What's up with Carlsen?

Note with whom he shares this photo

I think eveyrone needs to get off this guy's balls. He could probably beat everyone on this site simultaneously and blindfolded.

And his personality has shit in the way of relevance to his chess.

 Didn't he already do that, or something like it ?  

Heh, you act like chess players have no personality or interests outside of chess.  Carlsen does more than chess... in fact he also models if you haven't heard

I tend to be slanted the other way, thinking of Liv Tyler as the 2 dimensional one who Carlsen wouldn't want to date in the first place as she couldn't hold a conversation beyond her favorite color of lipstick.

I suppose that chess players are stuffy genius introverts is as silly as models are bipedal upright monkeys.  Still I tend to think there are a million good looking women who know how to put on a dress and walk -- there's only 1 world chess #1 so who's out of whose league?

Well, If I could choose an evening out with either, Sorry, Magnus, maybe next time...

The evening, yeah, hands down a model.  But as soon as the sun rises you're pretty much done with 'em   To actually have a relationship beyond an evening I'd rather date a female chess player to be perfectly honest.

 Perhaps he is of equine proportions

Exactly, chess players aren't geniuses.  I've argued this before in different threads, and I'm certainly not trying to claim otherwise here

What IS up with Carlsen? And why does he look like a constipated baby?

   Carlsen's whole career he has been on top and dominating. Remember, he's a 19 year old kid who has gone nowhere but up. It was bound to happen that he was going to go in a slump eventually. In no way should we think that he would've steamrolled his way to the World Championship against Anand in 2012. He's young enough, he'll bounce back and he'll get to be the Magnus we all know. Just give the poor guy some time.

   -Mark

indeed carlsens has to come up revived again and dispel critics..

In the latest Corus if my memory is not misleading me, Carlsen had to think for about 2 minutes for his first move as white against Kramnik, at the time he was working actively with Kasparov, and it was announced publicly so everyone saw the games partly as Kasparov's prep vs. opponents.

Kramnik made a comment like "maybe he had a disagreement with Kasparov, he wanted him to play something and Carlsen wanted to play something else...", he was of course speaking tongue in cheek while he said it and everyone smiled and laughed, but maybe this was an important problem in their work together, because Kasparov mentions the same thing in the interview (that he "pressed" and Carlsen didn't like that.)

I personally think Carlsen's chances of reaching the no.1 spot and staying there are pretty low for the next tight tournament schedule , because without some egomaniac yet an incredibly hard working tutor like Kasparov, it must be really difficult for him to dedicate himself 100% to chess. Kramnik, Gelfand, Anand, all speak of their experience in organizing their work so that their lack of energy is compensated. When tiredness kicks in, Carlsen doesn't have such compensation simply because he's just a teenager.

When he has time for proper rest and a calm lookback at his relatively weak performances though, his chances of climbing back up will be much higher. From a fan's perspective however, I hope Anand and Kramnik will both get & stay above him till at least the candidates tournament.

Obviously you don't make GM at 13 without talent.  But to succeed at the top obviously takes hard work.  Anand, Kramnik and company were all young GMs and shot up through the ranks as well, you can't expect to steamroll the best of the best without work.  Kasparov never said no talent necessary.

Now in a game here or there it may not be as evident, but don't think I'm the only one interested in seeing how Carlsen does in match play against someone like Anand who has comparatively massive match experience.  I'm guessing not so great.

Of course Anand is older now too, if the wait is too long the experience wont cut it. 

Here's some part of what Kramnik has said in one of the post game interviews at Bilbao, translated by "Alez" at chessninja:

LG asks Kramnik about his relationship with Kasparov.
It started when he was a junior, was "advantageous" for Kramnik as he was the only one from the elite who was getting equal balance against him. In 1994 he realised

Kasparov worked much harder than him and that if he wanted to be WC he had to work much more. He says one has to understand he was only 19 and that he enjoyed himself going out and so and that he realised he had to change his habits.

Next they asked about his physical preparation.
When he was younger he liked tennis a lot but every sport became harder with his back problems. He had to adopt a better lifestyle by quitting smoking and drinking (almost) and eating and resting better.

http://www.chessninja.com/dailydirt/2010/10/kramnik-takes-early-lead-in-bilbao.htm

I can only imagine how hard it was to change his lifestyle completely and reach a working level high enough to win a WC match against Kasparov, the hardest working chess player ever. Carlsen probably needs to accomplish a similarly challenging job to reach the title.

Carlsen in Nanjing: So far, so good!