Chess Grandmaster, Magnus Carlsen, on Pulisic, Salah and football's best chess players

Mo Salah has come on our show a lot and talked about chess. When you look at Mo's play on the field, does it surprise you Mo is a man obsessed with his chess rating? His evolution and his Liverpool career has been quite remarkable, from being kind of a speedster when he got there, to now being incredibly smart with his runs and everything he does on the field. Does it have a connection with the fact that he started to play a lot of chess? I'm not sure. Do I rule it out? No. My guest today is an unstoppable phenomenon, a gent who mastered and tamed the almost impossible infinities of chess and used it to catapult himself to worldwide fame. His total dominance is Real Madrid-esque. His mind, he's like a chess Guardiola, a brilliant positional player with a bulldog determination and why I love him, just a shockingly unconventional set of gambits. He's also an avid football fan, gent who spent time with so many greats of the game, played a couple across the chessboard and even has had a side quest, which is quite unbelievable to me because I don't know where he finds the time to become one of the greatest fantasy football players in the world. I'm delighted to discuss the connection between two of my favourite sports and how football and chess overlap and influence each other. It's a joy to welcome a hero of mine and so many of our listeners, a five-time world chess champion, number one chess player in the world. It's Mr. Magnus Carlsen. Thank you so much for that lovely introduction. Magnus, you deserve all of that and more. You have been the official best chess player in the world since 2011. You have the Guinness Record for the longest unbeaten run. But before all of that, you were born south of Oslo, Norway, in Tonsberg to two engineering parents. I think you had three sisters. Your dad was a tournament-level chess player, but you didn't show much interest until you turned eight. Your older sister Ellen started to play chess and you learned just so you could beat her. I mean, besides crushing the spirit of your sister, what drew you at that outset to the game? It's hard to put myself in the mind of an eight-year-old. What was the case was that I had both the ability and the interest to spend a lot of time on a certain subject that interested me, like Legos. Even before that course, I was really into learning all the names of the cars, jigsaw puzzles, doing maths in my head. And that's why my dad thought that I could have some talent for chess. And as you said, first, I didn't show much interest or promise, but all of a sudden, I got a goal. It's hard to say right now why I love the game. I like to think that it's just a fun game that most people will love once they try it. I'm really grateful to this day that my childhood hobby, which is still my favourite hobby, is also my life and my job. And before we get too deep into it, I want to say thank you to our great friends at Volvo Cars, who are the presenting partner of this entire MIB holiday extravaganza. I have a deep, deep love for the brand. I've owned a Volvo for as long as I can remember. I adore it. It's a joy in my life. Be sure to check out their overseas delivery program, which is amazing. When you purchase a Volvo, it offers you, GFOPs in the United States, an incredible opportunity to experience Swedish food, culture, hospitality, and engineering in one fantastic trip to Gothenburg. Skal! Magnus, back to you. You say you had some talent. I mean, you ascended the ranks precipitously. You gained quickly the moniker the Mozart of chess. You were a grandmaster by the age of 13. Early on, you'd show up for tournaments armed with a stack of Donald Duck comics and then proceed to easily defeat full-grown adults. I mean, you were barely a teenager when you really came to global prominence. We talk to creative playmaking footballers like Bukayo Saka or Cole Palmer all the time about whether the skill they have is natural, Magnus, or learned. How do you understand your own? I think it's clear that I have quite the natural talent. Otherwise, you know, I wouldn't be here. But everything that sort of comes with what looks like pure inspiration, genius on the board or on the football field, it's usually just practice, hours and hours and hours of practice that sort of allow you to go a little bit beyond what others can do, because it's still a learned skill. It's not something that just appears out of nowhere. So I think I've been very lucky to have both a very good talent for the game and secondly, to get to have the interest to immerse myself in the game in a way that maybe others haven't, and also to have people around me and a free mind to sort of make my own decisions. Because I think there are certain ways, sort of more traditional ways to do things in chess that may have worked for others, but doesn't really work for me. Like, it has to be fun. It has to be sort of my thing. I have to sort of be free about it. And that's the way it's been now for more than 25 years. Yeah, I mean, your thing, your willingness, your ability to take risk has meant that you win a lot. 2014, you defended your title at the World Chess Championship, and you also won the World Rapid Championship, the World Blitz Championship, an intense form of chess, essentially with a shot clock. And you became the first person to hold all three titles simultaneously. It's like City doing the treble. You won 125 games in a row without defeat in 2020. 