Magnus Carlsen in The Guardian today

[Jonathan Bryant]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/de ... small-talk


In the sports section, no less.

[Jonathan Rogers]

A touch bland perhaps, but one amusing line, answering the Room 101 question (I don't generally think about eradicating things!)

[Jonathan Bryant]

A touch bland perhaps ....

I'm not sure that I disagree. At least it's there, though. For non-Guardian regulars, Small Talk is weekly interview that they run where a (minor) sporting celeb is asked off-beat/ridiculous (delete according to your preference) questions. Not sure it worked hugely well with Magnus, though.


Sean Ingle, btw, is - or at least was - one of us. See comments box to here:-http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.c ... fiver.html

[Alex Holowczak]

A touch bland perhaps, but one amusing line, answering the Room 101 question (I don't generally think about eradicating things!)

Well, he said he didn't read much, so perhaps he hasn't come across Nineteen Eighty-Four yet!

[Christopher Kreuzer]

A touch bland perhaps, but one amusing line, answering the Room 101 question (I don't generally think about eradicating things!)

Well, he said he didn't read much, so perhaps he hasn't come across Nineteen Eighty-Four yet!

A thread on who is the most erudite and well-read chess grandmaster? I can just see it now! If you opened it up to past masters of the Royal Game, it could get quite interesting. Someone once mentioned academic degrees and careers (going by way of John Nunn's doctorate to Jonathan Mestel's impressive resume), but I think I was most impressed at one stage by Taimanov being a concert-level pianist (or was it another instrument?). As for the chess grandmaster with the most pretensions to being a published literary author? Any takers for that?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/de ... small-talk

Thanks for that. Some of the questions Carlsen was asked in the Guardian column were hilarious.

I found the following rather amusing (on body language at the board):

"That said, people do give away some tells".

This is after I was watching Carlsen's game today against Anand, and the commentators were analysing some variation after a move in the middle-game and I was quietly asking myself why they were bothering with this analysis when if they turned round and looked at the screen behind them, they would be able to see that the position on the board (a few moves later) was far more interesting and Magnus looked really unhappy with his position - i.e. telegraphing to all concerned that his position was going down in flames (not that anyone needed telling that).

Anand, in contrast, was mostly inscrutable, except for a few moments where he scratched his head, and one moment where he put his head in his hands, but I think it was a brief moment of tiredness or slight frustration that he hadn't won the game earlier (but it all came good in the end for Anand).