Magnus Carlsen interview: I probably will have the most fun playing Gukesh

Kolkata: It’s the eve of the Tata Steel Chess in Kolkata and Magnus Carlsen is still hours away from being mobbed and chased by media, fans and selfie hunters. It’s afternoon and he’s in the bubble of his suite at the Taj Bengal hotel in a gray tee, pair of blue jeans and tousled hair. “I just woke up a little while ago,” he says cracking a smile. He’s making a return to the tournament in India after five years. India trips can be chaotic for the World No 1. He got an early taste of it in 2013, when he emerged in the wee hours, groggy-eyed out of the Chennai airport ahead of his World Championship match against Viswanathan Anand, to a sea of waiting fans and media personnel.
In a lengthy exclusive chat with HT, the five-time world champion spoke on how he looks at his No 1 spot in classical chess, the World Championship between Ding and Gukesh, Arjun’s rise and contenders to win the 2026 Candidates and his future. Excerpts:
What does the world No 1 spot mean to you today…
One or more of the kids are probably going to surpass me in the next couple years in the classical format. And that’s okay since I don’t play a lot of classical chess. I think, like the few times that I do compete, I still want to do well. But it’s not my area of focus. I still enjoy faster chess a lot. But I think whenever I compete in classical chess, I’m still a force to reckon with.
Arjun Erigaisi has been having a phenomenal year. He briefly jumped to world No 2 in the live ratings. How do you see his path from here…
He certainly has an ability to create imbalances and difficulties for his opponents that not a lot of other people have. And I think it’s happened in the past that when you’re sort of riding this wave of supreme confidence as he has then you can do amazing things. It remains to be seen if he can sustain this level. Because there are obvious shortcomings to his game right now specifically, he’s not very stable but he’s shown what he can do. I think he’s here to stay for sure. Whether his meteoric rise will continue in the same way, I’m a little sceptical.
I think both Gukesh and Arjun have a similar weakness in the sense they sometimes lack a sense of danger. It can be a good thing that they’re constantly taking a lot of chances, but sometimes you do get punished.
What we saw now in Chennai (Grand Masters) was quite typical for Arjun; he plays like a madman for seven rounds and then he wins a few games and loses one. Maybe he didn’t lose the one you sort of would expect him to. The three games that he won as black… I think he was losing or much worse at some point in all of them, but he managed to turn them around. The fourth one, yeah, he didn’t succeed but still the tournament was a success because he put so much pressure and I think we’ll see a lot of tournaments like that from him, where every single game is an adventure.
Gukesh to a lesser degree. His European Club Cup performance must have been encouraging for Ding. You could see that he can be quite vulnerable at times. He sometimes doesn’t quite sense the moment when he needs to slam the brakes and play solidly.
Compared to Gukesh and Arjun, Praggnanandhaa has been having a bit of a quiet year…
Pragg has had more of a normal sort of prodigy kind of experience in the last few months or a year. It’s just that he’s been outshone in the last few months by Arjun and Gukesh that sort of makes us think ‘oh what is he going to do? I think he’s on a very good path. There’s no reason why he’s not going to feature in the next Candidates cycle. Pragg’s biggest weakness is time trouble. He’s probably calculating a bit too much at times.
Ahead of the Candidates you didn’t think Gukesh stood much of a chance at winning it. Would you say you underestimated how good he can be…back when you played him in the 2023 World Cup, did you sense how far he’d get in a year?
At last year’s World Cup, he surprised me by playing the London system. I was like, ‘oh, so you think you can surprise me in the opening? Well, I love it. I’m feeling great, and now, I’m gonna try and beat you’. I played a very good game and beat him and actually he played an excellent game in the second one and even put some pressure on me with the black pieces. Overall, in all the important tournaments he does really well. I didn’t expect him to be this good. I didn’t think that he was solid enough to sustain the kind of performance that he did in the Candidates and I was wrong, completely wrong.
Who among the top young guys do you find the most competitive by nature, the sort who have the fire to crush all in their path…
I think it might be hard to see but somebody like Arjun who is so mellow and can seem a bit too nice as a person is very competitive. Gukesh, for sure. Pragg as well. Abdusattarov is unbelievably competitive. He probably has like the most killer mentality of all of them.
How much of a gap would you say there is today between you and Gukesh and Arjun in classical chess…
I think if we played a classical World Championship, I don’t think there’s anybody in the world who would be a favourite to beat me. But okay, maybe they would have a chance.
I have one classical tournament, that’s confirmed next year, Norway chess. Pragg was invited last year and did well. Hopefully next year both Arjun and maybe the new world champion Gukesh will have a chance.
Hypothetically if you were to play a World Championship match today, who would you pick as your opponent?
At the moment, I probably will have the most fun playing Gukesh.
Do you see the Gukesh-Ding match being a fairly short one…One that’s likely to get over well before the stipulated 14 games?
The most likely scenario is that it starts out a little bit nervy and then you know, sort of Gukesh is still the favourite but anything can happen. But there’s also a significant chance that Gukesh wins the game early. The match will more or less be a whitewash if Gukesh wins a game early.
You sort of always think there’s a chance for Ding. But he doesn’t have the confidence and it hurts him a lot when he plays. But these things can sometimes be overcome and that is of course what he has to rely on.
Playing the World Championship for the first time can be a bit unnerving. You were pretty nervous in the first couple of games against Anand in 2013. Gukesh is 18 and will be playing a match he is expected to win. It can be a lot of pressure for a first timer..
