Beating Magnus after a month of training?

Starting on Nov 1st, 2016, Max decided to spend the a year trying to master twelve expert-level skills, devoting one month to each skill and writing daily about the process. He called the project Month to Master (M2M). The reason for this was to that he has, by his own admission, an obsessive personality and enjoys pushing the limits of his brain, body, and genetics.

So these were the challenges, all meticulously described in his Medium blog:

• November: Memorize the order of a deck of cards in less than two minutes
• December: Draw a realistic self-portrait
• January: Solve a Rubik’s Cube in under 20 seconds
• February: Land a standing backflip
• March: Play a 5-minute improvisational blues guitar solo
• April: Hold a 30-minute conversation in Hebrew on the future of tech
• May: Build a self-driving car
• June: Develop perfect pitch—identify 20 random musical notes in a row
• July: Finish a Saturday NYT crossword puzzle in one sitting
• August: Complete one continuous set of 40 pull-ups
• September: Continuously freestyle rap for 3 minutes
• October: Defeat world champion Magnus Carlsen at a game of chess

It is of course the last challenge that we are particularly interested in. Max only plays chess occasionally – a prototypical amateur. But he believed that with his one-month preparation regime he could actually beat Magnus. The original idea was to only beat the computerized simulation Play Magnus. But then the Wall Street Journal stumbled across his “Month to Master” and offered to put him in touch with the real-life version. After a month of training he travelled from San Francisco to Hamburg, Germany, to play a game against the reigning World Champion. As our readers probably know Magnus was there for a Play Magnus Challenge – we brought you Scenes from Magnus Carlsen's Hamburg swing last week.

It was undeniably a stunt, but it was also billed as a grand experiment in human performance. Can we hack our brains in a way that radically accelerates the traditional learning curve? So did Max have a chance? "I have agreed to this challenge because I am genuinely curious about what he is able to do in a month," Magnus said before the game. Did he think that Max might beat him? "No – but I have been surprised before."

Here's the massive description of the Wall Street Journal experiment

And here's a six-minute video report by George Downs for the Wall Street Journal:

And finally here is the game we have all been waiting for:

Master Class Vol.8: Magnus Carlsen

Scarcely any world champion has managed to captivate chess lovers to the extent Carlsen has. The enormously talented Norwegian hasn't been systematically trained within the structures of a major chess-playing nation such as Russia, the Ukraine or China.

We would be genuinely interested to hear your opinions on Max's chess challenge and the other Month to Master feats this very enterprising young man has performed.