How Magnus Carlsen Became the Youngest Chess Grandmaster in the World Page 2
This book records the history of phenomenon Magnus Carlsen and aims to describe a marvelous tale, the way those of us around Magnus experienced it.
My thanks to New In Chess for publishing the book. I have also had valuable comments on the text from my niece, Maren Agdestein and from my wife, Marianne Aasen Agdestein.
Eirik Gullaksen also deserves profound tribute for his awesome web site (http://home.online.no/~eirikgu/bs.htm), where everything that has happened in Norwegian chess in recent years is catalogued. This has made research a rewarding job.
Even greater thanks to Henrik Carlsen, Magnus’ father. Without his stories it would have been impossible to write this book. And thanks of course to Magnus, who has pleased so many with his fantastic progress.
The book has come to pass in the course of three hectic summer months, between other duties – thanks also to my family, who have been very patient with me.
Simen Agdestein
Asker, Norway
August 2004
1 A clever boy
Childhood years to New Year 2000
‘Why do people ride horses?’
– question by Magnus before a five-year pause from getting up on horseback.
Magnus learned chess relatively late to become a 13-year-old grandmaster. He learned how to move the pieces at five, which is just about early enough. His father Henrik, who is an able club player, tried to pass on his beloved hobby to his children, and began by spotting them all of his pieces, as in this diagram:
Magnus played White but, alas, things went so slowly! Magnus did not appear to understand much so his father dropped the project. There were not going to be any Polgar feats here. A comparison with the Hungarian Polgar family is relevant. They also succeeded in producing a child prodigy (or rather three!), but their method was quite different. Already at the age of four, Zsuzsa, the eldest of three sisters, was given the choice if she wanted to be a mathematician or a chess player. She chose, understandably enough, to be a chess player – much more fun! – and after that there was full focus on chess and private trainers all the way. Even school was dropped, with the children gaining permission to study at home and take exams on their own.
Father Polgar regarded this as a social experiment. He wanted to see if one could train forth a genius. And, in fact, he succeeded. Zsuzsa became a grandmaster and eventually women’s world champion while middle sister Sofia became an international master. But the youngest of the trio, Judit, would really become a superstar. She was about as good as Magnus is now at a comparable age but as she had fewer tournaments to play in she needed a bit of time to become a grandmaster. When she was 15 years, four months and 28 days old she achieved this esteemed title, the chess world’s highest. This still gave her plenty of time to become one of the absolute world elite. Today she is one of the biggest chess stars around and on January 1 of this year she occupied the eighth spot in the world rankings.
The Polgar family also started with a simplified form of chess. But instead of one side playing without pieces, the gifted chess teachers took away all pieces from both sides, kings included, leaving only the pawns behind:
White moves first and the first player to get a pawn across to the eighth rank wins. It’s quite an amusing game, give it a try!
While the Polgar girls concentrated hard on chess from the age of four, things went a bit more slowly for Magnus. Father Carlsen did not see any particular chess talent in his son and didn’t try to push him. Henrik tried again a bit when Magnus was 6-7 years old, but strangely enough the seeds of the boy’s chess talent remained well hidden.
But a brain can be used in other ways. The Carlsen family had always been conscientious about giving their children intellectual challenges, and it quickly became clear that Magnus had extreme qualities on the analytic front. Before the age of two Magnus could solve jigsaw puzzles with over 50 pieces, and when he was four he could sit all day and build advanced Lego models with lengthy instructions intended for the 10-14 year-old group.
After such ‘Lego days’ where Magnus was totally absorbed building for hours, he could lie awake at night, wide-eyed and unable to sleep because he kept thinking about Lego. This feeling is well known to chess players, but then all thoughts flit around the 64 squares in black and white.
Magnus also developed his analytical powers early with math problems. This interest first appeared when he started first grade. One doesn’t encounter very advanced problems at that age but Magnus was soon consumed with increasingly complex calculations. He could solve problems in his head faster then than when he left primary school seven years later – something had been lost along the way.
A good memory is another important aptitude for those who want to become good at chess – at least it is a very useful ability. Magnus’ memory is formidable. In my attempts to explain to journalists and others how impressive Magnus’ performances at the chessboard are, I used to point out that at the age of five he knew the area and population of all of Norway’s 430 municipalities. ‘Then you hook up this brain to chess, add eight years of development and you can imagine what we are talking about.’
It turns out that I have not been completely accurate. What Magnus knew by heart at the age of five was the area, population, flag and capital of all the countries in the world. After this he began a similar project with all of Norway’s municipalities, a task of roughly twice the size. Here he could make occasional errors, but he learned ‘practically everything’, including the coats of arms on municipal shields as well as areas, populations and capitals.
In our chess sessions many years later I have had the pleasure of witnessing several episodes of similar character. After Magnus finished second at the U-12 World Championship (for junior players under 12 years of age) in 2002 we had a visit from a TV reporter from Norwegian Broadcasting. I praised Magnus’ memory and pulled out one of the approximately 500 chess books on my shelves and said that Magnus surely remembered all of these games. My choice fell upon a collection of Vladimir Kramnik’s best games that I knew Magnus had at home. I pointed out the diagram below, covered the rest of the page, and asked who played black and white here:
With an alert camera man filming everything, Magnus replied immediately and correctly: ‘Kramnik-Ehlvest’. And then: ‘By the way, it was played in Vienna 1996,’. That was right as well.
