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Magnus Carlsen
In the prestigious Linares chess tournament Carlsen met the following top-rated players: Veselin Topalov, Viswanathan Anand, Peter Svidler, Alexander Morozevich, Levon Aronian, Peter Leko, and Vassily Ivanchuk (replacing Teimour Radjabov). With the significantly lowest ELO rating, he achieved a 2nd place (on tiebreaks) with 7.5 points after 4 wins, 7 draws and 3 losses, and an ELO performance of 2778.
Magnus, born in Norway November 30, 1990, may be the greatest chess prodigy of all time. He is arguably ahead of the pace of either Fischer or Kasparov.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 27, 2007 at 03:28 AM in Sports | Permalink
Comments
Should we qualify that: greatest human prodigy of all time?
Posted by: Trevor at May 27, 2007 4:19:57 AM
I protest. Why isn't he a girl?
Posted by: dearieme at May 27, 2007 7:40:08 AM
"Magnus, born in Norway November 30, 1990, may be the greatest chess prodigy of all time. He is arguably ahead of the pace of either Fischer or Kasparov"
Poor kid.
Posted by: Michael H. at May 27, 2007 8:24:39 AM
"Should we qualify that: greatest human prodigy of all time?"
Eh, no offense, Mr. Trevor, but I'll go with Mozart: playing music at age four, composing at age five--and dead at 32 after more or less revolutionizing music--we are still under his influence today, over three hundred years after his death. His influence over Western culture--both high and popular--is probably incalculable.
Who will remember young Magnus in three hundred years?
Posted by: David Hecht at May 27, 2007 8:30:33 AM
I believe that the "human" comment was meant to compare Magnus to Blue Gene rather than comparing him to Mozart.
Posted by: Kyle at May 27, 2007 8:51:27 AM
Come to that, why wasn't Mozart a girl? It's outrageous.
Posted by: dearieme at May 27, 2007 9:16:40 AM
He's playing in the Candidates Matches today against Aronian, for a chance to play in the World Championship. Aronian is the clear favorite and will probably win, in my opinion, but this kid has recently proved himself to be worthy to play at the highest level, so we shall see. It would be hard to believe that this kid will not be world champion within the next 6 yrs.
Posted by: John Goes at May 27, 2007 9:46:48 AM
"It would be hard to believe that this kid will not be world champion within the next 6 yrs."
And burnt out within the next 15. Sorry, but I think our societies (yes, Europe as well) are unprepared to handle child stars, and children seem obviously unprepared, with few exceptions, for the challenges of stardom. Mozart is an early indicator, Britney merely the most recent and well-known. I certainly don't wish it upon them, but very few manage to make the transition successfully, i.e. with their mental health intact. Kurt Russell comes to mind as one of them, despite the many ill-founded rumors of Snake Plissken's early demise.
Posted by: Eric H at May 27, 2007 10:05:44 AM
Children like these make me wonder whether we'll ever have a situation similar to "Ender's Game"
Posted by: Robert at May 27, 2007 2:22:56 PM
I've a few remarks:
i) comparisions with Fischer and Kasparov are tricky. As a matter of fact a comparision between Fischer and Kasparov is tricky. Fischer at 15 was one of the best players in the world. Today there are so many good youngsters in chess.
ii) Fischer always has seen to me an extremely intelligent person (and i won't get into his political thoughts, which have nothing to do with it). He had to fight his way to the chess crown all by himself. Kasparov is a chess giant. But intelligent?? I still have to read or hear an intelligent thought of Magnus.
iii) today the information flow is enormous in chess. It seems to me that a lot of, not yet very old, world class players are perhaps a bit fed up with it. They've already seen to much of it. Svidler, Grischuk come to mind. Does Kramnik really enjoy the game? Perhaps Magnus will quit in a few years time.
Posted by: Jean Marie Wildeboer Schut at May 27, 2007 2:38:47 PM
Carlsen lost today, for those interested. He has to play +1 over the next 3 games to stay alive.
Posted by: John Goes at May 27, 2007 3:41:31 PM
He's not a girl because he has a penis.
