How Carlsen makes us feel better about chess IV

What phase of your career do you feel you are in?

'I don't know. I feel that I have been in the game for a long time already and I think if you do the right things, you can be good for a very long time. I feel that I am closer to the start than to the end of my prime. I enjoy playing and I still have so much to work on. It's very obvious to me that I can still be much better, and from tournament to tournament I am trying to learn something new about chess or about myself. But it's not easy. I've got to be better now. I had a few poor tournaments last year. Then I felt like I turned myself around, but now I need to take the next steps. I cannot remain stuck at the level I am at now...not only as regards chess, but as regards the combination of chess and psychology'

 (From New in Chess 2016-4, interview with Magnus Carlsen after winning Altibox Norway Chess for the first time)

How Carlsen makes us feel better about chess - complete posts

How Carlsen makes us feel better about chess

The Financial Times this weekend has another article on chess, this time in its Lunch with the FT column.  Each week a personality - perhaps the best way to describe the people interviewed - has lunch with one of the FT's reporters and has an informal interview and conversation.  This week, it's Magnus Carlsen, who gave the interview just before the start of the London Chess Classic.

Similar to Kramnik's commentary in "How Kramnik makes us feel better about chess", I found Carlsen's approach to chess and his views on playing and training to be refreshing, having a simplicity and mature clarity about them.  When top players matter-of-factly discuss how positions are unclear and admit their own limits, it's an important lesson for improving players as well.

The article is worth reading in its entirety, but I've excerpted some of what I consider the most relevant points on mental attitudes, the importance of developing intuition and the role of planning.

• "...what at first seems like studied indifference is a genuine character trait of not easily becoming worked up, of taking things in one’s stride rather than needing to feel always in control. In fact, Carlsen seems unfazed by many things, among them not knowing whom he is playing when, how well he has to do in the London Classic to beat Kasparov’s record, or, for that matter, where to meet for lunch." 
• "...Carlsen says the difficulty with being tired when playing chess is that things don’t come intuitively. I point out that the stereotypical image of the game is that it is won not through intuition but hyperrational analytical powers. 'Of course, analysis can sometimes give more accurate results than intuition but usually it’s just a lot of work. I normally do what my intuition tells me to do. Most of the time spent thinking is just to double-check.'"
• "Still intrigued by the claim that intuition has pride of place, I ask him about the importance of spontaneity in chess. 'Of course, you make plans but the positions are often too complicated for proper planning. Then suddenly you get an idea.'"

Carlsen also emphasized the importance of being able to feel the joy in chess, rather than having it become a grind.  This and all of the above points I think are quite applicable to the improving player.

How Carlsen makes us feel better about chess V

From comments made by GM Magnus Carlsen after his round 5 win at the TePe Sigegman Chess 2026 event. (Source: Chess.com)

"It was incredibly shaky! I thought early on that I was doing alright, but I couldn’t figure it out, and then I lost the thread. I think she [GM Zhu Jiner] completely outplayed me for a while there—I didn’t like what was going on at all."

Carlsen admitted his 14.Nh4?! was "really a bit too much," explaining, "I just didn't know what to do and I was down to 26 minutes or something, and having no idea what my plans were."

(See all of the posts on "How Carlsen makes us feel better about chess")

Lessons completed: Magnus Carlsen's Stonewall

As part of my ongoing re-examination of the Dutch Stonewall defense, I recently completed the Chess.com lesson series "Magnus Carlsen's Stonewall" at https://www.chess.com/lessons/the-stonewall

Lesson 1 is a brief narrative intro to Carlsen's background in, and views of, the Stonewall, which as he points out is reachable from multiple openings; his stated preferred sequence is in fact a Nimzo-Indian start, if White allows it. He mentions the fact that his coach Norwegian GM Simen Agdestein was an expert in the Stonewall, which you can see in Win with the Stonewall Dutch.

Lesson 2 ("Anand-Carlsen: My First Stonewall") covers Carlsen's first major tournament-level use of it in 2015 against GM Vishwanathan Anand, the context being Carlsen having major issues with his 1. d4 defenses against Anand in the prior year. The game itself is rather famous and Black's early, somewhat daring sortie with the a-pawn is an excellent illustration of how it can be used in the structure, although Carlsen admits that White may be a little better in theory.

Lesson 3 ("Caruana-Carlsen: A Strong and Creative Idea for White") has Carlsen again playing aggressively on the a-file with an early ...a5 followed by ...Na6. Caruana looks to redeploy a knight to take advantage of the resulting b-pawn weakness, which resulted in a long think by Carlsen and the "concrete solution" of exchanging bishop for knight on e5, which however was double-edged positionally, so Carlsen again went all in for counterplay with the a-pawn. This wasn't entirely sound, but Carlsen manages to grind out a win in the endgame, taking advantage of White's bad light-square bishop.

