Free-spirited approach

Carlsen free-spirited in approach to game

Magnus Carlsen, the 20-year-old wunderkind who is ranked second in the world, consistently heeds his inner voice.

In that way, he reminds me of Bobby Fischer – although otherwise they share little in common except that both were self-taught.

Carlsen has the flexibility of an “Internet kid” who has played thousands of chess games online.

While Fischer could hunker down behind his moat of a few exquisitely prepared openings – an option not available in today’s dynamic computer era – Carlsen often seems as freewheeling as a future NBA star, shaking and baking on a hardscrabble neighborhood court.

“It’s no secret that the best players’ opening preparation is much deeper than mine,” he recently told The New Yorker.

He will sometimes begin a game with scant opening foreknowledge, although he can be as well-prepared as anyone. In fact, a year of hard work and opening preparation with Garry Kasparov helped catapult Carlsen to the top of the chess heap.

Carlsen ended the collaboration because he found Kasparov too intense.

Said the young star: “I felt like every day I had to build up energy to be able to face him.”

Shelby Lyman is a Basic Chess Features columnist.

Source: http://www.dispatch.com