Why Magnus Carlsen matters for Norway Chess

1 week ago 9

ARTICLE AD BOX

Magnus Carlsen Norway Chess This year, the ongoing Norway Chess in Stavanger is seeing a rare Carlsen sighting in classical chess as the world no 1 plays in what could possibly be his only classical tournament appearance in 2025. (Credit: Flickr/Norway Chess)

It’s been a few years since Magnus Carlsen fell out of love with classical chess. Over the years, his appearances in the longest format of the game have reduced to a trickle year after year. This year, the ongoing Norway Chess in Stavanger is seeing a rare Carlsen sighting in classical chess as the world no 1 plays in what could possibly be his only classical tournament appearance in 2025. The Norwegian even walked away from the much-coveted world champion’s throne two years back, and has no regrets about it.

But despite his aversion to playing classical chess and his opinion that traditional chess is too theoretical to inspire too much creativity in the opening phase, Carlsen continues to play at the annual Norway Chess tournament. The tournament and the players have become synonymous with each other over the past 13 years. In fact, Kjell Madland, the founder of Norway Chess, said that organising the tournament 13 years back would not have been possible without the five-time world champion.

“The interest for chess in Norway was extremely low when we had the first Norway Chess tournament. Magnus brought something new into this sport, he was young, he was cool, he was different from other players. Of course, we couldn’t do the Norway Chess tournament (13 years back) without Magnus, because the interest for chess in Norway was almost nothing,” Madland told journalists from India on the sidelines of the ongoing event.

Madland pointed out that Carlsen had just won the Candidates tournament when the first edition of the event was held.

“Norway Chess couldn’t happen without him, because the interest in Norway wouldn’t be there. And we needed sponsors and everything, because we wanted to do this in a totally different way from others. We wanted to have sponsors and chess on TV. You needed some interest. We have also been a part of building this interest (in Norway). But it was because of Magnus, that we could,” he added.

So now that Carlsen is focussing his energies on faster time controls and freestyle chess, what will be the impact on the tournament should he walk away from classical chess completely?

“It’s not easy to answer exactly what we will do and how. But we hope of course Magnus will also play for many years. We want to do something new all the time. And if we do that, it will always be an interesting tournament for everyone. Not only Magnus, but also for the other players. Of course he needs to play against some good players. So it’s important for everyone,” Madland added.

Story continues below this ad

Madland says that Carlsen loves the format of Norway Chess, where there are no increments for the first 40 moves and then just 10-second increments on each move from move 41. There is also the Armageddon where the player with white pieces has 10 minutes to win while the player with black pieces has seven minutes to simply draw.

“Earlier, I think this was maybe too much pressure for Magnus to play here. Sometimes he didn’t like it so much because of the pressure, but now I think it’s a very nice thing for him and he needs to play some classical games and he likes this format,” said Madland.