126 games, you finally lost. I think it was the first loss in over two years. How do you experience and process defeat, Magnus, when you're so used to winning? I'm asking for a Pep Guardiola. No, it's true. I don't know what Pep does, because everybody loses. But I feel like I haven't never been particularly good or conventional in the way that I handle defeat. Like, it really bothers me. And I've always thought that I should just try and be better so I don't have to experience that feeling too often. And I think once I lose a game, in my head, there's martial law that cannot be restored until I've won a game. And so I manage to channel it into something where I have to get back. And somehow, it just makes me even more focused most of the time. I think my rating performance over the last 15 years, it increases markedly the very next game after I lose one. So apparently, it just builds that fire in me. But it still bothers me. It's still unpleasant. I can have tournaments where I've locked up the win before the last round, and then I lose, and I'm still thinking, what are you doing? Like, if you're going to play like this, you might as well quit. I love that image of feeling like you're under martial law. I'm an Everton fan, so all I know is life under martial law. But we are getting into it now, because I mentioned up top in the introduction, in almost a parallel trajectory to your chess journey, you are a lifelong football fan, a Real Madrid fan of some standing. Take me back to childhood, mid-1990s, early 2000s Norway. What are your earliest footballing influences, your childhood footballing heroes? Going back to when I was younger, I didn't watch that much football on TV. I remember at some point, I got a Christmas present, which was all about United's... Oh, I really should remember if this was the 96-97 or the 97-98 campaign. I think Arsenal came back and won in 98, right? So it must have been, yeah, it was 96-97. It was like an hour and a half long, summarizing the whole season. I just watched that over and over again. And we never really had English football on TV at home. So the only football that I sort of watched was Norwegian football. And then at times, we would get the channel that showed Champions League included in our package. So then I would watch games of Rosenborg. That was the Norwegian team that was always doing well. And Real Madrid, I would watch their games the day after. Yeah, that was the greatest joy for me, when I could come back from school and watch those games. And then there were times also when we couldn't get those games. So I remember for the Champions League final in 99, obviously, that was a great day, scoring the winning goal. One of our neighbors were out traveling, and they had the channel that showed the game, but we didn't. So they gave us the key, so my dad and I could go and watch that game in their house. And yeah, it was a fantastic experience. I'm fascinated to hear what you experience when you watch football, Magnus. Does it seem separate to your chess life or similar? Because I recently interviewed Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca, who wrote a 7,000 word thesis on chess and football. And he said that when he's watching football, all he sees is chess moves. The way you divide and control both the field and the chessboard. When you watch, Magnus, as a spectator, what are you seeing? Is it more a diversion? Is it completely different to your chess life? Or does your tactical brain switch on like Maresca? So what I do is sometimes I watch football games on mute, and then I try to actually think about what is going on, instead of just listening to crowd noise or whatever the commentators are saying. But mostly, I'm like any football fan, and I just follow where the ball is and hoping for good technical ability from the players and goals for whichever player or team that I'm supporting. You've said that you watch a lot of football. How would you describe the game's role in your life? Is it a release for you, a diversion? Is it like great Scorsese cinema? You play a game in which you've said there's more players than fans. Is there something in football that gives you an emotional release event? Yeah, for sure. But first of all, it's a beautiful game to watch. So I think for most people, they watch any sort of sport. They're mostly interested in the sporting factor of it, like which team or which player is going to win, who's going to run fastest, or whatever. Football is one of the only sports for me, obviously chess is another, where actually I'm interested in more than just who wins, because there are a lot of things that are beautiful about this game that are not only about that, so it's a combination of many things. I should mention though that from getting into football, it was not only about the leagues, but also about the Norwegian national team. And people may not listen to