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Magnus Carlsen – “I am chaotic and lazy” (2010)
- kizer 12y agoI think there's a great analogy for why he cares so little about his intelligence: do you think Michael Jordan sat around admiring his build, his height, etc? In a competitive environment, it's best to accept that some of your abilities are fixed, so you can focus on training what can be bettered.
- gargantian 12y agoThat's not a good analogy. For all I know after a day's training Jordan sat around admiring his build and height. I think reverse Dunning-Kruger is much more likely in Magnus's case.
- mmanfrin 12y agoActually I think what you're referencing is still Dunning-Kruger: "Conversely, highly skilled individuals tend to underestimate their relative competence, erroneously assuming that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others." (from wiki)
- rithmoflife 12y agoMore specifically, it's the Downing effect: "One of the main effects of illusory superiority in IQ is the Downing effect. This describes the tendency of people with a below average IQ to overestimate their IQ, and of people with an above average IQ to underestimate their IQ." (also from wiki)
- khalilravanna 12y agoI think it's a pretty good analogy. I thought it was well understood that Michael Jordan was a very competitive individual and didn't take his wins for granted and that there was always something to work towards and improve upon. "...the most competitive individual...Always felt like somebody else was going to outwork him so he wanted to out work them." - A trainer of Jordan's. (Video for reference: http://youtu.be/w39-_rauFSk http://youtu.be/w39-_rauFSk)
- jrs99 12y agousually, as a shooting guard, jordan would be playing with 3 people taller than him on his own team, and only 1 person shorter than him. just like basketball is not purely about body size and athleticism, chess is not purely about iq. And it is kind of idiotic that iq is the thing that people think must be the one thing that makes good chess players good. after a certain point, iq probably doesn't matter. motivation, concentration, competitiveness, determination, experience, preparation, risk-taking, creativity, pleasure when thinking about chess... i really don't understand why iq is the thing that's talked about so much. magnus clearly understands that some people will neglect chess for something else. The implication is that there are geniuses out there today doing other things instead of moving figurines over a grid... that's a very humble and wise world view.
- phaus 12y ago>I think there's a great analogy for why he cares so little about his intelligence: do you think Michael Jordan sat around admiring his build, his height, etc? Well, when you consider that Michael Jordan obsessed about his height before he was tall, there's a good chance that he felt that it was at least partly responsible for his skill. In actuality, it did play a significant role. If Michael Jordan had the same level of skill, and was 5'9", he would have been above average(for an NBA player) at best.
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- dont_be_mean 12y agoSometimes you wonder. I was not particularly interested; I was bad and soon stopped again. I don’t know why I learnt all the countries of the world off by heart, including their capitals and populations. Chess was probably just another pastime. I’m not a disciplined thinker. Organisation is not my thing; I am chaotic and tend to be lazy. My trainer recognised that and as a rule allowed me to practise whatever I felt like at the time. When I was 13, my parents took me out of school for a year. They travelled around the world with me and my sisters, and on the way they taught us. That was fantastic, much more effective than sitting in school.
- marvin 12y agoWhat are you saying? That defining one's identity by the intensity, quantity and quality of the work that one does, might not the best way to live a life and be really good at something? ;)
- sayemm 12y agoInteresting how he says that extremely high IQ may even be a disadvantage: And that’s precisely what would be terrible. Of course it is important for a chess player to be able to concentrate well, but being too intelligent can also be a burden. It can get in your way. I am convinced that the reason the Englishman John Nunn never became world champion is that he is too clever for that. At the age of 15, Nunn started studying mathematics in Oxford; he was the youngest student in the last 500 years, and at 23 he did a PhD in algebraic topology. He has so incredibly much in his head. Simply too much. His enormous powers of understanding and his constant thirst for knowledge distracted him from chess... Right. I am a totally normal guy. My father is considerably more intelligent than I am. And that his big shtick is his focus, intuition, and domain expertise - not his IQ: No. In terms of our playing skills we are not that far apart. There are many things I am better at than he is. And vice versa. Kasparov can calculate more alternatives, whereas my intuition is better. I immediately know how to rate a situation and what plan is necessary. I am clearly superior to him in that respect.
- dasil003 12y agoThis makes sense in that IQ is a measure of general intellectual capacity at the concscious level, but the underlying raw processing power of the human brain is much much greater, we just usually lack the ability to apply it directly to problems—it's like a very high level programming language; whereas mathematical savants or intuition, in this case, can outperform much higher IQs by having a sort of unconscious ASIC under the hood, as it were.
