6 ms·

Magnus (Carlsen, chess) does this often, he pushes people into unknown territory that they are most certainly underprepared for through new or obscure openings

Magnus (Carlsen, chess) does this often, he pushes people into unknown territory that they are most certainly underprepared for through new or obscure openings that complicate a position very quickly. The game then turns tactical and they eventually find themselves in a bad endgame, one against Magnus of all people.

ozim 2y ago
Just in case someone thinks Magnus comes up with those openings on the spot. No he has a team that uses computers to find out those plays based on what other player played as all past matches are available. Source: I watched interview with a guy that was hired as a computer scientist consulting gig by Magnus team. It does not take away how good he is as I don’t think many people could learn to remember weird openings and win from that against grand master level players anyway.
- rybosworld 2y ago
  I remember reading that his memory is unrivaled - so this also isn't a strategy the other top players could simply copy. In chess, there are basically three ways to evaluate moves 1) pure calculation 2) recognize the position (or a very similar one) from a previous game, and remember what the best move was 3) intuition - this one is harder to explain but, I think of it like instinct/muscle memory All the top players are good at all of these things. But some are agreed upon as much better than others. Magnus is widely agreed to have the best memory. The contender for best calculator might be Fabiano. In humans, all else being equal, memory seems to be superior to calculation, because calculation takes time. Chess engines seem to reverse this, with calculation being better than memory, because memory is expensive.
  - zdragnar 2y ago
    This is the reason why I couldn't ever get into chess, despite my dad and brother enjoying it. My intuition was crap (having not developed it) and I lacked the ability or desire to fully visualize multiple steps of the game. All that remained was rote memorization, which makes for a boring game indeed. Despite all of that, I suspect chess will long outlive my preferred entertainment of Unreal Tournament.
    - Retric 2y ago
      The magic of chess is in matchmaking. I enjoy using nearly pure intuition when playing so I just use that strategy and see the same ~50/50 win percentage as most players because my ELO is based on how I play past games and there’s millions of online players across a huge range of skill levels. There’s nothing wrong with staying at 1000 or even 300 if that’s what it takes to enjoy the game. It’s only if you want to beat specific people or raise your ELO that forces you to try and optimize play.
      - stackghost 2y ago
        I hate ladder systems. Winning is fun and losing is not. Why would I purposely choose to play a game/system where your win rate does not meaningfully improve as you skill up? That sounds frustrating and tedious. If I get better I want to win more often.
        linguistbreaker 2y ago
        But winning is only fun because you do not always win and almost proportionally so... If you get better you get to play better games against better opponents. The win or loss is ancillary to the experience for me.
        stackghost 2y ago
        >The win or loss is ancillary to the experience for me. Maybe because I primarily play sports and not chess but this attitude is completely foreign and mystifying to me. Don't you feel bad when you lose? Why would you purposely engage in an ELO system that results in you feeling bad after 50% of games, and never gives you a sense of progress? Isn't that profoundly discouraging? Do you think Tiger Woods or Leo Messi wish they won fewer matches? Like I just can't get myself into a headspace where you're out for competition but are satisfied with a 50% win rate.
        lupire 2y ago
  - ANewFormation 2y ago
    His memory is definitely rivaled. During the recent speed chess championships broadcast they had Magnus, Hikaru, Alireza, and some other top players play some little games testing memory, response rate, and so on. The memory game involved memorizing highlighted circles on a grid so even something ostesibly chess adjacent. Magnus did not do particularly well. Even when playing a blindfold sim against 'just' 5 people (the record is 48) he lost track of the positions (slightly) multiple times and would eventually lose 2 of the games on time. But where Magnus is completely unrivaled is in intuition. His intuition just leads him in a better direction faster than other top players. This is both what makes him so unstoppable in faster time controls, and also so dangerous in obscure openings where he may have objectively 'meh' positions, but ones where the better player will still win, and that better player is just about always him.
    - lupire 2y ago
      Short term memory is extremely different from lifelong memory.
      - ANewFormation 2y ago
