.480)

Why does that make sense?

Magnus Carlsen (37:08.320)

That's the thing about chess though.

Lex Fridman (37:09.980)

So let's say white opens with E4,

Magnus Carlsen (37:13.160)

which is, which has always been the most played move.

Lex Fridman (37:17.360)

There are many ways to meet that,

Lex Fridman (37:18.880)

but the most solid ways of playing

Lex Fridman (37:21.400)

has always been the symmetrical response.

Magnus Carlsen (37:23.240)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (37:24.080)

With E5, and then there's the,

Magnus Carlsen (37:26.320)

through Lopez, there's the Petrov opening and so on.

Lex Fridman (37:30.640)

And if you just banned symmetry on the first move in chess,

Magnus Carlsen (37:35.640)

you would get more interesting games.

Lex Fridman (37:37.720)

Oh, interesting.

Magnus Carlsen (37:39.040)

Or you'd get more decisive, decisive games.

Lex Fridman (37:43.500)

So that's the good thing about chess

Magnus Carlsen (37:45.280)

is that we've played it so long

Lex Fridman (37:46.720)

that we've actually devised non symmetrical openings

Magnus Carlsen (37:50.140)

that are also fairly equal and.

Lex Fridman (37:53.640)

But symmetry is a good default.

Lex Fridman (37:55.320)

But yeah, symmetry is a good default.

Lex Fridman (37:57.020)

And it's a problem that by playing symmetrical

Magnus Carlsen (38:00.880)

armed with good preparation in regular chess,

Lex Fridman (38:03.640)

it's just a little bit too easy to,

Magnus Carlsen (38:06.840)

it's a little bit too dryish.

Lex Fridman (38:08.400)

And I guess if you analyzed,

Magnus Carlsen (38:11.960)

if you analyzed a lot in chess 960,

Lex Fridman (38:14.800)

then the, a lot of the positions

Magnus Carlsen (38:19.480)

would end up being pretty dryish as well.

Lex Fridman (38:24.200)

Because the random starting points are so shitty,

Magnus Carlsen (38:26.960)

you're forced to.

Lex Fridman (38:28.160)

You're actually forced to play symmetrically.

Magnus Carlsen (38:30.480)

Like you cannot actually try and play

Lex Fridman (38:33.280)

in a more sort of interesting, interesting manner.

Magnus Carlsen (38:37.600)

Is there any other kind of variations

Lex Fridman (38:39.280)

that are interesting to you?

Magnus Carlsen (38:41.360)

Oh yeah, there are, there are several.

Lex Fridman (38:43.640)

So no castling chess has been,

Magnus Carlsen (38:47.440)

has been promoted by former world champion,

Lex Fridman (38:50.560)

Vladimir Kramnik.

Magnus Carlsen (38:52.200)

There have been a few tournaments with that,

Lex Fridman (38:55.040)

not any that I've participated in though.

Magnus Carlsen (38:59.280)

I kind of like it.

Lex Fridman (39:00.740)

Also, my coach uses like non castling engines quite a bit

Magnus Carlsen (39:05.680)

to analyze regular positions

Lex Fridman (39:08.520)

to just to get a different, different perspective.

Lex Fridman (39:13.280)

So castling is like a defensive thing.

Lex Fridman (39:15.160)

So if you remove castling,

Lex Fridman (39:16.800)

it forces you to be more offensive, is that why?

Lex Fridman (39:19.240)

Yeah, it just, yeah, for sure.

Magnus Carlsen (39:23.240)

It seems like a tiny little difference.

Lex Fridman (39:26.240)

No castling probably forces you

Magnus Carlsen (39:28.420)

to be a little bit more defensive at the start,

Lex Fridman (39:31.880)

or I would guess so,

Magnus Carlsen (39:33.760)

because you cannot suddenly escape with the kings.

Lex Fridman (39:37.560)

It's going to make the game a bit slower at the start,

Lex Fridman (39:40.040)

but I feel like eventually it's going to,

Lex Fridman (39:45.680)

it's going to make the more games more,

Magnus Carlsen (39:48.960)

well, less droish for sure.