- sayemm 12y agoNice analogy! Yes, it's spot-on with K. Anders Ericsson's research on expert performance and deliberate practice: - http://psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson/ericsson.exp.perf.html http://psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson/ericsson.exp.perf.html - http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Papers/Py104/ericsson.long.html http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Papers/Py104/ericsson.lo...
- mcv 12y agoI find it odd and funny that he considers a career in mathematics a distraction. He later says there's more in life than chess, but in this quote he doesn't seem to realize that. I doubt I'd want to be world champion if it required giving up all those "distractions".
- jonny_eh 12y agoI'd love to see Carlsen play a modern game like Hearthstone or Magic. Even just to hear his thoughts on them.
- adamnemecek 12y agoI would guess that he'd feel like there is too much chance. The issue with a game like Magic is that you can play perfectly and still lose. And I say this as someone who loves the game. EDIT: I read further and it seems like he enjoys poker. So I guess it's possible that he'd enjoy MTG.
- jonny_eh 12y agoI suspect you're right. But for people who can't dedicate all their time to a game, the randomness in some games (like poker and MTG) can level the playing field. It allows a lesser player to win from time to time, but good players will win more often. To me, this is more "fun". With chess, it's just brutal. Unless both players are evenly matched, it's a steamrolling. No fun for either player. At the top tiers though, I can see it being very interesting. But then again, I find watching top players play Hearthstone to also be very interesting. Especially when you consider the meta-strategizing of picking certain cards for their decks.
- benolds 12y agoInteresting coincidence - I bumped into a game design article earlier today about balancing luck and skill in games. http://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/when-i-win-its-skill-when-you-win-its-luck--gamedev-322 http://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/when-i-win-its-... The article discusses how different players prefer different ratios of luck vs skill, so making the most "fun" game in this regard really depends on who your target audience is. Similar to your thoughts on randomness. :)
- jonny_eh 12y agoFascinating, thanks!
- eddotman 12y agoThe brevity and bluntness in his responses is pretty amusing. I'm surprised he so candidly rates his own abilities and the abilities of his peers - I feel like many people would dodge those questions in public interviews.
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- dasil003 12y agoThe intersection of chess and Scandinavianism is strong here. Fortunately the HN crowd is one of the most appreciative of that degree of bluntness.
- simonpantzare 12y agoThe Law of Jante is nowhere to be seen. Hooray! /Swede
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago>I'm surprised he so candidly rates his own abilities and the abilities of his peers // In chess though you have a ranking, you have past games to compare. It would be silly for him to say "oh, I'm not that good" as there's a measured value which [possibly incorrectly] says he's the world number one. Similarly he spends a lot of his time assessing his opponents, their games, their characters. I found it interesting that he said Kasparov can judge which opening a player will play taking in to account their mood. It would be nice to test that claim some how.
- eddotman 12y agoYeah, I guess he can say a lot based on replays and Elo. Still, I feel like many people would feel awkward saying that they are better than their peers - even if it's true. Well, maybe that's partly a cultural thing; I'm sure it varies in terms of how uncomfortable people are about that sort of thing.
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- mhomde 12y agoI think there might be a correlation between being lazy and being creative. I've seen this pattern in many other greats (and in my not so great self :) Aaron Sorkin talks about procrastinating a lot between writing sessions. Lots of painters and artists procrastinate as well. I think its a matter of digestion, your mind is focused on a "task" and churning in the background, but you don't actively work on it except when you "feel like it". I saw some scientific article to this affect that the downtime is actually very valuable for the brain to form creative thought.
- drcomputer 12y agoLaziness is relatively defined to other people's minds. Your mind works the best when it does, and it works best with the minds it works best with, which is actually really complicated to think about. Also, persistently evaluating your mind for whether it is lazy or not has side effects on how your mind works. Just because it doesn't fit someone else's mold doesn't make your mind lazy, and just because a bunch of minds fit together perfectly to propel one person skyward doesn't make them a genius. A bunch of geniuses arguing about progress doesn't create progress. We aren't very good at mapping our minds while using our minds to do it, but maybe we are. I hope science one day recognizes that we can spend centuries churning our wheels without actually getting anywhere - we create the same problem we begin with by convincing ourselves we found the solution.