this, may not know this, but we actually used to be decent back in the day. So when I was growing up, 94, I didn't really... I was too little, I didn't really follow that at all. But we qualified for that one, and yeah, we lost in the group stage in heartbreaking fashion. Then 96, basically we had to get two points out of three games, I guess the Czech Republic home and away, and the Netherlands for the Euros, and we didn't. Then 98, we qualified again. That was the first tournament that I was really following every single game, every moment. And I remember very much where I was when Norway beat Brazil in France and qualified for the final stages for the first time in 60 years. And also I can remember everything from when we qualified for the Euros in 2000, how Spain needed to score twice against Yugoslavia for us to not qualify. And imagine growing up with this, and we haven't qualified for anything since. And now just winning Nations League B is actually the greatest thing that we've done in 24 years. There was this one moment in 2015, we drew Hungary in the playoffs for the Euros after they had just expanded so that everybody and their dog qualified. We drew Hungary in the playoffs, and everybody thought this was going to be not easy, but we were going to qualify. Then we play them at home. We lose 1-0 after completely dominating the game. And honestly, it's been nine more years of hurt after that. But now we have great players all along the forward line. We've won our Nations League, and just like England, we're going to be promoted back to level A. So things are looking up a bit. Can I ask you about this, Magnus? Champions of Nations League B, you'll never sing that. I love this narrative. Your team, not just good players, incredible players, Norway. Erling Haaland, Martin Odegaard. I mean, just a chess player off the field, just an immense brain on it. Yet the team hasn't qualified for a major tournament. You've just articulated this agony since 2000, when I think you were nine years of age. If you were stepping up for a new job as Norwegian football manager, what would you do to ensure Norway are at the 2026 World Cup? It's funny, actually, that our coach back in 2015, Per Matthias Høgmo, he had a little bit of an unconventional approach. I think he wanted to meet a lot of people, so he actually asked me at some point to meet him to, you know, pick my brain about a couple of things. And I don't think I had anything to offer. What did you tell him, Magnus? I don't even remember. But what I do know is that we went to Croatia the very next game and we lost 4-1, I think, or maybe 5-1. It was really bad. But I don't know what I would say. I'm not going to pretend that I have any advice. I just hope we win. More than to play you, because you were not a bad player. Aged 22, you joined, I'm going to mispronounce this horribly, Frammo Famagusta, who were then, I believe, in the Norwegian Six Division. I think you were a left-back, and you joked your goal was to become, learn how to become a good reserve. But I've seen your clips on YouTube. You do have moves, Magnus. What kind of a footballer were you? What kind of footballer are you? No, I was never very good. I would say my best ability was, I had good power, a decent long ball with my left foot. I don't know how it is for other people, but I always root a little bit more for the guys, for the left-footed guys. And honestly, in anything, football, be it football, tennis, golf, all of those things, I always feel like a left-footed or left-handed shot, it looks a bit smooth in basketball as well. So that's me. Everton Football Scouts are listening to this, and I expect a bid to be coming in within seven days for Magnus Carlsen. They already have Dwight McNeil. That has Everton back in office. Oh my god, can I curse you? Do you dream chess dreams? Stress chess dreams? Or like much of the rest of the world, do you dream about football too? I dream about chess a lot. I have this recurring dream where I participate in the Norwegian Championship, which I haven't played in since 2006. And I do horribly each time, I don't know why. With football dreams, yeah, I do have those as well. They're often about my fantasy team. I think the most recent time was three nights ago that Fulham and Tottenham played a 6-6 draw and Raúl Jiménez scored five goals. Yeah, I don't know. You have fantasy football dreams is the honest truth, and we will talk about that in just one moment. I know you're a huge Real Madrid fan, you're seen at games. Do you have a Premier League team that you feel an emotional connection to? I was a United fan when I grew up because of Ole, of course. But I don't know, I sort of got disenchanted with the club, I don't know, probably about 15 years ago. I don't know why, but I would say now I don't support a team in England. And I actually enjoy that in a way more because it's good for my fantasy football that I don't support any club. I'm more like I support the teams that play good football at that very time. For some reason, I don't like Arsenal that much. Magnus, more to know the gods, not listen to this. I like him a lot and speaking of chess players, I don't think it would be a surprise for people