This ability to remember games and positions is obviously extremely useful in a sport like chess. In my computer’s database I have 2,607,014 games – and that is without updating it with the last 50,000 games that have been played in major events in the last six months. The first games in the base, which stem from the 1500s, are perhaps not so interesting. But, on the other hand, what has happened in the last 150 years develops like Darwinist evolution, where emerging players constantly learn from their forebears.
One can read books on chess theory where one, in a way, reads the result of this long development. But if one is truly to delve into and understand chess one must both go back through history and study the games of the old masters and follow modern grandmaster play, where chess theory is developing at a furious pace. What was assessed as good for White last year can perhaps be good for Black now, thanks to a surprising new idea from a well-known player. So you just can’t memorise chess – the material is far too fluid. Chess must be understood. But understanding must be founded on something, and there memory comes in as an important tool.
The enormous flow of computer information has also posed challenges. With a few simple keystrokes one can categorise all of the games in a database in different ways. It only takes a few seconds to cough up all the games of any possible opponent. For example, it took me eight seconds to find all of the roughly 300 games Magnus has managed to play so far in international tournaments. Games from lesser events don’t appear but all grandmaster games and everything significant is constantly being added on top of an already extensive archive of material.
So when Magnus prepares before a game it takes little time to
check the opponent’s games and find out which openings he or she plays and then find something to do against just that. But it also demands an ability to absorb large amounts of information. After a while there is so much to digest that it can quickly become chaos.
Magnus also has a fantastic ability to read chess books. By the age of nine he could sit for hours with advanced chess books in English and play through the games in his head, without a board and pieces. Real chess players read chess books the way others read gossip magazines and this was something Magnus picked up early.
Just before Magnus made his first grandmaster norm in Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands in January 2004 there was another impressive episode where we got a little glimpse of what is in this little boy’s brain. We sat with all of the chess students at NTG (Norwegian College for Top Athletes) and analysed a pupil’s game. After an unusual variation in the Petroff Defence and the moves: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Nxe5 0-0 5.Be2 Re8 6.Nd3 Bxc3 7.dxc3 Nxe4 8.0-0 d5 9.Nf4 c6 10.c4 d4, we had the following position on the board.
I didn’t know this and thought the position looked a bit strange. For Magnus, on the other hand, this position stirred something deep in his sub-conscious, because he suddenly said: ‘This is Adams-Hübner!’, in other words, a game played between these two grandmasters.
Those assembled were rather impressed. For fun, I asked if he also remembered where and when the game was played. ‘Dortmund 1997’ was the immediate reply. The database was called up to quickly check if this was right. It was, except that the game was played in 1996, not 1997 – news that was met with ironic boos and sarcastic cries of disappointment and derision from the others. And this was in a position from an extremely unusual opening that Magnus had never played with white or black.
The day before Magnus had given a blindfold simultaneous against five of the students, who are among the best junior players in Norway. None of the players had a board or pieces but to make it a little easier for the students I let them write down the moves. Magnus just went around without any type of aid, only seeing the games in his head, and won easily, 4½-½. He won four games and one was a draw. The games were both long and complex but Magnus had no problems keeping track of everything in his head and in addition outplaying the country’s junior elite.
Grandmaster Rune Djurhuus holds the Norwegian record for blindfold simultaneous chess with 14 games, which is also very impressive. I tried to do what Magnus did against the same five students but had to admit that I had no chance at all to succeed. After just a few moves everything turned to soup and I could no longer manage to remember anything.
If you are really going to become a top chess player however, it is not just enough with a well-trained head – one also has to be physically fit. A game of tournament chess can often last four to five hours and is like an exacting exam. And a tournament is most often nine games long. In recent years Magnus has played 100-150 tournament games a year and this is unquestionably physically demanding.
Between all the playing and studying Magnus is an active young boy – like any average 13-year-old. Many a time he has not had time to study chess with me because he had to go skiing or play in a football match. Football has a special pull for Magnus. He plays like a little terrier and clearly revels in being able to motor around. He has even competed in ski jumping, but chose to retire at the age of ten. His personal record is 21 meters.
The Carlsens often hike in the mountains and Magnus loves to scale peaks, but he is even more occupied with intellectual pursuits. Once, when Magnus was five, father Henrik took the children – Magnus and sisters Ellen and Ingrid – on a two-day trip northwestwards in Jotunheimen from their cabin at Tyinkrysset. They drove to Juvasshytta and hoped to be part of a group climb up to Galdhøpiggen, at 2,469 metres Norway’s highest mountain. But Magnus was too small and they were not allowed to join. Magnus nevertheless wanted to reach the top. So, they set off on another, longer path and still managed to scale the country’s highest mountain peak.