Lex Fridman (39:51.360)

Then you have some weirder variants,

Magnus Carlsen (39:53.760)

like where the pawns can move both diagonally and forward.

Lex Fridman (40:02.400)

And also you have self capture chess,

Magnus Carlsen (40:04.700)

which is quite interesting.

Lex Fridman (40:06.440)

So that pawns can,

Lex Fridman (40:08.000)

or pieces could commit suicide or what?

Lex Fridman (40:10.440)

Yeah, people can.

Lex Fridman (40:11.480)

Why would that be a good move?

Lex Fridman (40:13.920)

No, sometimes one of your pieces occupy a square.

Magnus Carlsen (40:17.640)

I mean, let me just set up a position.

Lex Fridman (40:20.880)

Let's put it like this, for instance, like here.

Magnus Carlsen (40:26.560)

I mean, there are a lot of ways to checkmate for white,

Lex Fridman (40:29.520)

like this for instance, or there are several ways,

Lex Fridman (40:32.640)

but like this would be a checkmate.

Lex Fridman (40:36.620)

Oh, cool.

Magnus Carlsen (40:38.160)

For people who are just listening,

Lex Fridman (40:39.400)

yeah, basically you're bringing in a knight close

Magnus Carlsen (40:42.040)

to the whole, the king, the queen and so on,

Lex Fridman (40:45.080)

and you replace the knight with a queen.

Magnus Carlsen (40:46.880)

Yeah, that's interesting.

Lex Fridman (40:47.800)

So you can have like a front of pieces,

Lex Fridman (40:51.840)

and then you just replace them with the second piece.

Lex Fridman (40:54.280)

Yeah, I mean, that could be interesting.

Magnus Carlsen (40:56.600)

I think also maybe sometimes it's just clearance,

Lex Fridman (41:00.480)

basically it adds an extra element of clearance.

Lex Fridman (41:04.880)

So I think there are many, many different variants.

Lex Fridman (41:09.680)

I don't think any of them are better than the one

Magnus Carlsen (41:13.800)

that has been played for at least a thousand years,

Lex Fridman (41:17.120)

but it's certainly interesting to see.

Lex Fridman (41:22.360)

So one of your goals is to reach

Lex Fridman (41:24.000)

the FIDEELO chess rating of 2900.

Magnus Carlsen (41:27.880)

Maybe you can comment on how is this rating calculated

Lex Fridman (41:30.360)

and what does it take to get there?

Lex Fridman (41:33.560)

Is it possible for a human being to get there?

Lex Fridman (41:36.160)

Basically you play with a factor of 10,

Magnus Carlsen (41:39.800)

which means that if I were to play against an opponent

Lex Fridman (41:44.120)

who's rated the same as me, I would be expected

Magnus Carlsen (41:49.120)

to score 50%, obviously, and that means

Lex Fridman (41:51.240)

that I would win five points with a win,

Magnus Carlsen (41:54.360)

lose five points with a draw, and then equal if I draw.

Lex Fridman (41:57.760)

If your opponent is 200 points lower rated,

Magnus Carlsen (42:00.800)

you're expected to score 75% and so on.

Lex Fridman (42:05.720)

And you establish that rating by playing a lot of people,

Lex Fridman (42:08.080)

and then it slowly converges towards an estimate

Lex Fridman (42:11.040)

of how likely you are to win or lose against different people.

Magnus Carlsen (42:13.240)

Yeah, and my rating is obviously carried

Lex Fridman (42:16.680)

through thousands of games.

Magnus Carlsen (42:20.720)

Right now, my rating is 2861, which is decent.

Lex Fridman (42:26.080)

I think that pretty much corresponds

Magnus Carlsen (42:28.920)

to the level I have at the moment,

Lex Fridman (42:32.680)

which means in order to reach 2900,

Magnus Carlsen (42:36.320)

I would have to either get better at chess,

Lex Fridman (42:40.040)

which I think is fairly hard to do,

Magnus Carlsen (42:45.520)

at least considerably better.

Lex Fridman (42:47.200)

So what I would need to do is try and optimize

Magnus Carlsen (42:51.440)

even more in terms of preparations, everything.