        For sure, but 'memory' as people think of it plays a fairly small role in chess - mostly relegated to opening preparation which is quite short term - watch any player, including Magnus, stream and they all constantly forget or mix up opening theory in various lines. But of course if you expect to play a e.g. Marshall Gambit in your next game then you'll review those lines shortly before your game. Instead people think players have this enormous cache of memorized positions in their minds where they know the optimal move, but it's more about lots of ideas and patterns, which then show themselves immediately when you look at a position. Watch any world class player solve puzzles and you'll find they have often solved it before 'you' (you being any person under master level) have even been able to figure out where all the pieces are. And it's not like they've ever seen the exact position before (at least not usually), but they've developed such an extreme intuition that the position just instantly reveals itself. So one could call this some sort of memory as I suspect you're doing here with 'lifelong memory', but I think intuition is a far more precise term.
      - 2y ago
  - vlovich123 2y ago
    While Magnus has a very strong memory (as do all players at that caliber) his intuition is regarded by others and himself as his strongest quality and he constantly talks about how an intuitive player he is compared with others. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-gw6ChKKoo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-gw6ChKKoo
- nordsieck 2y ago
  > It does not take away how good he is Honestly, your anecdote makes me respect him even more. Few people go to those lengths to prepare.
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    I would presume almost every chess grandmaster does the same, no? And in that case there’s nothing particularly genius in this stroke. Maybe doesn’t reduce my image of any individual player, but does reduce the image of the game itself.
    - drivers99 2y ago
      I had a brief rabbit hole about chess at the beginning of this year and found out a few things pros do to prepare against their opponents. I was trying to remember one specific periodical, but I found it: Chess Informant. 320 page paperback (and/or CD! - I see they also have a downloadable version for less[2]) quarterly periodical full of games since the last one. Looks like they're up to volume 161.[1] I suppose pros also get specific games they want sooner than that, especially now with everything being streamed, but anyway. There's a lot more going on in chess that is just as important as the time spent actually playing in the tournament. [1] https://sahovski.com/Chess-Informant-161-Olympic-Spirit-p695451540 https://sahovski.com/Chess-Informant-161-Olympic-Spirit-p695... [2] https://sahovski.com/Chess-Informant-161-DOWNLOAD-VERSION-p695414586 https://sahovski.com/Chess-Informant-161-DOWNLOAD-VERSION-p6...
- kizer 2y ago
  That’s very interesting. However it’s like any of the organizations that support competitors at elite levels in all sports. From the doctors, nutritionists, coaches that support Olympic athletes to the “high command” of any NFL team coordinating over headset with one another and the coach, who can even radio the quarterback on the field (don’t think there is another sport with this).
  - bronson 2y ago
    Auto racing? Even has telemetry.
    - maeil 2y ago
      Road cycling as well maybe? Tour de France.
- tejohnso 2y ago
  Do you think that this kind of inorganic requirement is part of the reason he abandoned World Chess?
  - tomtomtom777 2y ago
    No. He did not abandon "World Chess". He is still an active player. He chooses not to participate in the FIDE World Championship primarily because he doesn't like the format. He prefers a tournament format instead of a long 1-on-1 match against the running champion.
ANewFormation 2y ago
Fwiw this is normal in chess nowadays. There was some brief era in chess where everybody was just going down the most critical lines and assuming they could outprepare their opponents, or outplay them if that didn't work out. Kasparov and Fischer are the typical examples of this style. But computers have made this less practical in modern times simply because it's so easy to lose in these sort of positions to the endless number of comp-prepped novelties which may be both objectively mediocre, but also nary impossible to play against without preparation against a prepared opponent. So a lot of preparation now a days is about getting positions that may not be the most critical test of an opening, but that lead to interesting positions and where the first player to spring a novelty isn't going to just steamroll the other guy. So in this brave new world you see things like the Berlin Defense becoming hugely popular while the Najdorf has substantially declined in popularity.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
Sesse__ 2y ago
It is true that Magnus usually prefers offbeat lines to get out of the opponent's preparation. However, they're rarely very sharp or otherwise tactically complicated; on the contrary, he excels at slow maneuvering in strategic positions (and, as you say, the endgame).

