Scenes from Magnus Carlsen's Hamburg swing

11/14/2017 – Photos and video from Magnus Carlsen's two days in Hamburg last week. At the ChessBase office he gave a short interview, greeted the ChessBase team and received the first copy (made by hand) of Fritz 16 (on sale starting on November 14th!). On Thursday Magnus participated in a conference on the theme "digital health" organised by Die Zeit (we have the full interview) and in the evening he played a clock simultaneous exhibition at the Atlantic Kempinski hotel. Carlsen prevailed in all the games, but the 13 players gave him a decent challenge. The group itself was interesting, including German football star Marco Bode, a Norwegian politician, three very young but talented players, several self-proclaimed "addicts" of "Play Magnus" app, and an young Austrian woman who played her first serious game against the World Champion. | Photos: Nadja Wittmann

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Magnus in Hamburg

In February, 2016, the World Champion visited the Hanseatic city of northern Germany for the first time, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the newspaper Die Zeit, and gave a 70-board (untimed) simul. Last week, the Norwegian was back in Hamburg again invited by the same newspaper. He participated in a conference on health, and played a simul. But first, he made a brief visit (his first ever) to ChessBase HQ.

Magnus arriving at ChessBase

Entering the ChessBase office together with Arne Horwei and Kate Murphy of "Play Magnus" | Photo: Nadja Wittmann

After a brief guided tour with ChessBase co-founder Frederic Friedel, Magnus was escorted to the ChessBase TV studio for an interview with Chief Editor Macauley Peterson, where he answered questions from ChessBase readers and analyzed his win over Pavel Eljanov at the October tournament in Isle of Man. Magnus Carlsen interview at ChessBase The full 40 minute show is available on-demand in the ChessBase Videos portal.

Meanwhile his opponents in the simul received pointers from former FIDE World Champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov.

At the end of the evening, Magnus Carlsen received the first copy of the brand new Fritz 16 (prepared on one of the ChessBase computers) from Friedel. He reminded Magnus that the first reaction Garry Kasparov had shown many years ago when Frederic told him about the incredible talent of the Norwegian — then still totally unknown — had been: "Hey, Frederic, always with your child prodigies..." But later he acknowledged: "This one has potential".

Magnus Carlsen and Frederic Friedel

Magnus gets some ChessBase swag (which apparently "don't come cheap" but we hope is a good value) | Photo: Nadja Wittman

The truth is that the prodigal chess children of Frederic have not fallen have tended to go far, among them: Vishy Anand, Vladimir Kramnik, Peter Leko — Frederic's nose for talent is not so bad. But going back to Fritz 16: next Tuesday, the program will go on sale. The last production DVDs are being produced, packaged and shipped to the ChessBase office — only a few more days of waiting patiently.

Of course Magnus happily autographed a few of the Fritz 16's covers:

Magnus signing Fritz 16

Future prizes for ChessBase contests perhaps? | Photo: Nadja Wittman

Fritz 16 - He just wants to play!

The following day, Magnus was the interview guest of Die Zeit journalist Ulrich Stock, answering questions on the connection between chess, the brain and health.

Starting at 7:00 PM CET, Carlsen faced 13 fans and players of the Play Magnus mobile app in the Play Live Challenge. It was a clock simultaneous, with 30 minutes per player for the entire game. Magnus had 30 minutes for all 13 games.

On Friday, ChessBase's IM Oliver Reeh, who was in attendence, and Pascal Simon who operated the mobile camera, looked at highlights from the games on the weekly Tune Your Tactics show (available for ChessBase Premium account holders):

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The hotel Atlantic Kempinski in Hamburgo | Photo: Nadja Wittmann

Kate Murphy welcomed participants and spectators and then passed the microphone to IM Lawrence Trent, who served as the evening's MC as well as chess commentator.

Kate Murphy of "Play Magnus" | Photo: Nadja Wittmann