Lex Fridman (42:56.440)

Not necessarily like selecting tournaments and so on,

Lex Fridman (42:59.680)

but just optimizing in terms of preparation,

Lex Fridman (43:04.640)

making sure I never have any bad days.

Lex Fridman (43:08.960)

So you basically can't lose.

Lex Fridman (43:10.600)

Yeah, I basically can't fuck up ever

Magnus Carlsen (43:13.440)

if I wanna reach that goal.

Lex Fridman (43:17.560)

And so I think reaching 2900 is pretty unlikely.

Magnus Carlsen (43:22.800)

The reason I've set the goal is to have something

Lex Fridman (43:26.360)

to play for, to have a motivation

Magnus Carlsen (43:31.120)

to actually try and be at my best when I play.

Lex Fridman (43:36.000)

Because otherwise, I'm playing to some extent,

Magnus Carlsen (43:40.560)

mostly for fun these days in that I love to play,

Lex Fridman (43:45.480)

I love to try and win, but I don't have a lot to prove

Magnus Carlsen (43:51.520)

or anything, but that gives me at least the motivation

Lex Fridman (43:55.080)

to try and be at my best all the time,

Magnus Carlsen (43:59.000)

which I think is something to aim for.

Lex Fridman (44:02.240)

So at the moment, I'm quite enjoying that process

Magnus Carlsen (44:05.760)

of trying to, yeah, trying to optimize.

Lex Fridman (44:12.080)

What would you say motivates you in this now

Lex Fridman (44:15.600)

and in the years leading up to now?

Lex Fridman (44:17.960)

The love of winning or the fear of losing?

Lex Fridman (44:22.880)

So for the World Championship,

Lex Fridman (44:25.880)

it's been fear of losing for sure.

Magnus Carlsen (44:29.360)

Other tournaments, love of winning is a great, great factor

Lex Fridman (44:34.360)

and that's why I also get more joy

Magnus Carlsen (44:36.800)

from winning most tournaments than I do

Lex Fridman (44:39.320)

for winning the World Championship

Magnus Carlsen (44:41.200)

because then it's mostly been a relief.

Lex Fridman (44:44.560)

I also think I enjoy winning more now than I did before

Magnus Carlsen (44:48.520)

because I feel like I'm a little bit more relaxed now.

Lex Fridman (44:52.800)

And I also know that it's not gonna last forever.

Lex Fridman (44:57.080)

So every little win, I appreciate a lot more now.

Lex Fridman (45:02.080)

And yeah, in terms of fear of losing,

Magnus Carlsen (45:05.680)

that's a huge reason why I'm not gonna play

Lex Fridman (45:08.720)

the World Championship

Magnus Carlsen (45:09.640)

because it really didn't give me a lot of joy.

Lex Fridman (45:14.640)

It really was all about avoiding losing.

Lex Fridman (45:17.320)

Why is it that the World Championship

Lex Fridman (45:19.320)

really makes you feel this way, the anxiety?

Lex Fridman (45:22.280)

So when you say losing, do you mean not just the match

Lex Fridman (45:26.240)

but every single position, like the fear of a blunder?

Magnus Carlsen (45:31.240)

No, I mean, the blunder is okay.

Lex Fridman (45:32.960)

Like when I sit down at the board,

Magnus Carlsen (45:34.960)

then it's mostly been fine because then I'm focused on.

Lex Fridman (45:38.560)

Got it.

Magnus Carlsen (45:39.400)

Then I'm focused on the game

Lex Fridman (45:40.560)

and then I know that I can play the game.

Magnus Carlsen (45:42.520)

It's a time like in between, like knowing that,

Lex Fridman (45:45.680)

you know, I feel like losing is not an option

Magnus Carlsen (45:49.120)

because it's the World Championship

Lex Fridman (45:50.640)

and because in a World Championship, there are two players.

Magnus Carlsen (45:53.320)

There's a winner and a loser.

Lex Fridman (45:56.120)

If I don't win a random tournament that I play,

Magnus Carlsen (45:59.760)

then, you know, I'm usually, it depends on the tournament.

Lex Fridman (46:03.680)

I might be disappointed for sure.