Lesson 4 ("Wojtaszek-Carlsen: White Plays Nh3") has Carlsen go over some of the piece placement ideas for both White and Black, which is always useful. He admits his early ...a5 thrust in this game was "a bit too much", but describes how he was still able to find ideas for useful counterplay, including thinking in a non-standard way, with (as he says) no better opening than the Stonewall for doing that.

Lesson 5 ("Giri-Carlsen: Is The Stonewall Playable Without the Dark-Squared Bishop?") finishes off the high-level Stonewall lesson series. Carlsen uses yet another different initial move sequence (1...e6 and 2...Bb4) to reach a Stonewall formation, although as he mentions it was not at all forced. In fact, the bishops are exchanged early on d2, but Carlsen nonetheless eventually heads for the Stonewall structure without the dark-squared bishop, which conventional wisdom says is necessary to help cover Black's holes. While he effectively loses a tempo by entering the Stonewall with ...d6-d5, there are positional compensations from the misplacement of White's pieces in the structure, and it is interesting to see how these trade-offs play out in the game.

Although the videos aren't particularly high-quality in terms of production value, just being a camera on Carlsen rather casually demonstrating the games on a wood board while the video board follows along, it was fascinating to have insights into his high-level thinking and personal perspectives (see also "How Carlsen makes us feel better about chess"). For me it is particularly striking how some top-level practitioners readily state or imply their uncertainty about ideas and positions, being willing to accept different trade-offs and level of risk based on what type of position they want to play at the time - such as aiming for more chaotic positions without clear guidelines (see lesson 2). Carlsen was also straightforward about White standing a little better in games 2-3, which is why his play there has not been repeated in opening theory. His ending comment, that the Stonewall is a rich strategic weapon where the best player usually wins - "and we all like to think we're the best player at the table" - is a great way to sum things up.

I'll note one small but irritating issue with the video portion of the lessons, which includes Carlsen's narration, is that the board is part of the display and always shown with White at the bottom. If you're a Stonewall player yourself, naturally you would prefer to see that reversed.

Video completed: "How to Trust Your Chess Intuition" by Tatev Abrahamyan

"How to Trust Your Chess Intuition" is the sixth video in the new Chess.com series by Tatev Abrahamyan. It's worth noting that for the series page, she re-did the original video titles to fit the "Why You Should [Always/Never]..." format. Most of these title changes are trivial in terms of meaning, but in this case I prefer the original title, as the idea of "always" trusting your intuition is overstating things (especially for non-masters) and can lead to a misinterpretation of the concept.

The main thrust is the benefit of building your intuitive understanding of positions' requirements via pattern recognition, so good candidate moves "suggest themselves" and then you can move on to calculating their results. Abrahamyan also makes the point that sometimes we may not be able to fully calculate the consequences of a move to the end, but intuition allows us (most times) to evaluate it nonetheless. This topic has been previously mentioned here, for example in "How Carlsen makes us feel better about chess" and "How do you know you are becoming a stronger chess player?"

The first example game presented is a classic game, Maroczy-Tartakower, where Black sacrifices a rook for a pawn on h2 with no forced mate afterwards. The main factor involved in making this decision is White's uncoordinated and blocked pieces. Black is technically behind in development, but can in fact mobilize his pieces more effectively than his opponent. The sacrifice was made on move 17 and White resigned on move 36, so as Abrahamyan points out, this was not an example of brilliant calculation to the end, but rather a deep understanding of the long-term advantages and attacking chances involved.

The second game is Aronian-Grischuk from the last round of the 2018 Sinquefield Cup, which features a rook sacrifice for White's pawn on f7. This was effectively an exchange sacrifice in the main analysis line, with White's queen (if it recaptures) being diverted from protecting a knight on e4. White then gets good compensation for the exchange. However, Grischuk re-took with his king on f7 and it became a full rook sac. White plays Rf1 - Abrahamyan in the video immediately and confusingly then says  "bishop f5" although she doesn't say "Black" or put the move on the board - leading to mate if Black retreats his king to g8 and similar problems if ...Kg6. After demonstrating these, she puts the actual move played (...Bf5) on the board. Abrahamyan makes the point that the sac was a practical decision rather than necessarily the most strong objectively in after-the-fact analysis, in order to give White the initiative and put pressure on Black in a stressful final round tournament situation. The rest of the game is given, which is a pleasure to watch. Abrahamyan commits two of her periodic "think about why" presentation fouls, with the questions about the position followed immediately by the move on the board before you can pause the video.

The final game example is Caruana-Carlsen, World Championship 2018, round 8. Abrahamyan examines the analysis of where White, down a pawn, could have played Qh5 with compensation and the initiative, rather than continuing with a quiet move and ending in a draw with opposite-colored bishops.

