One of the first things Henrik Carlsen told Peter Heine Nielsen was not to have ambitions on his son’s behalf: “If Magnus doesn’t want to prepare, it’s his decision.” Magnus Carlsen was 13 years old at the time.
The standing instruction has not hurt. More than two decades later, Nielsen can call himself coach to a generational talent, a five-time world chess champion, the world No 1, and arguably one of the greatest players in the history of the game.
“I mean, it sounds wrong to say it perhaps, but I have never seen Magnus as very ambitious…that’s maybe because he’s won everything. Here at Norway Chess this year, he lost two out of his first three classical games and if I do the math maybe it doesn’t seem too likely that he’ll win the tournament. But when you work with Magnus, you get used to miracles.”
“I’m asked if he is perhaps less ambitious now but you know, you look at him in tournaments – every game here at the Norway Chess so far he’s been trying to complicate things, take risks, put pressure and generally succeeded. In two of his games, he just didn’t pick up his winning chances. Every game in every tournament he plays, he plays it to win. He’s playing the Sicilian and trying to win, if anything perhaps he’s too ambitious. Of course, he’s a father now so when he goes back home these days, there is a reality not connected to chess. That must feel different.”
Nielsen has led the team during both Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen’s World Championship-winning run. He sat out the 2013 match, when Carlsen and Anand played each other. He believes that in a weird way his journey with each world champion mirrored his own ambitions. “When I was with Anand, I had a girlfriend who was also a professional chess player and didn’t have a whole lot of commitments. The work involved during Vishy’s time was a lot, now I wonder how I did it. Today, the fact that Magnus is not playing the World Championships fits quite well with my life situation. I have a family and kids. And I’d like to do what I’m doing now for as long as possible.” Even after all these years, he still gets nervous during Carlsen’s games. Carlsen is playing Gukesh when we speak and he’s checking the game on his phone every now and then.
In a way he believes, chess fans have been spoilt by Carlsen’s dominance. He’s also fairly certain that there isn’t another player on the horizon who is likely to have a similar run of absolute supremacy. “An equal field, that’s normally how it should be. We’ve just been a bit spoiled by Kasparov and Magnus especially.”
During Round 3 of the classical game which he lost to Praggnanandhaa in Norway Chess, Carlsen spoke of being “surprised” despite there being at least 18 decent moves for White on move 6 of the Najdorf. Preparation, unlike his World Championship days, has been vastly scaled down. “Magnus is not preparing as much as the other players today. The work we do is not comparable to what we used to do during his World Championship days. We’re not having training camps often and neither do we have a big team anymore. Preparation hasn’t necessarily gone well in this tournament, but I hope we don’t come off as completely unprepared. His strongest suit isn’t the opening and it doesn’t need to be, unlike Vishy who would use the opening to kill his opponent. Also, back in the day you could get a big advantage if you were working hard, these days that edge is minimal.”
There is a World Championship later this year and Nielsen believes that there are at least ten Grandmasters who won’t be significant underdogs should they have to play defending champion Gukesh in a match and with the exception of Carlsen, he would have a reasonable chance against all of them.
“Gukesh can lose to everybody, but he can also win against everybody. He has this very peculiar style, and he’s very strong, very dangerous and not afraid at all. It gives him a high chance to succeed. His problem is that sometimes when he loses, he loses in a very ugly fashion. If you want to play all openings like Gukesh does and put as much pressure all the time on your opponent – If that worked every time, you would have a 3000 rating. When people say things like Gukesh is lucky and such, I would say he’s taking all these risks because he thinks it’s a good strategy. When it goes wrong, he lives with the consequences. It’s very interesting in the sense that he doesn’t have the solidity that, for instance, Vishy had. Maybe, of course, Magnus too. If people insist that because he’s the world champion, he should be the best player in the world, I don’t think there is anything insulting in that. If anything, it makes your performance look better. It’s probably not comparable, but someone wrote online that I was the weakest chess player ever to have reached 2700. The way I look at it, it’s quite the achievement because I actually did reach 2700 with my talent. Gukesh’s talent is immense, but it’s not fully developed yet, but to actually win a World Championship at his age is ridiculously good.”
“It’s very hard to predict what will happen in his match against Sindarov. My margin goes to each player, winning by three points. It feels like anything could happen.”
Nielsen is spending the greater part of his day during this Norway Chess fortnight, travelling to and from Carlsen’s house outside Oslo, where they go golfing. “We both are obsessed with it and of equal strength. The first day we came here he beat me quite easily… I tend to be obsessed with whatever interest I take up, it was Japanese chess at one point. The good thing is in golf you’re mainly playing against yourself, it’s not man vs man it’s man vs the course.”
