Magnus Carlsen Profile

An in-depth profile of Magnus Carlsen by the New Yorker in 2011 is now freely available on their website. It's definitely worth a read if you have half an hour to spare.

My favourite excerpt:  Carlsen said that, for him, great chess playing is less the “scientific search for the best approaches” than “psychological warfare with some little tricks.” He took me through a few of his best-loved games. The first match that he mentioned was against Vasilios Kotronias, a Greek grandmaster, in the fall of 2004, just a few months after his victory over Ernst. He had not won it—he only came to a draw—but this did not seem to bother him. He was pleased with the way that he had sacrificed a knight, and then a rook, in order to gain a position. “I just thought I’d never seen this combination before, this theme,” he says. “There’s no better feeling than discovering something new.”

Photo by Platon.