Magnus Carlsen (46:06.320)

Might even be pretty pissed,

Lex Fridman (46:07.760)

but ultimately, you know, you go on to the next one.

Magnus Carlsen (46:11.920)

With the World Championship,

Lex Fridman (46:12.800)

you don't go on to the next one.

Magnus Carlsen (46:14.920)

It's like, it's years.

Lex Fridman (46:17.400)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (46:18.240)

And it also has been like,

Lex Fridman (46:20.880)

it's been a core part of my identity for a while now

Magnus Carlsen (46:24.280)

that I am World Champion.

Lex Fridman (46:26.440)

And so there's not an option of losing that.

Magnus Carlsen (46:31.640)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (46:32.480)

Yeah, there's, you're gonna have to,

Magnus Carlsen (46:34.360)

at least for a couple of years,

Lex Fridman (46:36.000)

carry the weight of having lost.

Magnus Carlsen (46:39.440)

You're the former World Champion now,

Lex Fridman (46:42.360)

if you lose versus the current World Champion.

Magnus Carlsen (46:46.040)

There are certain sports that create that anxiety

Lex Fridman (46:51.080)

and others that don't.

Magnus Carlsen (46:52.360)

For example, I think UFC, like mixed martial arts

Lex Fridman (46:55.640)

are a little better with losing.

Magnus Carlsen (46:57.560)

It's understood, like everybody loses.

Lex Fridman (47:00.360)

But then.

Magnus Carlsen (47:01.200)

Not everybody though.

Lex Fridman (47:02.040)

Not everybody.

Magnus Carlsen (47:02.880)

Not everybody.

Lex Fridman (47:03.720)

Not everybody.

Magnus Carlsen (47:04.560)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (47:05.680)

Khabib entered the chat.

Lex Fridman (47:08.880)

But in boxing, there is like that extra pressure

Lex Fridman (47:11.400)

of like maintaining the championship.

Magnus Carlsen (47:13.520)

I mean, maybe you could say the same thing

Lex Fridman (47:14.920)

about the UFC as well.

Lex Fridman (47:17.200)

So for you personally, for a person who loves chess,

Lex Fridman (47:22.040)

the first time you won the World Championship,

Magnus Carlsen (47:23.760)

that was the big, that was the thing that was fun.

Lex Fridman (47:28.160)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (47:29.000)

And then everything after is like stressful.

Lex Fridman (47:32.160)

Yeah.

Magnus Carlsen (47:33.760)

Essentially.

Lex Fridman (47:34.800)

There was certainly stress involved the first time as well.

Lex Fridman (47:39.480)

But it was nothing compared to the others.

Lex Fridman (47:44.760)

So the only World Championship after that

Magnus Carlsen (47:46.920)

that I really enjoyed was the one in 2018

Lex Fridman (47:49.640)

against the American Fabiano Caruana.

Lex Fridman (47:51.800)

And what that made that different

Lex Fridman (47:53.600)

is that I'd been kind of slumping for a bit

Lex Fridman (47:57.160)

and he'd been on the rise.

Lex Fridman (47:58.760)

So our ratings were very, very similar.

Magnus Carlsen (48:01.720)

They were so close that if at any point during the match

Lex Fridman (48:06.560)

I'd lost the game,

Magnus Carlsen (48:09.920)

he would have been ranked as number one in the world.

Lex Fridman (48:12.400)

Like our ratings were so close that for each draw,

Magnus Carlsen (48:15.120)

they didn't move.

Lex Fridman (48:16.680)

And.

Lex Fridman (48:17.520)

And the game itself was close.

Lex Fridman (48:18.800)

Yeah, the games themselves were very close.

Magnus Carlsen (48:21.720)

I had a winning position in the first game

Lex Fridman (48:26.600)

that I couldn't really get anywhere for a lot of games.

Magnus Carlsen (48:28.880)

Then he had a couple of games

Lex Fridman (48:31.200)

where he could potentially have won.

Magnus Carlsen (48:34.080)

Then in the last game I was a little bit better.

Lex Fridman (48:37.040)

And eventually they were all drawn.