Posted by: Ronald Brak at May 27, 2007 7:55:22 PM
Yeah but I bet I can take him at beer pong.
Posted by: Mr. Noah at May 27, 2007 8:16:04 PM
Hard to tell who has more promise, Carlsen or Sergey Karjakin.
Posted by: Paul N at May 27, 2007 9:09:19 PM
It is one of the Well Known Facts that mathematicians do all their best work in their first few years, teens or twenties, and then burn out after about thirty.
If you look at any given math whiz, however, and take the publications between, say, sixteen and thirty, and then assume that the actual work was done between birth and the time of publication, what you end up with is a pretty even level of output from birth to senescence.
In the same sense, I don't see anything that weird about a real youngster being good at chess. I think it may be that today's society is more open than earlier ones to actually letting the very young out o their playrooms and into the public sphere.
Posted by: David Lloyd-Jones at May 28, 2007 12:25:18 AM
Hmm. As someone who know something about chess, let me spout off. Although itsis possible that Magnus Carlsen may burn out, since Fischer and Kasparov didn't burn out until after they had become world champions, I don't think Carlsen will. After all, he has that grandiloquent first name to live up to ;-)
However, I think it far more likely that he might quit because he is either bored or disgustted with chess. Here are some serious problems that I think contemporary chess faces, and is still groping to find solutions for:
(1) The potential for cheating with computer assistance has vastly increased, and leads to greater suspicion when the stakes are high--the Great Toilet Tantrum in the last world championship match is a vivid illustration.
(2) Also because of the advent of computers, adjournment is now a thing of the past and players often have to play the last part of the game under sudden death time controls. As a result, the quality of endgame play today has declined steeply.
(3) The depth of computer opening analysis has increased so much that many games are decided without the winning player having to do any thinking of his own. So either players have to completely randomize their openings, which is difficult, or they have to join the computer analysis arms race before the actual game begins. Not fun at all.
(4) In the area of chess politics, chess is still a poor man's sport which gets relatively little funding from the wealthiest countries. As a result, the poorer countries become relatively more influential and so do their elected leaders in FIDE, the world chess federation. Unfortunately, this increases the likelihood of corruption and favoritism--the last two FIDE presidents, Florencio Campomnes and Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, have become notorious in this respect and have helped to create a vicious cycle in which corrupt FIDE leaders scare away big money from the US and Europe, which reduces their influence and leads to the election of more corrupt individuals in the leadership.
Posted by: andres at May 28, 2007 2:59:51 PM
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Posted by: 謝文豪 at Apr 2, 2008 4:03:35 AM
I agree with the Chinese dude. Good point!
Posted by: Per Olafson at Jun 14, 2008 4:09:27 PM
Magnus Carlsen will be the next world chess champion. A true genius, probably an 190 IQ
Posted by: ernesto at Jul 8, 2008 9:02:42 PM
To the earlier comments about burning out: neither Fischer nor Kasparov "burnt out". Fischer rejected the rules FIDE put forth for the Championship. He lost by default, and it remains the only World Championship to pass by default in the chess world. Kasparov withdrew from serious play to pursue a more active role in Russian politics, which he sees as "going the wrong way". He was also exhausted from ongoing battles with FIDE about regulations. As for Carlsen being the next champ...who knows? Gata Kamsky is also in the running, and he's a very strong player. Let's not forget about Anand either, the current champ. I'd very much like to see Carlsen at the top, but he's still got quite a long road ahead of him. But he's come this far....who knows what the future holds? :)
Posted by: Justin at Aug 29, 2008 10:03:13 PM
tiffany rings
tiffany earrings
tiffany necklaces
tiffany pendants
Tiffany Engagement Rings
Posted by: aion kina at Mar 19, 2009 8:29:39 PM
well he's arguebly the greatest chess genius of all time and chess is harder then hell to master yet alone be in the top ten in the world
Posted by: david at Mar 26, 2009 2:45:56 PM
well he's arguebly the greatest chess genius of all time and chess is harder then hell to master yet alone be in the top ten in the world
Posted by: david at Mar 26, 2009 2:46:55 PM