to know that he is a much better chess player than Holland is. But I don't know. There's so many footballers who do play chess and you've talked to a lot of them. I've had them all on my show. Harry Kane, loves it. Trent Alexander-Arnold, Mo Salah told me Trent thinks he's better than he is. Eber-Richie Eze, obsessed. Anthony Gordon says he's become a better footballer by his obsession with chess. Because of who you are, everyone wants to meet you. And you've met so many of them. Erdogan, Haaland, obviously. There's a video of you talking about your game with Christian Pulisic. When you meet these players like Pulisic and the camera goes off, do you find you can connect via how you live your lives as world-famous, deeply competitive human beings? Pulisic, he's a great guy. In terms of chess, I think he's one of the very best chess players among the players you mentioned. Yeah, he plays a lot and I think he consumes a lot of chess content on YouTube. So I've been a fan of Mo Salah for many years. He even name-checked me in one of his interviews when he was talking about chess. Obviously, he'd be somebody whom I'd like to meet and talk about chess and football with one day. You've played Trent Alexander-Arnold in chess. I think he lasted eight moves longer against you than Bill Gates did. And Mo Salah has come on our show a lot and talked about chess, Magnus. He told me there's not a single chess player who can beat him. He talks about how much in his life he would love to play you, shirt on or shirt off. He's a chess obsessive. We have readers writing into us, Magnus, who've randomly run into him in Pittsburgh Starbucks and ended up playing him over and over again on chess.com. When you look at Mo's play on the field, the visceral nature of it, the vision, the intelligence, the creativity, does it surprise you Mo is a man obsessed with his chess rating? No, not at all. The funny thing is that his evolution and his Liverpool career has been quite remarkable. From being kind of a speedster when he got there, who relied more on, it felt like, instinct and intuition and speed, when he got there to now being incredibly smart with his runs, with his passes and everything he does on the field. Does it have a connection with the fact that he's started to play a lot of chess? I'm not sure. Do I rule it out? No. And your football game has also improved the better chess player you become, no doubt. Magnus Carlsen against Mo Salah. When? You keep ducking Mo Salah. When will that match go down? Honestly, I mostly just would like to meet Mo and talk about chess and football. I don't need there to be any cameras or anything like that, but he seems like a great guy. Another gent you've spent time with, Pet Guardiola, winner of six Premier League titles. He's got the fingers to prove it. He was on a year-long sabbatical. He lived in Manhattan. He met with another gent who's come on this show, the great grandmaster Garry Kasparov, and he started to study your game, looking for ways to incorporate chess thinking into the game of football. He, like you, has a preternatural hunger to win. When you spent time with Pep, how would you describe his mind, how it works? Pep was very, very nice and warm as a human being, so he makes you feel at ease in that way, and I think it helps that there's obviously a lot of mutual respect. Just to hear him talking about football as well, everything that he sees, it's incredible, and there are certain managers like Ancelotti who just wins, and there's others like Pep who just wants to solve football by any means, and that's why he sometimes absolutely overthinks things, but also other times he will do something that is ahead of his time and just advances football a lot. I will say, though, for all this talk about football and chess being similar in some sense or where you can learn from each other, like, some of it is obviously overblown, something people like to talk about. When one person who has an interest in both meets another person that has an interest in both, you sort of like to talk about similarities, right? But in terms of controlling space, overloading one side, the geometry of the pitch and the board, there are clear similarities. Now, there are obviously a lot more factors that go into football because so much more is random, and there are so many things that you cannot control. But in terms of the things you can control, then a lot of the principles are sort of the same, that if you control certain areas, you will likely be more successful. Really, like, overloading one side and then being able to switch play, like, that is a key component, both in football and positional play in chess as well. Like, you probe somewhere to create a weakness somewhere else. I mean, all of those things are kind of superficial, but I can understand why people might be attracted to both. By the way, Pep has talked about you and meeting you, and that come exactly that, the overload, one side of attack, switching flanks, that's what he took from you. But there's football for real, and there's football in the fantasy realm. And famously, early 2020s, you became unbelievably good. This won't surprise viewers. There's a famous video of chess.com coming