Lex Fridman (48:40.520)

But I felt like all the way

Lex Fridman (48:41.960)

that this is an interesting match against an opponent

Magnus Carlsen (48:45.000)

who is at this position at this point equal to me.

Lex Fridman (48:49.720)

And so losing that would not have been this disaster.

Magnus Carlsen (48:53.640)

Because in all the other matches,

Lex Fridman (48:55.440)

I would know that I would have lost against somebody

Magnus Carlsen (48:59.240)

who I know I'm much better than.

Lex Fridman (49:02.280)

And that would be a lot harder for me to take.

Magnus Carlsen (49:07.400)

Well, that's fascinating and beautiful

Lex Fridman (49:09.040)

that the stress isn't from losing.

Magnus Carlsen (49:12.440)

Because you have fun.

Lex Fridman (49:14.440)

You enjoy playing against somebody who's as good as you,

Magnus Carlsen (49:17.280)

maybe better than you.

Lex Fridman (49:18.760)

That's exciting to you.

Magnus Carlsen (49:20.200)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (49:21.040)

It's losing at this high stakes thing

Magnus Carlsen (49:24.400)

that only happens rarely to a person

Lex Fridman (49:27.400)

who's not as good as you.

Magnus Carlsen (49:28.640)

Yeah, and that's why it's also been incredibly frustrating

Lex Fridman (49:31.760)

in other matches, like when I know,

Magnus Carlsen (49:34.480)

when we play draw after draw.

Lex Fridman (49:36.840)

And I can just, I know that I'm better.

Magnus Carlsen (49:39.560)

I can sense during the game

Lex Fridman (49:41.520)

that I understand it better than them.

Lex Fridman (49:43.320)

But I cannot get over the hump.

Lex Fridman (49:46.200)

So you are the best chess player in the world.

Lex Fridman (49:51.120)

And you not playing the World Championship

Lex Fridman (49:53.600)

really makes the World Championship not seem important.

Magnus Carlsen (49:58.120)

Or I mean, there's an argument to be made for that.

Lex Fridman (50:01.400)

Is there anything you would like to see

Magnus Carlsen (50:03.720)

if you had a change about the World Championship

Lex Fridman (50:05.480)

that would make it more fun for you?

Lex Fridman (50:07.080)

And better for the game of chess period

Lex Fridman (50:09.200)

for everybody involved?

Lex Fridman (50:10.640)

So I think 12 games or now 14 games

Lex Fridman (50:14.400)

that there is for the World Championship

Magnus Carlsen (50:16.120)

is a fairly, fairly low sample size.

Lex Fridman (50:20.160)

If you want to determine who the best player is,

Magnus Carlsen (50:23.120)

or at least the best player in that particular matchup,

Lex Fridman (50:26.480)

you need more games.

Lex Fridman (50:27.760)

And I think to some extent,

Lex Fridman (50:31.800)

if you're gonna have a World Champion

Lex Fridman (50:34.080)

and call them the best players,

Lex Fridman (50:36.000)

best player, you gotta make sure

Magnus Carlsen (50:37.280)

that the format increases the chance

Lex Fridman (50:39.720)

of finding the best player.

Lex Fridman (50:41.920)

So I think having more games,

Lex Fridman (50:43.960)

and if you're gonna have a lot more games,

Magnus Carlsen (50:45.880)

then you need to decrease the time control a bit,

Lex Fridman (50:50.240)

which in turn, I think is also a good thing

Magnus Carlsen (50:54.120)

because in very long time controls with deep preparation,

Lex Fridman (50:59.840)

you can sort of mask a lot of your deficiencies

Magnus Carlsen (51:03.000)

as a chess player

Lex Fridman (51:07.000)

because you have a lot of time to think and to defend.

Lex Fridman (51:10.680)

And also, yeah, you have deep preparation.

Lex Fridman (51:14.440)

So I think those would be, for me to play,

Magnus Carlsen (51:17.960)

those would be the main things,

Lex Fridman (51:22.000)

more games and less time.

Lex Fridman (51:24.760)

So you want to see more games

Lex Fridman (51:26.720)

and rules that emphasize pure chess?

