Indian chess legend Viswanathan Anand recalled Magnus Carlsen’s younger days, revealing that the Norwegian would lure a lot of unsuspecting opponents to their doom with his endgame and dry technical positions. Anand became a World Champion for the first time when the Indian defeated Spanish Grandmaster Alexei Shirov for the title in 2000.
Anand became the undisputed World Champion in 2007 and defended his title against Vladimir Kramnik in 2008, Veselin Topalov in 2010, and Boris Gelfand in 2012. However, it was Carlsen, who defeated Anand in 2013 to become the new World Champion.
Speaking about a younger Carlsen, Anand revealed the 34-year-old used to be a “limited” player during the latter’s initial days. “Magnus (Carlsen) used to be quite a limited player, very, very good in that specific area,” Anand remembered on Prakhar Gupta’s podcast.
“He limited himself to areas where no one else was really focusing, like the endgame and dry technical positions. He saw potential where others basically saw paint drying, and he was able to lure a lot of unsuspecting chess players to their doom over and over again,” said Anand.
“He was really cashing in those points before people learned the hard way to take those positions seriously and start working on them,” added Anand.
What makes Magnus Carlsen dangerous?
According to Anand, Carlsen’s used his tactics when his opponents played a more relaxed role. “So he (Carlsen) used to increase his effort there, force precision, and then the other players would make a mistake, unravel, panic, and lose these dry positions,” explained Anand.
Another aspect of Carlsen which caught Anand’s attention was the Norwegian’s faster game. “He kept expanding his comfort range. He started playing faster and faster time controls. He always liked blitz, but he began playing all this online internet chess, seemingly curious to see what he couldn’t get good at.
“I think that’s one reason he’s dominating now… because a lot of these faster formats are becoming more common,” concluded the Indian.
