Tuesday
May132014
Aronian: "I Never Imagined Carlsen Would Become A Top Player"
Tuesday, May 13, 2014 at 12:19PM
That quote from Levon Aronian about the current world champion sounds more provocative than it really is. It's still surprising, but not an insult in context.
tagged Levon Aronian, Magnus Carlsen
Reader Comments (3)
The thing I found most strange was the interviewer claiming that most people see Carlsen more as a product of hard work than as a talent.
[DM: That's a bit new to me as well. I would take it as a compliment if I were in Carlsen's shoes, as talent is a gift but hard work is up to the worker. (At least up to a point: Kasparov himself as rightly suggested that a capacity for hard work is itself a sort of talent.)]
Interesting issue. Wasn't Kasparov picking out Carlsen as someone really special from quite early on? If I remember correctly, it was even at the stage when if you went with what elo at what age, you'd have to favor Karjakin. I also vaguely recall Kasparov offering some sort of explanation of his glowing assessment of Carlsen. It would be interesting to contrast that with Aronian's view. Of course, the mere fact of Carlsen's later huge success doesn't show that Kasparov's views were more justified than Aronian's, and in a sense, Aronian had odds on his side. I'm not sure how this works out in chess, but in mathematics it's quite common to hear people say that prodigies often don't amount to much.
I was also surprised by the interviewer's claim that most people see Carlsen as a product of hard work. Carlsen seems to have been quite successful in promoting the image (myth?) that he doesn't really like to study. I wasn't entirely convinced by the translation however. It's commonly said that Carlsen achieves so much in significant part because he works so hard at the board. Perhaps that was what was being referred to.
It seems to me that Carlsen's "style" is to play the best chess that he can. Period. He strives to get an objectively equal position that makes his opponents uncomfortable out of the opening, and then he tries to out play them while grinding out a win.
I suspect that's what Aronian was referring to in the interview. Yeah, that involves psychological/mental pressure, but if you can do it at the 2800+ level, why not? It seems about as "pure" a chess style as one could have in this day and age of engines and databases.