Magnus Carlsen and Faustino Oro in Take Take Take Studio

by Johannes Fischer
1/7/2026 – The Rapid and Blitz World Championships had barely finished when Faustino Oro and Magnus Carlsen were already playing their next tournament. Both took part in the first Titled Tuesday of 2026 and commented on and streamed their games live from the Take Take Take Studio in Oslo. After the tournament, they stayed on in the studio, chatting about chess, football, the Norwegian weather, and what it is like to be so young and already so good at chess.
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Magnus Carlsen picked up at the start of 2026 exactly where he had left off at the Blitz and Rapid World Championships in 2025: by winning, albeit narrowly. He began the first Titled Tuesday of the year with nine consecutive victories, but then lost to Hikaru Nakamura and drew a dramatic time-scramble battle against Vincent Keymer in the final round.

That proved sufficient to secure tournament victory. In the final standings, Carlsen, Keymer and Jan-Krzysztof Duda shared places one to three, but Carlsen prevailed on tie-breaks. Keymer finished second, with Duda in third place. Faustino Oro placed 40th with a score of 7.5 out of 11.

After his narrow win, Carlsen was in good spirits and relaxed and open in the subsequent conversation with Faustino Oro at the Take Take Take Studio. With an almost paternal air, he praised Oro’s understanding of chess and his passion for the game, recalling his own chess career with amused irony and a touch of melancholy.

The twelve-year-old Oro, who still has until March of this year to become the youngest grandmaster in chess history, spoke about what he thinks of the weather in Norway, why he focuses not on potential successes but on playing the best chess he can, and about the Argentine football star Lionel Messi, to whom Oro is often compared.

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Topics: Faustino Oro, Magnus Carlsen
Johannes Fischer was born in 1963 in Hamburg and studied English and German literature in Frankfurt. He now lives as a writer and translator in Nürnberg. He is a FIDE-Master and regularly writes for KARL, a German chess magazine focusing on the links between culture and chess. On his own blog he regularly publishes notes on "Film, Literature and Chess".
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