Why Nobody Beats Magnus Carlsen

You see this?

Yes, that.

That is a Chess board.

If you’ve ever played a game of Chess, you know that the pieces tend to move funny:

• Horse (Knight) can only move in L-shapes

• Guard tower (Rook) only moves vertical or horizontal

• Priest-man (Bishop) only moves diagonally

• Minions (Pawns) only move forward one tile (first move you get two tiles) unless they can capture a piece, which they can only do diagonally

• The Crown (Queen) can move in any direction and as far as they want

This is one of the most difficult games in the world to play well.

Brief History and Breakdown of Chess

Chess been around for over one thousand years.

It’s first recorded origins can be traced back to seventh century India as a game called “chaturanga” which was played with similar pieces.

Every single part of the game has evolved over that time due to innovations and inventions by various legendary players, and it’s official standardization (the current version) happened in the 19th century.

There's been so much literature on Chess theory for every single part of the game that it’s impossible to understand it all.

Competitive Chess is interesting.

Playing in tournaments for titles and potential money is something that’s existed for a long time, and in the past decade or so has moved to online as well.

There’s several titles you earn from FIDE (World Chess Federation) through competing at a high level:

Candidate Master (CM) → FIDE Master (FM) → International Master (IM) → Grandmaster (GM)

Practically every famous chess player you’ve heard of is/was a Grandmaster.

These players are measured using a system called Elo rating. The best way to explain this rating system is it’s a numerical way to rate players where each player starts each match with a certain number of points.

You win or lose a certain amount of points depending on your rating difference and whether you’re favored or the underdog.

Historically, the best Chess players under the modern rules and rating system have been from the Soviet Union or former Soviet countries, usually Russia, but there’s been a few outliers.

Americans are not particularly skilled a Chess and usually don’t win the World Chess Championship.

The most recent one to do so was Bobby Fischer in 1972.

He was the first American to be crowned the Chess champion in nearly eighty years (since 1894) and in the half-century since he relinquished his title, there hasn’t been another American who’s won the title.

But there’s been something way more interesting that has happened over the years.

There’s a Chess player that almost beat the former #1 and champion, Garry Kasparov, in 2004… when he was 13 years old.

Enter Magnus

This teenage prodigy was Magnus Carlsen.

That match between him and Kasparov in 2004 was legendary.

Here’s a little bit of quick history on Kasparov until that point:

• 15x Chess champion (8 years as undisputed, 7 years as Classical chess champion)

• #1 rated Chess player in the world for a record 255 months (over 20 years) overall

• Highest ever Elo rating (2851)

• Youngest ever undisputed champion (age 22)

Kasparov was considered the greatest chess player of all time. His dominance over two decades was unmatched.

Until he met this 13 year old and he caught a glimpse of the future.

Now, I’m not going to go into the specifics of the match because frankly it’s boring and it’s more useful as a springboard.

Because that’s what it was.

The match itself wasn’t important for the result.

There was no upset.

Kasparov won.

What was important is that it was a premonition of the future of chess and who it belonged to.

This match happened in March.

By the next month, he had officially earned his Grandmaster title and became the second youngest GM of all time.

His upward ascent would continue over the next decade:

Magnus would beat his first 2800 rated player in 2009, break Kasparov’s Elo rating in 2012 (2861), and finally win his first chess championship a year later against one of the greatest players of all time, Viswanathan Anand.

As of 2024, he has won the World Chess Championship five times, beat his own peak Elo rating (2882) and has the longest unbeaten streak at the highest level of classical chess (125 games).

He’s still only 33.

What Separates Him From The Rest?

What makes Magnus so formidable?

Well, for one, he’s arguably the most complete player ever.

There is no weakness in his game at all.

Opening, middle game, endgame. It doesn’t matter. Nobody has found a way to get to him.

An AI study using Stockfish, a computer chess engine with an estimated Elo rating of 3634 (almost 800 points higher than any human has ever achieved), had been used to compare it’s play with the moves of grandmasters.

He was rated by the artificial intelligence as the best player of all time during this study, as he had the highest probability of playing the same moves Stockfish suggested.

He has no preference in playing style. He can play in any style and usually to the skill of his opponent, sometimes better.

In short: Magnus Carlsen is pretty much the Terminator.

You won’t beat him psychologically, tactically or physically (dude’s in pretty good shape too).

Looking back to 2004, you could see this was coming.

At 13 years old, he challenged the greatest of that time and nearly won.

Poker Detour?

He chose to not defend his World Chess Championship title last year in 2023 citing a lack of motivation to play classical chess.

Instead, he went to play in a few Poker tournaments (and he played really well).

Now, as both a fan of Chess and someone who loves watching people that achieve massive success at such a high level, I hope he doesn’t abandon the game.

I highly doubt he will, but him losing his motivation to compete is unfortunate and hopefully not a sign of losing motivation to play Chess in general. It’d be a massive loss if that were the case.

But he is damn good at Poker already, and he could definitely make the switch.

Summary

This guy is unreal.

I’ve seen videos of Magnus playing online, at his rating (not on a lower level account), while being drunk and absolutely demolishing his opponents.

If you haven’t seen him yet, watch him.

There’s clips of him and his matches all over YouTube.

His peers discuss him like he’s an alien because… well he’s kind of been an alien since he was a kid.

He’s the greatest chess player of all time.

(Stockfish approved!)

Thank you for coming to my TED talk, I’m going to go lose at online Chess now.