Magnus Carlsen (51:30.200)

Yeah, but already less time emphasizes pure chess

Lex Fridman (51:35.680)

because defensive techniques are much harder

Magnus Carlsen (51:40.480)

to execute with a little time.

Lex Fridman (51:42.360)

What do you think, is there a sweet spot in terms of,

Lex Fridman (51:45.040)

are we talking about Blitz?

Lex Fridman (51:46.240)

Is it, how many minutes?

Magnus Carlsen (51:47.080)

I think Blitz is a bit too fast.

Lex Fridman (51:49.560)

To their credit, this was suggested by Fieda as well.

Magnus Carlsen (51:53.960)

For a start to have two games per day,

Lex Fridman (51:57.240)

and let's say you have 45 minutes a game

Magnus Carlsen (52:01.240)

plus 15 or 30 seconds per move,

Lex Fridman (52:04.320)

that means that each sessions will probably be about,

Magnus Carlsen (52:07.440)

or a little less than two hours.

Lex Fridman (52:10.120)

That would be a start.

Magnus Carlsen (52:11.880)

Also what we're playing in the tournament

Lex Fridman (52:14.880)

that I'm playing here in Miami,

Magnus Carlsen (52:17.520)

which is four games a day

Lex Fridman (52:20.400)

with 15 minutes plus 10 seconds per move,

Magnus Carlsen (52:24.360)

those four would be more interesting

Lex Fridman (52:27.280)

than the one there is now.

Lex Fridman (52:29.720)

And I understand that there are a lot of traditions.

Lex Fridman (52:32.720)

People don't want to change the World Championship.

Magnus Carlsen (52:35.040)

That's all fine.

Lex Fridman (52:36.240)

I just think that the World Championship

Magnus Carlsen (52:40.320)

should do a better job of trying to reflect

Lex Fridman (52:42.760)

who's the best overall chess player.

Lex Fridman (52:46.280)

So would you say like, if it's faster games,

Lex Fridman (52:50.200)

you'd probably be able to get a sample size

Magnus Carlsen (52:52.040)

of like over 20 games, 20, 30, 40.

Lex Fridman (52:55.320)

You think there's a number that's good

Lex Fridman (52:56.800)

over a long period of time?

Lex Fridman (52:58.400)

Well, I would prefer as many as possible.

Lex Fridman (53:00.280)

So like a hundred?

Lex Fridman (53:02.520)

Yeah, but let's say you play 12 days, two games a day.

Magnus Carlsen (53:07.400)

You know, that's 24.

Lex Fridman (53:09.120)

I feel like that's already quite a bit better.

Magnus Carlsen (53:11.480)

You play like one black game, one white game each day.

Lex Fridman (53:15.920)

Endurance wise, that's okay?

Magnus Carlsen (53:17.360)

Yeah, I think that's fine.

Lex Fridman (53:18.240)

Like you will have free days as well.

Lex Fridman (53:19.680)

So I don't think that will be a problem.

Lex Fridman (53:23.480)

And also you have to prepare two sets of openings

Magnus Carlsen (53:26.320)

for each day, which makes it more difficult

Lex Fridman (53:29.120)

for the teams preparing, which I think is also good.

Magnus Carlsen (53:32.560)

Let me ask you a fun question.

Lex Fridman (53:34.480)

If Hikaru Nakamura was one of the two people,

Magnus Carlsen (53:39.840)

I guess, I apologize.

Lex Fridman (53:41.480)

Yeah, he could have finished second.

Lex Fridman (53:43.760)

So he lost the last round of the candidates.

Lex Fridman (53:45.760)

Yeah, and maybe you can explain to me,

Magnus Carlsen (53:48.440)

internet speed copium is something you tweeted.

Lex Fridman (53:51.920)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (53:53.000)

But if he got second, would you just despite him

Lex Fridman (53:59.040)

still play the world championship?

Magnus Carlsen (54:01.200)

That's internet question.

Lex Fridman (54:02.680)

And when the internet asks, I must abide.

Magnus Carlsen (54:04.960)

The dude abides.

Lex Fridman (54:06.440)

Yeah, sure.

Magnus Carlsen (54:07.600)

Thank you, internet.