The video makes a very good point, but for improving players I think the main takeaway is to value and study all types of chess positions that you encounter - especially the ones that more frequently appear in your games - so you can start getting a feel for what should work, then try it out yourself. If it doesn't in fact work, then figure out why and do better the next time around. Decisions can and should be informed by our intuition about positions, but it's a skill to be developed over time, not a magic chess bullet.

How Carlsen makes us feel better about chess II

As with the previous post on Carlsen's attitude, I'd like to briefly comment on what Carlsen's approach offers the Class player.  In this case, the reference is the GM Daniel King commentary from round 6 of the 2013 Tata Steel (Wijk aan Zee) tournament presenting Magnus Carlsen's win over Ivan Sokolov.

The basic strategy Carlsen followed was simply to get a playable position in his game as White, in this case a relatively quiet line of the Ruy Lopez (aka Spanish Game).  The most striking aspect to me was Carlsen's understanding of the position and what possibilities it gave him on the board, along with the necessary patience to wait for his opponent to go wrong.  This was the secret to his success in this game, rather than Kasparov-style cutting edge opening preparation intended to overpower his opponent.  The full commentary is well worth reviewing, as Daniel King explains the key ideas at every turn, which I found understandable.  Carlsen's own post on the game makes a good counterpoint to it, with an objective and critical (including self-critical) summary of key points.

I am a fan of opening study and this game by Carlsen demonstrates the powerful idea that one should have a deep understanding of one's opening repertoire and the core ideas and requirements of the middlegame positions that result, rather than being "booked up" on memorized lines or having to play sharp, tactical openings to obtain winning chances.  In this case, even a Class player can follow the thread of the game and see how key positional goals were identified and executed, with a final tactical flourish.

While this is an example of top-level chess, I feel that Carlsen's basic approach is well worth emulating by the improving player.

Article: How Your Brain Detects Patterns Without Conscious Thought

While pattern recognition's role in chess ability is (or should be) well-known, I still think it's somewhat under-emphasized in actual improvement programs. Perhaps that is because it often operates at an unconscious level ("System 1 thinking" or what we can also call "intuition"), rather than as part of our conscious ("System 2") calcuation process. This recent Scientific American article further illustrates the point of how learning actually does take place on an unconscious level:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-your-brain-detects-patterns-without-conscious-thought/

This may also affect our perceptions of "plateauing" at chess (or any other skill), since the phenomenon described in the article implies that our conscious "library" of patterns will grow more slowly than the unconscious one.

Specific to the role of intuition in chess, I think Carlsen's quote on his thinking process in "How Carlsen Makes Us Feel Better About Chess" is still very relevant.

How Carlsen makes us feel better about chess III

From the Financial Times article "Inside the home (and mind) of world chess champion Magnus Carlsen":

Carlsen’s favourite object is the hammock in the centre of the terrace. “I come here and sit when I want to think how to beat opponents.” It also serves as a place for post-match reflection. “Even if I win a game, if I have made an avoidable mistake, or missed something in my calculations, I get very angry and sulk.” When that happens, he stretches out on the hammock and uses the mistake to motivate himself to be flawless next time.

A robust and deep insight on playing style

I finally tracked down the original reference from Playing Styles Deconstructed that underpinned what I termed the impracticality of pursuing a chess "style" for improving players.  The following is from GM Alex Yermolinsky's The Road To Chess Improvement (Gambit 1999).

...One strong GM once told me that during the game we (he meant World Top 100 or so) may happen to know, able to calculate, or in any other way find the best move in approximately 90 percent of positions.  This means that, if an average game lasts 50 moves, there will be 5 times during the game when we won't know what to do!  There comes the most interesting, yet difficult part.  He also said that these moments are very characteristic for a chess-player's style and personality.

I find this to be a robust and deep insight.  In the linked post, the primary lesson I took away was that attempting to conform to some idealized type of playing style ("tactical" or "positional" or whatever), especially at the Class level, would be an impediment to the improving player. What we really need to do instead, along the lines of the above quote, is focus on reducing the number of positions where we don't know what to do!

Another important aspect to the above-quoted idea is the concept that it is normal to have differing opinions over positions, even at the top level and to the point where you do not in fact understand all aspects of the position.  It's been remarkable to me how often the very top-rated players will candidly express this during interviews or in post-game analysis, for example in How Kramnik makes us feel better about chess.  I have seen Carlsen and Anand be similarly self-effacing and the lack of ego in the top ranks these days is very refreshing, as well as motivational for me to see.

A final comment on style: assuming the idea above is broadly true, our personal style will naturally shine through as part of a game's development, giving scope for creativity and individuality.  But  that does not excuse us from increasing our efforts at objective investigation and understanding of truth on the chessboard.