ozim 2y ago

Just in case someone thinks Magnus comes up with those openings on the spot. No he has a team that uses computers to find out those plays based on what other player played as all past matches are available. Source: I watched interview with a guy that was hired as a computer scientist consulting gig by Magnus team. It does not take away how good he is as I don’t think many people could learn to remember weird openings and win from that against grand master level players anyway.

rybosworld 2y ago
I remember reading that his memory is unrivaled - so this also isn't a strategy the other top players could simply copy. In chess, there are basically three ways to evaluate moves 1) pure calculation 2) recognize the position (or a very similar one) from a previous game, and remember what the best move was 3) intuition - this one is harder to explain but, I think of it like instinct/muscle memory All the top players are good at all of these things. But some are agreed upon as much better than others. Magnus is widely agreed to have the best memory. The contender for best calculator might be Fabiano. In humans, all else being equal, memory seems to be superior to calculation, because calculation takes time. Chess engines seem to reverse this, with calculation being better than memory, because memory is expensive.
- zdragnar 2y ago
  This is the reason why I couldn't ever get into chess, despite my dad and brother enjoying it. My intuition was crap (having not developed it) and I lacked the ability or desire to fully visualize multiple steps of the game. All that remained was rote memorization, which makes for a boring game indeed. Despite all of that, I suspect chess will long outlive my preferred entertainment of Unreal Tournament.
  - Retric 2y ago
    The magic of chess is in matchmaking. I enjoy using nearly pure intuition when playing so I just use that strategy and see the same ~50/50 win percentage as most players because my ELO is based on how I play past games and there’s millions of online players across a huge range of skill levels. There’s nothing wrong with staying at 1000 or even 300 if that’s what it takes to enjoy the game. It’s only if you want to beat specific people or raise your ELO that forces you to try and optimize play.
    - stackghost 2y ago
      I hate ladder systems. Winning is fun and losing is not. Why would I purposely choose to play a game/system where your win rate does not meaningfully improve as you skill up? That sounds frustrating and tedious. If I get better I want to win more often.
      - linguistbreaker 2y ago
        But winning is only fun because you do not always win and almost proportionally so... If you get better you get to play better games against better opponents. The win or loss is ancillary to the experience for me.
        stackghost 2y ago
        >The win or loss is ancillary to the experience for me. Maybe because I primarily play sports and not chess but this attitude is completely foreign and mystifying to me. Don't you feel bad when you lose? Why would you purposely engage in an ELO system that results in you feeling bad after 50% of games, and never gives you a sense of progress? Isn't that profoundly discouraging? Do you think Tiger Woods or Leo Messi wish they won fewer matches? Like I just can't get myself into a headspace where you're out for competition but are satisfied with a 50% win rate.
        lupire 2y ago
- ANewFormation 2y ago
  His memory is definitely rivaled. During the recent speed chess championships broadcast they had Magnus, Hikaru, Alireza, and some other top players play some little games testing memory, response rate, and so on. The memory game involved memorizing highlighted circles on a grid so even something ostesibly chess adjacent. Magnus did not do particularly well. Even when playing a blindfold sim against 'just' 5 people (the record is 48) he lost track of the positions (slightly) multiple times and would eventually lose 2 of the games on time. But where Magnus is completely unrivaled is in intuition. His intuition just leads him in a better direction faster than other top players. This is both what makes him so unstoppable in faster time controls, and also so dangerous in obscure openings where he may have objectively 'meh' positions, but ones where the better player will still win, and that better player is just about always him.
  - lupire 2y ago
    Short term memory is extremely different from lifelong memory.
    - ANewFormation 2y ago