to visit your home 2021, and I love this part. For Christmas one year, you got a framed image of the Fantasy Premier League table from December 2019. The official one. I think it had over 7 million competitors. Top of the table was you. And among all your infinite accolades, awards, trophies, this seemed like your prized possession, framed in a place of honor in your home. I don't know how you find the time, but were you like Alexander the Great? You've conquered chess, and so you now needed to conquer other worlds. What was it? Or was it just social connection with your friends, like the rest of us? Yeah, I think it started that way. Definitely a social thing with friends. And honestly, now I'm more casual than anything else. I don't have a public team anymore. I got a little bit sick of people talking about my every move, and then random people meeting me on the street and talking about my football team. It changed economic markets. When you dropped Ashley Young, it would change economic markets around the world. I think I was asked at some point whether I would trade that first place in fantasy football for one of my world championships. And I would have to think about it, honestly. I would actually have to think about it. The very act of thinking about it tells us what we need to know. I know you pour over data and statistics, or you did back in the day. You also said you need to be extraordinarily fortunate, ultimately, which sounds like someone who doesn't want to give away top-secret tips to the other seven million opponents. If you were to give us one secret that you learned about fantasy football success that you can share with our viewers, what would it be? I generally believe in fixtures over form. That's one thing. And I believe in regression to the mean. I believe that Holland will, playing for City, average about one expected goal per game, because that's what he does. You either believe that that's worth it, or you don't, because short-term, there's going to be incredible swings. So you make a plan, and then, of course, you adjust if the numbers don't tell you what you want to see or what your eyes see. But over time, I think you trust your judgment. And also, I always make choices. If I have two choices that I feel are similar, let's make the one that is the most fun, you know? Because that's what it's all about, after all. If it's not fun, then what is the point? I love you, Magnus. Come and manage Everton, would you? Before we finish, we do want to say again, thank you to our great friends at Volvo Cars, who are the presenting partner of this entire MIB holiday extravaganza. Be sure to check out their overseas delivery program when you purchase a Volvo, which offers you, listeners in the United States, an amazing opportunity to experience Swedish food, culture, hospitality, and engineering in one life-changing, fantastic trip to Gothenburg, Sweden. Oh, skull. Magnus, one of so many reasons that I admire you is that you are more dominant at one of the hardest things in the world than anyone has ever been in human history. But you also maintain, and anyone that's listened to this, just a regular gent exterior for such a one-in-a-century unicorn. And the honest truth is, you're still just 34 years of age. You've already been the world's best in chess, in fantasy football. How do you look at the next stage of your life? What would you next like to conquer? Or do you ever see yourself doing things for the sake of doing them, without having to excel and dominate? Or is that just not who you are? No, I set about doing things because they are fun. And for the moment, I love playing chess, so I'm going to continue to do that. You know, I've got new projects with the Take app and the Freestyle Chess Tour. And I love being a chess player and a casual football fan. So, you know, life is good. Magnus, I know, top of mind right now, Everton survival in the Premier League. But after that, for you, it's the Freestyle Chess Tour. And I just made the first part up because the second is really most important. Just tell us, what about that excites you? First of all, Everton are not really in trouble either. They're just, they're not very good. But there are some teams that are worse. That's what I would say. I love you, Magnus. Freestyle Chess Tour. For those who have followed, they will know that sort of longer classical chess, I've become like a little bit disenamored with. So we're playing a different kind of chess where you're basically starting with a new position every game and in longer games. That's what we're doing now. Basically creating a fresh set of tactics every game. And that's what I'm really passionate about when it comes to chess these days. I love faster chess as well. But in terms of longer chess, this is what I do. We're going to have a tour starting next year with five tournaments around the world in Germany, in the United States, in South Africa, in India and Singapore. So that's going to be great. I cannot wait. I will see you at the United States tournament. Magnus, to you, to your future glory, to the Freestyle Chess Tour, to your future career as Norwegian football manager. Favreau. Okay. Thank you, man. Thank you. Courage.