Magnus Carlsen: Am I tired? What a stupid question!

Magnus Carlsen: Am I tired? What a stupid question!

By GM Eugeny Atarov (text and pictures)

Magnus Carlsen: Thank you! I feel wonderful. I like situations when everything’s in my hands. During the tournament the situation frequently got out of control, but… before the last round for the first time everything was extremely clear for me: if I won then I’d most likely share first place.

Things actually worked out even better than I thought.

It was clear that Luke got very nervous. In such situations you always have to keep a cool head. I managed, and as a result I took first place here.

Approaching time trouble the result of both games was more or less obvious, so I spent more time watching Levon win his game.

Final round games of the Tal Memorial

No doubt, but during the game I simply wasn’t thinking about that. I think Caruana had a good tournament. Was he worthy of first place? I don’t know.

I managed not to lose a single game at the tournament. I think that even if I didn’t show all I was capable of I still squeezed all I could out of what I had.

I don’t even know. A lot… Am I tired? Giving an interview is simpler, after all, than playing a game or preparing. I see it as just as much a part of my work as playing chess. It isn’t a strain. Moreover, nowadays I’m clearly told: you have to speak with such and such a person, travel to do this program or be filmed.

I really like winning, and at that moment I’m truly happy. I can say that about almost any tournament I’ve won in the last year. For me winning a tournament is the best thing that can happen to you. It’s no laughing matter. I like to win and I want to keep winning.

Yes! Perhaps things look a little different today, but you saw how it was after the game against Tomashevsky: I was genuinely upset when I wasn’t able to win. I’m still fired up to win each game, and each tournament I play in.

Of course before the start of every tournament I think I need to win it. But I… (Magnus sank into thought, choosing the model to compare himself to. It seemed as though he was about to say he wasn’t a robot!) I wait to see how everything goes for me, but… you can’t plan that you absolutely have to win! You could see that this time as well. I think such thoughts can wreak havoc. It’s enough to look at Morozevich, who after five games had +3 but almost finished the tournament on a minus. Or take Caruana, who played brilliantly in the middle of the tournament, beat Kramnik and then flunked the finish – escaping against Radjabov but not against Aronian. In general, everyone knows that anything can happen.

As for myself, at no point during the tournament did I feel I was the favourite, and perhaps that helped me to play better here than I could have expected…

I started very tentatively… A tough draw with White against Kramnik, then a tough position against Morozevich. At that point I was finding taking decisions very hard and I was slightly inhibited, but then I warmed up. In the second half of the tournament I was already playing at my usual level. I even regret the tournament was so short – I’d happily have kept playing! If there were as many rounds as in Wijk aan Zee I’d have had more chance of confirming that I was worthy of victory.

Neither of us had played for a long time. He at least had the match against Kramnik, while I hadn’t sat down at a board since Wijk aan Zee. Four months is a lot.

Normal, of course taking into account that I hadn’t played for a few months. But I quickly got some practice. The idea of organising the draw as a blitz tournament was a good one. I had a chance to get some good training and a feel for play.

However, when I sat down at the board in the first round against Kramnik I realised it wasn’t going to be easy. A mistake in the opening – and I ended up in the role of defender. It was good I managed to escape. Then the next round and again a terrible mistake in the opening, after which…

I wouldn’t say that. Yes, my position was bad, but it wasn’t won for White. There was still a lot of work to do. I couldn’t have simply resigned in that position.

It was the normal story. The main thing is not to lose your objectivity. To take all your chances. To a certain degree the fact that I had to work hard in those games helped me to get back to normal sooner. After that I was already playing at my level.

The answer’s simple: you need to make one move at a time. I calculated a lot of variations and nowhere was White winning material immediately. I tried to find chances and found them… As I already said, the position wasn’t a hundred per cent lost. Perhaps 80%!

I didn’t say that. It was just one single game… I simply fought until the end, and perhaps Morozevich didn’t do all he could have done.

There’s no secret. I’m simply a practical player. When there’s a tense situation on the board it’s hard to remain precise until the end, and mistakes inevitably creep in. That was how it was with Morozevich, and the same happens with others. It happens to me as well. I can hardly call myself an ideal player. Again, there’s opening preparation.

By the way, in this tournament everything was more or less okay with the opening. Okay, in the two white games against Kramnik and Caruana I had problems, but in the other three I managed to get very interesting positions, particularly against Grischuk. Perhaps things didn’t work out so well against Aronian, but he headed for a draw. With Black, meanwhile, I only had practical problems, and solving them calmly wasn’t too hard. And in the end I scored both of my wins with Black.

That was a very important win, but the key was probably the game against Grischuk. If I’d played a little more concretely coming out of the opening Black might have had very serious problems. Still, we played an interesting game. Black, it seemed, had already won my bishop on g3. I also sacrificed the exchange and at some point I could have ended up a full rook down, but I rated White’s chances very highly. When I found that idea I simply couldn’t resist playing it. And look, people talk about me as a player who doesn’t care about beauty. That’s not true. It’s simply that during the game each person sees beauty in different things. I like the beauty of the endgame, but I also get pleasure from finding ideas like those against Grischuk.

I don’t have an explanation at all. For some reason people were throwing themselves at each other. There were both a lot of mistakes and a lot of interesting ideas. What was going on? I don’t know. A battle! People didn’t want to waste the white pieces, so they went all in. They also played fiercely with black. I didn’t count but it seems to me there were more wins with black than white.

And what kind of explanation could there be?

Perhaps it’s clearer to those on the outside. I didn’t feel any additional pressure after the Anand-Gelfand match. Personally I think Anand remains one of the world’s best players. Perhaps he doesn’t want to play as much as before, but his class remains. I consider him a “real” World Champion, regardless of the fact that the win against Gelfand in the match wasn’t convincing at all. But that’s a peculiarity of chess: your play can be not particularly convincing in tournaments and then once a year (or in actual fact once every two years – E.A.) you defend the title of World Champion and the chess world continues to consider you the king.

I’m not going to say what I think about it. But of course the win against Gelfand made little impact on the chess community. Boris is of course a tremendous chess player, but… the current Gelfand isn’t a player of the class to have claims on the title!

It’s not my problem! I simply play chess. No, that doesn’t put me under any pressure. All I expect are wins and to get pleasure from the game. And if someone thinks something about me, if someone’s dissatisfied with something… that’s not my headache. I hope someday I’ll become World Champion – and I’ll make all these people happy. But even if for some reason that doesn’t happen it won’t stop me getting pleasure from chess. I’m sure of that.

Yes, it was a top-class tournament and I’m happy I managed to win it.

I was planning to play in Bazna but the tournament was, alas, postponed. I don’t think that fact will change my life. I’ve got a lot of different obligations besides chess now.

No, I’ve long since got used to it. I take it for granted. My manager tells me what I need to do and when. I do it. No problem. He does what’s best for me. Lately, of course, I’ve had more and more such activities.

I’ve seen them. In Norway there are even more, and not only in airports.

What can I say, I liked it. They’re interesting people and they showed a lot of interest in me. I never thought there’d ever be such great interest.

It definitely doesn’t get in the way of playing chess. I still find plenty of time to work and for chess tournaments – that’s allocated in my schedule for the next month and year. As for “being the best” – I don’t know. I try to do everything in my power!

Links

• WhyChess home page (English)
• All ChessBase reports from the Tal Memorial 2012