

Interview with Magnus Carlsen, the current #1 chess player - trafficlight
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6187

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mburney
_"When I am feeling good, I train a lot. When I feel bad, I don’t bother. I
don’t enjoy working to a timetable. Systematic learning would kill me."_

I really like this approach. I find learning how to write software works the
same way for me. I tried learning using a schedule, but it never worked for
me. It is nice to know there is a chess grandmaster that has the same
approach.

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kunqiana
"feeling good" seems a bit generic here. I doubt he means the same thing as
inspiration. The competitive nature of chess and the fact that it is a "game",
is usually enough to motivate someone to work harder after winning a few games
(ie warcraft). Where as in writing and writing software there are more mental
blocks and success and gratifications are generally slower, and also harder to
get back on track if you start "feeling bad". So I think discipline is more
important in activities that takes longer to feel gratified.

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mark_l_watson
I would guess that his "secret" is that he loves the game of chess. I like
both chess and Go but realized my limitations (I did poorly in the US Chess
Open in 1976, and I never broke the Shodan level in Go) a long time ago; I
still play both games, but I prefer to study "famous" games since I am just
good enough to appreciate other people's great games.

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andrewljohnson
He sounds pretty crazy... par for the course for chess champions of course.

There's a lot to read between the lines with what he says about Kasparov...
and he already thinks he's better.

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wakeupthedawn
Well he is better than Kasparov now. If they played a match, he'd definitely
win.

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greyman
You are right that Carlsen would probably win, but not because he is "better".
I remember Kasparov himself commented on this issue recently, saying something
like since he doesn't already plays competitive chess, his intuition is not
that sharp, while Carlsen is more in shape.

Overall, I consider Kasparov to be the best chess player ever, while Carlsen
has a potential to be at least as good as Kasparov was in his best years.
Overall, I am happy that those two came together.