- NamTaf 12y agoI think it's actually more causal than you first give it credit for. I think creativity cultures a certain laziness for that person. From observing my friends and I, my anecdata suggests that the most creative are on average more lazy because they can use their creativity as a clutch to make up for a relative lack of hard work. The other intelligent but less creative individuals must suppliment that with grinding away more time on the problems. The creative lazy people also tend to be more 'hot and cold' than consistent, because if they rely on creativity but it doesn't fire then they end up falling short. Consistent hard work is more reliable, but takes more effort and doesn't necessarily produce as high peaks (though in doing so, avoids as low troughs)
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- tbrake 12y agoHe briefly talks about Kasparov here as they were training together at the time. They later broke up. I wonder if some of the conflict they felt was was really Magnus's more organic, natural approach clashing with Kasparov's more like systematic and rigid type of training, which he no doubt inherited from Botvinnik. This isn't to say Magnus doesn't work hard at his game but on a chess approach scale of, say, Capablanca to Botvinnik, he would very much tilt towards the former. edit: Actually he specifically talks about that; somehow I skipped it upon first reading.
- netvarun 12y agoThis past two weeks, I have been reading Kasparov's "Life Imitates Chess" and your comment certainly rings true. He spends a fair number of pages discussing about Botvinnik's rigid and systematic training system and how that helped instill a strong work ethic in him. There is also a section on Casablanca and how his laziness cost him his crown to Alekhine, who was Botvinnik's predecessor. If history serves right, I am predicting Carlsen will lose the throne to Caruana in 2016!
- jc123 12y agoAt this point in time, it is probably more for Carlsen to lose than to Caruana winning. If Carlsen feels good, he will train a lot; hopefully it will be an exciting match.
- simplegeek 12y agoI get the impression that they didn't break up. They still train together from what I understand after reading the interview.
- V-2 12y agoHm, the interview is from 2010. It is my understanding that they parted soon after.
- lukeholder 12y agoMy favourite quote: "I listen to music on the Internet, but don't download any songs. It's all totally legal. Many people may find that boring, but I think it is important."
- nemo1618 12y agoI like how he cited "a silly rap song" by Lil Jon as an example of "gloomy music."
- CurtMonash 12y agoI don't find his disclaimers about his intelligence persuasive. He's obviously a pretty smart guy; at least, he was quite the smart kid. That said, I had monumentally high IQ scores as a little kid, and they are surely vastly lower in adulthood. So I'm not very eager to be retested either. ;)
- V-2 12y agoBeing smart is one thing, but does intelligence account for his chess accomplishments? The urban legend of Kasparov's IQ being in the 190 range is still purported, but once he was actually examined (an initiative of "Der Spiegel" magazine) it turned out his IQ was 135 or so. This is highly intelligent, of course, but that's like 1 in 100 or 1 in 150, so people with higher IQ are still dime a dozen. Personally I'm of an opinion that IQ doesn't mean much - it's a "dexterous fingers" thing. You surely need dexterous fingers to become an accomplished neurosurgeon or a violinist, but this trait is pointless by itself, and 1 in a 1000 level of dexterity is good enough, so you don't gain anything by going beyond that.
- fenomas 12y ago> Personally I'm of an opinion that IQ doesn't mean much Opinions certainly vary there! My first "real" programming job interview began with an IQ test, and passing it was basically what got me an offer. The company owner scored the test in front of me, and said "Not bad.. five points above the minimum I'd consider hiring for a developer position."
- jc123 12y agoHis quote was "tend to be lazy". When he feels good he trains a lot. No amount of brilliant talent, that is lazy, is sufficient to be world champion in any endeavor. There's too much competition from the others who want to be champion.
- KhalilK 12y agoWhen I am feeling good, I train a lot. When I feel bad, I don’t bother. I can definitely relate to that when it comes to my studies, too bad it's not yielding any good results.
- amelius 12y agoI wonder what his 4 letter personality type is.
- wavesandwind 12y agoI'm currently reading a fascinating book on world-class performance, "The Art of Learning" by Josh Waizkind, a chess and martial arts champion. It gives some really great insights into the world-class players' psychology. Highly recommended!
- V-2 12y agoYeah, Waitzkin is a good read. I've got this book, too. I first heard about him when I got Chessmaster, which came with his video tutorials. And these were the best I've ever seen, in terms of insightfulness and pedagogical skills.
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