You play like a Norwegian

Chess showdown! I play Magnus Carlsen, the world’s No 1
And after him I prepare for my opponent in the Surrey League .

Stephen Moss
The Guardian, Tuesday 8 December 2009

I was due to play two chess games yesterday. The second was for Kingston against Crystal Palace in the Surrey League; the first was against Magnus Carlsen, a laconic 19-year-old Norwegian who is currently the world No 1. In 2004, as Carlsen’s genius was emerging, the Washington Post called him the “Mozart of chess”. That paper is probably unaware of my talents, but I aspire to be the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band of chess.

Carlsen is in the UK, the first time he has been here, for the London Chess Classic that starts today at Olympia, and the organiser has arranged for us to play a game in the lobby of his hotel.

While we are waiting for a chess set to arrive, I ask him if he finds it difficult to stay motivated. “No,” he says, “as soon as I do, the career will be over.” He has played chess seriously since he was eight, and his education – at a Norwegian school for elite athletes – was based around the game. When I ask him at what age he knew chess would be his life, his reply surprises me: “I don’t know that yet, though it will be a big part of my life.” He says he does not anticipate playing into middle age and beyond. Chess players rarely improve after their early 30s, and he anticipates a football-style length of career. This is his moment, and in a decade or so he will find something else to do.

The set eventually turns up and we play. After seven moves he tells me we are level. I decide on a death-or-glory approach, give up a couple of pawns for what I hope will be an overwhelming attack, play a queen move that he says is a good one, start to feel very happy . . . and then it all fizzles out. The game reaches a rapid conclusion when I make what I would term a “schoolboy error” if I didn’t fear writs from schoolboys.

“You play like a Norwegian,” Carlsen tells me after the game. This is not meant as a compliment. He means I play speculatively rather than efficiently, putting style above substance. “Play more like a Russian,” he suggests. “Do you play like a Norwegian or a Russian?” I ask him. “I can play like both,” he says with a self-confidence that sits oddly with his shy nature.

Now he will face former world champion Vladimir Kramnik, while I prepare for Crystal Palace. I look forward to seeing my opponent’s face when I tell him who I limbered up against.

Here is the game.