An Interview With Bent Larsen

On my way to read the coverage of the 1978 Karpov-Korchnoi match in "Chesss Life and Review," I was reminded this interview with Bent Larsen at the Lone Pine tournament by Jerry Hanken.
Jerry Hanken was a parole officer by day and a chess journalist, organizer and strong player (2300+) in his spare time. He also passed away less than one year before Larsen.

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Thanks! Bent Larsen was the best! We have a Bent Larsen fanclub here on chess.com.

As a Dane you've been exposed more to Larsen than most of us in, say, America. As a Danish chess writer, his work is mostly unknown to most English speakers.  He comes across to me as highly intelligent and quite unflappable, laid back and likeable.    

And his writing is so great. There is a Danish school of chess. And it is based on Nimzowitsch and Larsen's writing. I think his best games and a fantastic book on the Open variation in the Ray Lopez can be found in English + some articles in NIC etc. But we have so much fantastic stuff only in Danish. 

I can imagine. But therein also lies the problem.... only in Danish.  

Thanks a lot again for interesting post!

I just posted this to spotlight Larsen.  I wouldn't say he's forgotten and certainly not obscure, but I do think he may be underappreciated outside of certain areas where he is as well known for his writing as he is for his chess.

Always a big fan of his!

Nice

Good interview, very frank and open. A little hard to read sometimes... but c'est la vie.

Wonderful article! Bent Larsen's Best Games is one of my favorite chess books of all time. I wish that we (Americans) had more access to his wider range of writings.

Carlsen knows all Larsen's writing (Norwegian and Swedes can read Danish) and his coach Peter Heine Nielsen is an expert on Larsen and visited Larsen many times. 

I mentioned elsewhere I'm reading Bronstein's "Secret Notes."  Here is a part of what he had to say about Larsen, the player and the writer:

"I always closely watched Bent when he was playing. He was absolutely unpredictable! His moves would cause surprise, astonishment, even, I would say, anger. Is it really possible to play so anti-positionally? But then , when he had won, one could only admire his skill in creating freakish constructions out of his pieces and pawns. it appeared that all his adornments were about to collapse, but no, the Danish magician would coolly convert his ideas into a win. Of course, there were also failures. But with a creative chess player this is bou nd to happen. Not all sketches become pictures, just as certain games are merely draft for a future masterpiece.

Equally important for Larsen, along with professionally playing fantastically complicated chess, was literary activity. In my view, he is one of the most interesting chess writers of his generation. True, he wrote mainly in Danish. But I have seen his articles in Spanish magazines incredibly interesting, lively and well written! Bent understood the spirit of the ordinary chess enthusiast, who on a free evening wants simply to look at some pretty game, and admire the comments of the great Larsen. . . And it is a pity that up till now no one has collected and published the hundreds of pages of chess columns, produced by Bent's pen and scattered around magazines throughout the world.
And what about his weekly or even daily radio broadcasts for Danish listeners! In one of them I happened to take part. This was in 1968 at the Olympiad in Lugano. Bent, as a true chess artist, had little interest in the purely competitive side with its points and half points; therefore, when he had an hour's transmission , he spent some five minutes giving the results of the round, and all the remaining time he would chat with well-known grandmasters about the beauty and depth of their favorite art."

I have heard the name Bent Larsen many times but have never thought to look at his games, after reading this very informative post I will certainly do so.

We were lucky over here back in the late 70's. Larsen was on 'The Master Game' a couple of times, so we appreciate him. He had a long history in England - one of the competitors in the first World Junior championships. A couple of nice pictures of the young Larsen in my Malcolm Barker part 2 post. Thanks as always . Simaginfan.

Check out his games against reigning World Champion Petrosian in Piatigorsky Cup 1966, two very nice wins in quite different style.

It's a pity Larsen mainly is known for that 0-6 against Fischer. He never suffered from bad self confidence and was probably convinced he would beat Fischer, having beaten him with black in the Interzonal the year before. But he did score some memorable results, like winning three Interzonals and reaching three Candidates semis in a row. Larsen won first board gold ahead of Botvinnik in the chess olympiad 1956, and 23-24 years later he scored results like these

Larsen reminds of Fischer not just in being the western hope, but also in his disdain for seconds and playing for draws, being outspoken and coming up with quotable stuff like

"Petrosian isn't much of a World Champion, but I think it is proper that the title is decided in a long match. I am sure others feel that they are the strongest in the world. I certainly feel this way, so does Fischer, Spassky certainly"

"If I were put back in the early 1920s, it would be easy, very easy, to be world champion [---] Most people find this arrogant - but now we know so much more [---] It would be much easier still if you went back to the early 1900s. The first real uncertainty is with Alekhine"

"Alekhine was a calculating genius"

"Don't accept a draw when Petrosian offers it - and don't worry if you lose afterwards. It is a worse defeat to accept a draw prematurely than to lose" etc