I think everyone here can probably sympathise when a job stops being about the bits you actually enjoy or are good at. I have no doubt Magnus is the best ever, but the vast majority of the effort in classical chess is spent away from the board. Slogging through an opponent and their team’s computer driven opening prep just isn’t super fun and probably isn’t why most people fall in love with chess. Anyone who has gone from being a programmer to being stuck in meetings and managing other people all day perhaps knows what it’s like to fantasise about packing it in and returning to simpler times.
I believe that to people like Magnus it goes beyond "the job becoming boring" and his stance alludes directly to Fischer's disillusionment with the game – lacking in genuine and human creativity.
That's exactly why Magnus is now championing Free Style Chess, originally promoted by Fischer: you randomize the starting position of the pieces, which makes traditional opening theory useless. That cuts away a lot of the memorization and introduces a lot of new creativity.
It's not entirely surprising that both of these world champions saw that as a way to keep the game interesting.
Something else that Magnus sometimes does, even against fellow grandmasters, is play a completely ridiculous opening that's obviously bad. But more importantly, it's different, and all the existing opening theory goes out the window.
I read the above and it made me feel he was annoyed that Chess is a strategic zero sum game? "preparation and memorization than pure skill and innovation" - I think (at least in the zero sum strategy game I love) - prep + data IS the skill and innovation, how do you prep and where do you get your data, that's the joy of the game?
Sure, this is just cause and effect. Doing months of work for a World Championship cycle or slogging through 20 moves of supercomputer prep is boring _because_ it impoverishes the creative side of the game. I'm just saying a lot of people here probably recognise the same pattern between the magic of computing in their youth and the reality of a lot of enterprise tech jobs.
As a casual spectator of chess tournament streams, I find speed chess to be much more enjoyable to watch. It isn't fun when the players aren't making mistakes. Classical chess feels like F1 racing where the work is done before the match with very little passing and timed chess feels like a derby rally with a lot of bumping and grinding. Just way more fun to watch.
I remember Michael Schumacher just riding one perfect lap after another. He'd always qualify as first, start ahead, ride his perfect laps, and nobody would ever overtake him. It's impressive, but boring to watch.
It's hard for some of the very best when they're no longer at their peak.
Don't get me wrong, Magnus is still world #1 for a reason, but he used to be at a level where no-one could even scratch him. Now he has to fight much harder for victories, and he's not enjoying that.
It's hard to determine how much is down to that factor, how much is how he feels over not being world champion anymore, and how much is a financial incentive in attempted break aways from FIDE to promote "freestyle chess" ( random chess ).
Let's not forget that Magnus didn't lose his world champion title, he gave it up willingly after holding the title from 2013 to 2021. All those years where everyone else is focusing specifically on how to defeat him and still coming short. He's talked about this at length in interviews, mostly it just became incredibly boring.
Only Magnus really knows if it was "incredibly boring" or he feared losing over the board, and even he might not really know himself.
I think it's a shame for the sport that he wasn't willing to risk losing his WC title over the board, but make no mistake, he has lost his WC title regardless.
> Don't get me wrong, Magnus is still world #1 for a reason, but he used to be at a level where no-one could even scratch him. Now he has to fight much harder for victories, and he's not enjoying that.
I get the sense that it's less he has to fight harder to win, and more he has to grind boring studying just to even play. I don't _think_ he'd care that much if his win rate is going down if just being there didn't require spending all day, every day, memorizing lines.
It's hard to gauge, because ratings between different years (pools) can't really be compared. But I'd say he has declined a bit, but no one else has really stepped up in the meantime. Gukesh and some are on their way, but for the last decade Magnus has been far above everyone else, and now that they're closer to him it's not really any new development from existing players.
As an amateur player (~2000 ish), classical is where it's at. I love the feeling of deep focus that is so hard to find in the rest of life these days but that I can still get into in a serious, slow over the board game.
The problems of the top players are not those of amateurs.
Chess was far more fun 20+ years ago. Before everyone had a supercomputer-powered chess engine in their hands...
While studying openings was a thing, it still felt like there was room for improvisation and tactics. Now playing feels like a chore and more about rote memorization than actually playing a game.
I wonder if it'd be better or worse to scale timelimits? Say once ratings are over 1500, the lowest ranked players rating is used to calculate the time-limits of the game. A player at or below 1500 still has the same times (to let us amateurs consider a bit) but scale so that once players approach 3000 in ranking the speed basically becomes rapid or blitz.
If even pros make mistakes at that level, it should get rid of much draws and overly long games. And perhaps even appeal to a wider audience in our sped up society.
Chess960/Freestyle Chess is where it's at for me. There, the game feels fresh, it's about creativity and clever positional play. Sometimes when playing classical, it feels like a contest of who can memorize better, without room for creativity or passion.
I'm not a particularly good classical player, but the mountain of grinding to get good just seems insurmountable to me.
960 has certainly gained some momentum and I very much hope to see Magnus continue to push it forward -- it's such a natural evolution of chess in the age of engines. Perhaps all it needs to take off is a world champion backing it who's less insane than Fischer!
The grind at the top is still a grind--in fact, it is the worst grind. To top that off, Magnus is in his mid-30s now.
Anyone doing anything at the level of "Elite in the World" is putting in an amount of effort that borders on mania that would be classified as mental illness.
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It's not entirely surprising that both of these world champions saw that as a way to keep the game interesting.
Something else that Magnus sometimes does, even against fellow grandmasters, is play a completely ridiculous opening that's obviously bad. But more importantly, it's different, and all the existing opening theory goes out the window.
I read the above and it made me feel he was annoyed that Chess is a strategic zero sum game? "preparation and memorization than pure skill and innovation" - I think (at least in the zero sum strategy game I love) - prep + data IS the skill and innovation, how do you prep and where do you get your data, that's the joy of the game?
Don't get me wrong, Magnus is still world #1 for a reason, but he used to be at a level where no-one could even scratch him. Now he has to fight much harder for victories, and he's not enjoying that.
It's hard to determine how much is down to that factor, how much is how he feels over not being world champion anymore, and how much is a financial incentive in attempted break aways from FIDE to promote "freestyle chess" ( random chess ).
I think it's a shame for the sport that he wasn't willing to risk losing his WC title over the board, but make no mistake, he has lost his WC title regardless.
I get the sense that it's less he has to fight harder to win, and more he has to grind boring studying just to even play. I don't _think_ he'd care that much if his win rate is going down if just being there didn't require spending all day, every day, memorizing lines.
Did he get worse or did the others get better ?
https://www.chess.com/blog/LionChessLtd/age-vs-elo---your-ba...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S277316182...
Magnus is 34, he's just going to have to deal with it like every exceptional person has.
As another factor could be that he is not doing the same quantity of prep anymore.
The problems of the top players are not those of amateurs.
While studying openings was a thing, it still felt like there was room for improvisation and tactics. Now playing feels like a chore and more about rote memorization than actually playing a game.
If even pros make mistakes at that level, it should get rid of much draws and overly long games. And perhaps even appeal to a wider audience in our sped up society.
Anyone doing anything at the level of "Elite in the World" is putting in an amount of effort that borders on mania that would be classified as mental illness.
He's long said he's bored with it; the recent Gukesh slam-the-board viral moment has just resurfaced his frustration with it.