      For sure, but 'memory' as people think of it plays a fairly small role in chess - mostly relegated to opening preparation which is quite short term - watch any player, including Magnus, stream and they all constantly forget or mix up opening theory in various lines. But of course if you expect to play a e.g. Marshall Gambit in your next game then you'll review those lines shortly before your game. Instead people think players have this enormous cache of memorized positions in their minds where they know the optimal move, but it's more about lots of ideas and patterns, which then show themselves immediately when you look at a position. Watch any world class player solve puzzles and you'll find they have often solved it before 'you' (you being any person under master level) have even been able to figure out where all the pieces are. And it's not like they've ever seen the exact position before (at least not usually), but they've developed such an extreme intuition that the position just instantly reveals itself. So one could call this some sort of memory as I suspect you're doing here with 'lifelong memory', but I think intuition is a far more precise term.
    - 2y ago
- vlovich123 2y ago
  While Magnus has a very strong memory (as do all players at that caliber) his intuition is regarded by others and himself as his strongest quality and he constantly talks about how an intuitive player he is compared with others. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-gw6ChKKoo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-gw6ChKKoo
nordsieck 2y ago
> It does not take away how good he is Honestly, your anecdote makes me respect him even more. Few people go to those lengths to prepare.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  I would presume almost every chess grandmaster does the same, no? And in that case there’s nothing particularly genius in this stroke. Maybe doesn’t reduce my image of any individual player, but does reduce the image of the game itself.
  - drivers99 2y ago
    I had a brief rabbit hole about chess at the beginning of this year and found out a few things pros do to prepare against their opponents. I was trying to remember one specific periodical, but I found it: Chess Informant. 320 page paperback (and/or CD! - I see they also have a downloadable version for less[2]) quarterly periodical full of games since the last one. Looks like they're up to volume 161.[1] I suppose pros also get specific games they want sooner than that, especially now with everything being streamed, but anyway. There's a lot more going on in chess that is just as important as the time spent actually playing in the tournament. [1] https://sahovski.com/Chess-Informant-161-Olympic-Spirit-p695451540 https://sahovski.com/Chess-Informant-161-Olympic-Spirit-p695... [2] https://sahovski.com/Chess-Informant-161-DOWNLOAD-VERSION-p695414586 https://sahovski.com/Chess-Informant-161-DOWNLOAD-VERSION-p6...
kizer 2y ago
That’s very interesting. However it’s like any of the organizations that support competitors at elite levels in all sports. From the doctors, nutritionists, coaches that support Olympic athletes to the “high command” of any NFL team coordinating over headset with one another and the coach, who can even radio the quarterback on the field (don’t think there is another sport with this).
- bronson 2y ago
  Auto racing? Even has telemetry.
  - maeil 2y ago
    Road cycling as well maybe? Tour de France.
tejohnso 2y ago
Do you think that this kind of inorganic requirement is part of the reason he abandoned World Chess?
- tomtomtom777 2y ago
  No. He did not abandon "World Chess". He is still an active player. He chooses not to participate in the FIDE World Championship primarily because he doesn't like the format. He prefers a tournament format instead of a long 1-on-1 match against the running champion.

ANewFormation 2y ago

Fwiw this is normal in chess nowadays. There was some brief era in chess where everybody was just going down the most critical lines and assuming they could outprepare their opponents, or outplay them if that didn't work out. Kasparov and Fischer are the typical examples of this style. But computers have made this less practical in modern times simply because it's so easy to lose in these sort of positions to the endless number of comp-prepped novelties which may be both objectively mediocre, but also nary impossible to play against without preparation against a prepared opponent. So a lot of preparation now a days is about getting positions that may not be the most critical test of an opening, but that lead to interesting positions and where the first player to spring a novelty isn't going to just steamroll the other guy. So in this brave new world you see things like the Berlin Defense becoming hugely popular while the Najdorf has substantially declined in popularity.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

Sesse__ 2y ago

It is true that Magnus usually prefers offbeat lines to get out of the opponent's preparation. However, they're rarely very sharp or otherwise tactically complicated; on the contrary, he excels at slow maneuvering in strategic positions (and, as you say, the endgame).