Friday, January 01, 2010

The Mysterious GM Carlsen

Magnus Carlsen is clearly Time magazine's flavour of the month. After last week's Q&A, they have now published another article on the new world chess number one.

Genius can appear anywhere, but the origins of Carlsen's talent are particularly mysterious. In November, Carlsen, then 18, became the youngest world No. 1 in the game's history. He hails from Norway — a "small, poxy chess nation with almost no history of success," as the English grand master Nigel Short sniffily describes it — and unlike many chess prodigies who are full-time players by age 12, Carlsen stayed in school until last year. His father Henrik, a soft-spoken engineer, says he has spent more time urging his young son to complete his schoolwork than to play chess. Even now, Henrik will interrupt Carlsen's chess studies to drag him out for a family hike or museum trip. "I still have to pinch my arm," Henrik says. "This certainly is not what we had in mind for Magnus."

Read more: A Bold Opening for Chess Player Magnus Carlsen.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

And Nigel Short is a pretentious poxy has-been

Phil Bourke said...

The only good thing about Nigel Short is that he makes it so easy to dislike him!

Magnus is almost unbelievable, though there were a few moments at London recently where he did appear to be human!