Lex Fridman (54:10.920)

So after the last match, I did an interview

Magnus Carlsen (54:17.160)

right after where I talked about the fact

Lex Fridman (54:20.120)

that I was unlikely to play the next one.

Magnus Carlsen (54:22.360)

I'd spoken privately to both family, friends,

Lex Fridman (54:26.680)

and of course also my chess team

Magnus Carlsen (54:29.080)

that this was likely going to be the last match.

Lex Fridman (54:34.960)

What happened was that right before

Magnus Carlsen (54:38.160)

the world championship match,

Lex Fridman (54:39.320)

there was this young player, Alireza Firouzsa.

Magnus Carlsen (54:42.240)

He had a dramatic rise.

Lex Fridman (54:43.560)

He rose to second in the world rankings.

Magnus Carlsen (54:46.120)

He was 18 then, he's 19 now.

Lex Fridman (54:48.920)

He qualified for the candidates.

Lex Fridman (54:50.920)

And it felt like there was like at least

Lex Fridman (54:53.040)

a half realistic possibility that he could be the challenger

Magnus Carlsen (54:59.360)

for the next world championship.

Lex Fridman (55:01.520)

And that sort of lit a fire under me.

Lex Fridman (55:04.520)

Do you like that idea?

Lex Fridman (55:05.360)

Yeah, I like that a lot.

Magnus Carlsen (55:07.440)

I love the idea of playing him in the next world championship.

Lex Fridman (55:11.800)

And originally, I was sure that I wanted to announce

Magnus Carlsen (55:16.640)

right after the tournament, the match,

Lex Fridman (55:19.080)

that this was it, I'm done.

Magnus Carlsen (55:20.720)

I'm not playing the next one.

Lex Fridman (55:22.600)

But this lit a fire under me.

Lex Fridman (55:24.120)

So that made me think, this actually motivates me.

Lex Fridman (55:29.720)

And I just wanted to get it out there for several reasons

Magnus Carlsen (55:33.120)

to create more hype about the candidates,

Lex Fridman (55:36.680)

to sort of motivate myself a little bit,

Magnus Carlsen (55:40.240)

maybe motivate him.

Lex Fridman (55:42.320)

Also, obviously I wanted to give people a heads up

Magnus Carlsen (55:45.840)

for the candidates that you might be playing

Lex Fridman (55:49.600)

for more than first place.

Magnus Carlsen (55:53.360)

Normally, the candidates is first place or best.

Lex Fridman (55:56.280)

It's like the world championship.

Lex Fridman (55:59.160)

And then, so Nakamura was one of many people

Lex Fridman (56:02.360)

who just didn't believe me, which is fair.

Magnus Carlsen (56:05.520)

Because I've talked before about not necessarily wanting

Lex Fridman (56:10.120)

to defend again.

Lex Fridman (56:11.960)

But I never talked as concretely or was as serious as this time.

Lex Fridman (56:16.880)

So he simply didn't believe me.

Lex Fridman (56:19.000)

And he was very vocal about that.

Lex Fridman (56:21.200)

And he said, nobody believed me, no other players,

Magnus Carlsen (56:24.400)

which may or may not have been true.

Lex Fridman (56:27.120)

And then, yeah, he lost the last game.

Lex Fridman (56:29.240)

And he didn't qualify.

Lex Fridman (56:31.720)

But to answer the question, no, I'd already at that point

Magnus Carlsen (56:35.520)

decided that I wouldn't play.

Lex Fridman (56:38.160)

I would have liked it less if he had not lost the last round.

Lex Fridman (56:44.400)

But the decision was already made.

Lex Fridman (56:48.680)

Does it break your heart a little bit

Lex Fridman (56:51.200)

that you're walking away from it?

Lex Fridman (56:54.440)

In all the ways that you mentioned

Magnus Carlsen (56:55.920)

that it's just not fun, there's a bunch of ways

Lex Fridman (56:59.000)

that it doesn't seem to bring out the best kind of chess.

Magnus Carlsen (57:02.000)

It doesn't bring out the best out of you

Lex Fridman (57:03.920)

in the particular opponents involved.

Lex Fridman (57:05.720)

Does it just break your heart a little bit?

