Friday
Dec122014
Young Grandmasters Try To Make Chess Cool?!
Friday, December 12, 2014 at 9:49PM
That's the title (but without the punctuation at the end) of a New York Times article that begins with this implausible sentence: "Fabiano Caruana is a chess champion all but made for the age of social media." The article offers a nice profile of Caruana, with some coverage of Magnus Carlsen thrown in, but there's little in the piece to suggest that Caruana is likely to be a social media star beyond the confines of the chess community. (Of course, I'd be very happy to be wrong about this!) Have a look and see for yourselves.
(HT: Bob Banta)
tagged Fabiano Caruana, Magnus Carlsen
Reader Comments (2)
From the NYT article: "And while Mr. Carlsen employs a highly complex positional style, Mr. Caruana is a master of simplicity." Does that seem almost exactly backwards to anyone else? Carlsen's style is positional, yes, but he's the one who thrives on (apparent) simplicity, while Caruana appears somewhat keener to mix it up in dynamic ways that require loads of calculation. Anyway, nice article, even if it mischaracterizes some of the nuances we chess geeks care about.
I can't speak for the NYT, but when/where I worked as a journalist, my editor was always responsible for the titles and headlines. This one seems particularly tone-deaf IMHO, but I doubt I'm the intended audience.
[DM: Right, that has been my experience as well, though mainly as a reader who has had the occasional connection to a journalist. I've seen editors miss the boat so often that industry practice should change. Maybe the writer should be given veto power over proposed titles.]
Either way, I think the attempt to cast Caruana as a budding social media star is ill-advised and ill-fitting. He deserves to be appreciated on terms other than those of the modern media machine, and I don't think the demands of that machine play to his strengths -- though like many successful young men, he'll no doubt gain a measure of confidence and charisma as he ages.
But Fischer, for all his flaws and issues, had an intense physical presence (he was a big guy!) and a natural magnetism. I don't get that from Caruana -- if anything, he still seems fairly uncomfortable in his own skin, which is typical for a nerdy young man of his age. But maybe I underestimate him.