In my case, I was extremely nervous at the start (2013 vs Anand). I was dropping pieces on the board and wasn’t playing confidently. Anand’s preparation was perfect. I didn’t really know where to go and once he showed his first moments of weakness, I pounced.
I was worried that I was facing him at his very, very peak like when he beat Kramnik but then it turned out that, you know, this was somebody whom I could beat. I think it’s going to be tough for Gukesh, the first couple of games. He’s playing the World Championship at 18 in what might seem like a fun experience. But there’s more than one billion people expecting him to win, so, I think even he cannot help but be somewhat affected by that, at least at the start.
He should deal with it like he did at the Candidates. Just block everything out. Regardless of what you do, it’s still quite scary.
The Ding Liren of 2017-2019 was a different beast. He was the first player to beat you in a playoff since 2007, when he defeated you in the 2019 Sinquefield Cup. Did someone like him, who didn’t appear to have any real weaknesses in his game back then, seem like a threat to you at that point? Did you ever fear him/see him as a threat?
Back in 2019 I felt that Ding and Fabiano were more or less neck and neck in level. As you said, he had the Sinquefield performance, then he won the Grand Chess Tour Finals very convincingly. He was very, very strong back then, somebody who I massively respected and even feared. But so many things have happened since so it’s like it’s also hard to put yourself in his space. Even though by his own admission he was not in a great headspace even during his World Championship against Nepo, he still managed to turn the match around, so it’s not impossible this time.
If you had to predict, what sort of opening choices do you see Ding and Gukesh making in the upcoming match?
I think Gukesh sometimes makes risky opening choices with both white and black. I think he will continue to do the same. Seeing as he’s playing somebody who doesn’t have a lot of confidence who’s unlikely to try and punish him. We saw Ding play a lot of different openings last time. I suspect he might try and be a little bit more consistent, a little bit more solid from the start this time. Over the course of the match. I think we’ll see significant jumping between openings from both of them, which I think you probably have to do these days.
Aravindh Chithambaram emerged as a surprise winner at the recent Chennai Grand Masters, ahead of players like Arjun and Aronian. What’s your impression of him?
Yeah, I was a bit surprised, especially since I don’t think he had ambitions of winning the tournament. He was just trying to play solidly. I played him for the first time in Istanbul when he was quite young… In Chennai 2013 too… He’s 25 so it’s unlikely that he will make a massive leap. He’s solid, but his openings are not very good. I don’t know if he has good coaches and so but I think he can still improve.
There has been rating deflation in chess in recent times. In August this year, for the first time since 2011, the 2700 club was at its lowest with only 31 players. What is your view on the rating deflation?
I think there has certainly been deflation. For my own level, I think that I haven’t played a lot of chess, but for the last year, every performance I’ve had has been around the same level. I think I’m quite appropriately rated; whether that would have been a little higher earlier, it’s hard to say. I think what has happened is that there’s been a massive influx of unrated Indian players who have sort of taken points from everybody over the last few years. If you look, let’s say 10 years back, everybody would have been rated 20-30 points higher.
You used to need 2660 to be in the world top 100. Now, you only need to be 2640. So, yeah, everywhere there’s clearly deflation. I don’t think we’re simply getting worse at chess. That might be too simple an explanation. I think the ratings now are lower, but they quite accurately show the level people are at.
Who would you pick as the likely contenders to win the 2026 Candidates?
I think the 2026 candidates will be lucky for the others because Gukesh will probably not be in it. I think Arjun should have a good chance. I’m not convinced about Abdusattarov even though he has a lot of rating. Maybe, Pragg… I’m not sure. I think Fabi (Caruana) will still be quite strong. Alireza (Firouzja), of course, should have a chance in 2026 as well.
For the older generation probably 2026 is the last time when they can justifiably feel that they should still be among the favourites. For someone like Fabi I think the odds are certainly against him, if we assume that he’s going to qualify for two more Candidates where he is among the favourites. It’s possible that he wins one but he’s not likely to be a significant favourite in the World Championship. At this point, apart from myself, it’s likely Ding will remain the only player from my generation to be classical world champion.
It’s long been argued that top athletes and celebrities should leverage their reach to speak on pressing social and political issues. In light of Russia’s invasion, you took a public stance in favour of Ukraine, and urged Fide to not readmit Russia and Belarus to the world body. In general, while there are some voices, there’s also a whole lot of silence on many issues the world is facing today…
I think the problem is, everybody is kind of a hypocrite, if you go issue by issue. That everybody has some issues that they deeply care about. In other issues, they don’t care. Or maybe they have opinions that they feel are maybe not well thought out enough.
I myself, I’m not outspoken for the sake of it. When I think something needs to be said, I say it. Otherwise, I generally pick my battles.
To you, what does your future look like in chess and after it…do you see yourself waking up one day and telling yourself ‘okay I’m done playing’… or will it be more gradual…
I think it’s going to be a bit more gradual (walking away from competitive chess). I’m already somewhat phasing out playing classical chess. I’ll probably continue to do it but not very often. I don’t think I’ll stop playing the formats that I like better. I don’t think I’m going to get to a point where I suddenly say ‘okay now I’m not a professional player anymore’. As you said, it’s probably to be more gradual. I don’t think I’m cut out to be a chess politician by any means. But I do want to be involved in mentoring the next generation. I think that’s something which would make a lot of sense.