Lex Fridman (57:07.440)

Like you're walking away from something,

Magnus Carlsen (57:10.880)

or maybe the entire chess community

Lex Fridman (57:12.440)

is walking away from a kind of a historic event that

Lex Fridman (57:17.320)

was so important in the 20th century at least?

Lex Fridman (57:20.960)

So I won the championship in 2013.

Magnus Carlsen (57:23.840)

I said no to the candidates in 2011.

Lex Fridman (57:28.520)

I didn't particularly like the format.

Magnus Carlsen (57:30.720)

I also wasn't, I was just not in the mood.

Lex Fridman (57:34.040)

I didn't want the pressure that was connected with the World

Magnus Carlsen (57:39.520)

Championship.

Lex Fridman (57:40.120)

And I was perfectly content at the time

Magnus Carlsen (57:42.960)

to play the tournaments that I did play,

Lex Fridman (57:46.320)

also to be ranked number one in the world.

Magnus Carlsen (57:48.840)

I was comfortable with the fact that I knew that I was the best

Lex Fridman (57:52.880)

and I didn't need a title to show others.

Lex Fridman (57:56.960)

And what happened later is I suddenly decided to play.

Lex Fridman (58:02.080)

In 2013, they changed the format.

Magnus Carlsen (58:05.240)

I liked it better.

Lex Fridman (58:08.280)

I just decided, it could be interesting.

Magnus Carlsen (58:11.080)

Let's try and get this.

Lex Fridman (58:13.680)

There really wasn't more than that to it.

Magnus Carlsen (58:17.280)

It wasn't like fulfilling lifelong dream or anything.

Lex Fridman (58:21.840)

I just thought, let's play.

Lex Fridman (58:25.160)

So it's just a cool tournament, a good challenge.

Lex Fridman (58:27.160)

Yeah, it's a cool tournament, it's a good challenge.

Lex Fridman (58:30.400)

Why not?

Lex Fridman (58:31.160)

It's something that could be a motivation.

Magnus Carlsen (58:35.040)

It motivated me to get in the best shape of my life

Lex Fridman (58:39.120)

that I had been until then.

Lex Fridman (58:40.520)

So it was a good thing.

Lex Fridman (58:42.280)

And 2013 match brought me a lot of joy as well.

Lex Fridman (58:46.640)

So I'm very, very happy that I did that.

Lex Fridman (58:49.400)

But I never had any thoughts that I'm

Magnus Carlsen (58:50.960)

going to keep the title for a long time.

Lex Fridman (58:54.280)

Immediately after the match in 2013,

Magnus Carlsen (58:58.800)

also before the match, I'd spoken against the fact

Lex Fridman (59:01.920)

that the champion is seeded into the final, which

Magnus Carlsen (59:04.440)

I thought was unfair.

Lex Fridman (59:07.320)

After the match, I made a proposal

Magnus Carlsen (59:10.600)

that we have a different system where the champion doesn't

Lex Fridman (59:13.800)

have these privileges.

Lex Fridman (59:14.880)

And people's reaction, both players and chess community,

Lex Fridman (59:19.080)

was generally like, OK, we're good.

Magnus Carlsen (59:22.120)

We don't want that.

Lex Fridman (59:23.960)

You keep your privileges.

Lex Fridman (59:26.080)

And I was like, OK, whatever.

Lex Fridman (59:27.920)

So you want to fight for it every time?

Magnus Carlsen (59:30.080)

Yeah, I want that.

Lex Fridman (59:34.480)

I have to ask, just in case you have an opinion,

Magnus Carlsen (59:37.360)

if you can maybe from a fantasy chess perspective

Lex Fridman (59:41.000)

analyze Ding versus Nepo, who wins?

Magnus Carlsen (59:45.520)

The current, the two people that would

Lex Fridman (59:48.080)

play if you're not playing.

Magnus Carlsen (59:50.520)

Generally, I would consider that Ding has a slightly better

Lex Fridman (59:54.600)

overall chess strength.

Lex Fridman (59:57.160)

What are the strengths and weaknesses of each,

Lex Fridman (59:59.360)

if you can summarize it?