Afterwards his father jokingly asked what had been the high point of the trip – scaling Galdhøpiggen, slalom skiing at Juvasshytta or seeing the municipal shield of little Luster, which Magnus recognised from his fact book. Magnus took the question seriously and after long thought replied, ‘That would have been the municipal shield!’
Magnus is also a fervent sports enthusiast. At the age of six or seven he started to read the thick sports volumes that record all of the year’s top performances. He read them in the same way he read about countries and municipalities, not trying to learn it all by heart, but just remembering what he read. The sports pages in newspapers are also diligently examined. He also likes to watch debate programs on television and listens eagerly to historical chronicles and Viking sagas.
Riding, on the other hand, is a pastime that is more popular with his sisters. When he was four-and-a-half years old, again at the cabin in Tyinkrysset, Magnus had the chance to ride a horse four days in a row. Everyone thought this was terrific, but suddenly Magnus, who sat with his legs dangling on horseback, asked: ‘Why do people ride horses?’ It would be another five years before he climbed up on horseback again.
Magnus learned the rules of chess when he was five but nothing more that stopped him from still falling for Scholar’s Mate as an eight-year-old, something that tends to be the first thing a beginner learns. It goes like this: 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Qh5 Nf6 4.Qxf7 mate.
But then things finally began to happen. Magnus began to sit by himself and shuffle the pieces. He could sit for hours moving the pieces, in known and unknown patterns, finding combinations and repeating games or positions that his father had shown him. In this way, he developed a good feeling for the patterns of movement of the individual pieces.
Often he played with himself and generally looked for combinations for both sides. If, for example, White had pressure, he would readily let Black make a careless move that allowed a nice combination, which would give him great pleasure. In this way he built up a tactical eye and an interest for the secrets of chess combinations.
Eight years and seven months old he took part in his first tournament. In the Norwegian Championships in Gausdal in July 1999 Magnus scored 6½ out of 11 in the youngest class. He was not above leaving pawns hanging, but the starting gun of his career had sounded.
In the autumn Magnus played in many children’s tournaments in his area and his progress was immediately explosive. By the time I first met Magnus in January 2000, again at a Gausdal tournament, it was easy to see that he was exceptionally talented.
2 A smart student
January 2000 to summer 2001
‘He was not bad at all.’
– laconic comment by Anders Bekker-Jensen after he needed all the luck in the world to hold nine-year-old Magnus to a draw.
I remember well the first time I saw Magnus Carlsen. It was winter, an ice-cold January at Gausdal Høyfjellshotell, dubbed Norway’s ‘chess Mecca’. My students studying chess at NTG were competing in the traditional Troll Masters tournament and I had made the trip up on the final weekend to coach them. Alongside the international tournament there were several small open events and some of the students were playing in these instead. Magnus was as well.
I strolled around the playing hall and looked at the games with a stiff, neutral expression and without speaking to anyone so that no one would think that I was giving advice to my students. I know how it is when an opponent goes out to stretch his legs between moves and perhaps has a little chat in a foreign language with a compatriot. Maybe they are talking about what they are going to do later that evening or something else of little significance, but they may also be discussing possible variations in the game. One doesn’t know and, either way, it is irritating. This is something that I have constantly tried to hammer into the heads of my restless students that scuttle around in radiant good humour and can’t keep their mouths shut. During a chess game you don’t talk to each other!
This was the reason that I was quite ann
oyed when one of my students came sweeping in with a big grin and loudly pointed out that a fellow pupil had a rook less than his tiny adversary, a boy that could barely reach across the board. Yes, it was a bit sensational. Anders Bekker-Jensen from Denmark, who at that time had a rating of about 1700, was hanging on by a thread against the little boy. But then, perhaps disturbed by the hubbub around him, Magnus blundered back and the game ended in a draw.
‘He was not bad at all,’ was Anders’ laconic comment after the game. He didn’t laugh. Maybe he had a dim suspicion that in four years and three months time that little boy would become the youngest grandmaster in the world.
The game against Anders has disappeared, but instead we can show Magnus’ first victory in a standard tournament for adults. The victim was Erling Fløtten, former mayor of Finnmark County and ex-president of the Norwegian Chess Federation.
Erling Fløtten
Magnus Carlsen
Gausdal 2000
1.e4 c5 2.c3 d5 The easiest way to meet White’s second move. With a pawn on c3 the queen cannot be chased from d5 and the rule that the queen should not enter play so early in the game has less bearing. 3.exd5 Qxd5 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.Be2 g6 Magnus shows an early affection for fianchettoing – developing on the long diagonal – his dark-squared bishop as Black. 6.c4? This creates a hole on d4 and cannot be good. 6…Qd8 7.Nc3 Bg7 8.h3 0-0 9.d3 Nc6 10.Be3 b6 11.0-0 White should probably aim for equality with d3-d4 either here or on the next move. 11…Bb7 12.a3 Nd4! Magnus secures a space advantage. 13.Bxd4 cxd4 14.Na2 What a sad spot for the knight. 14…Nh5! There is an interesting outpost for the knight on f4. 15.Qd2 e5 16.Rfe1 Nf4 17.Bd1 Bh6 With a clear threat. 18.Kh2