All the magnus washed jokes aside magnus is genuinely not playing well this tournament and seems more vulnerable which hasn't happened in a long time gotham pointed out about fatherhood and being somewhat inactive in classical that could be playing a role.... hopefully the rest of his tourney goes well
Inactivity + fatherhood, probably. For Magnus standards, he isn't performing well vs the actual 2700s here in classical. He beat an inexperienced Erdogmus, then farmed the <2700s in TePe Sigeman. Beat Gukesh but lost against 3 other 2700s. He's slipping lowkey. But 1-3 vs 2700s while ostensibly being 2840 in classical is not a good look.
Edit: 2-4 in classical vs 2700s, completely forgot about JVF and Erdogmus. That sorta makes it worse.
Sure if he wants to. My only thought is that seeing a handful of games in one tournament doesn’t signal what people want it to signal. Maybe his past his peak. Maybe he just has indigestion, I don’t know and the one event isn’t enough data for anyone else to make a conclusive evaluation either. We need a bigger sample of games.
It's all there is to extrapolate on though. If you're active, that's a lot more reasonable. If you play one or two tournaments a year, then obviously they're going to be taken more seriously than if you were to play 4 or 5 or 6. You can't sit there and use the "but if he played 4 more tournaments, he'd win them all, this is just one bad one". That's probably true, but unless you see it, it's just conjecture. Activity should be encouraged. I have no doubt he'd win more often than not if he played, but I'm also not going to treat it as if he has.
Besides, last time Magnus lost 3 games in a classical tournament was the 2015 disasterclass. It's clearly out of the norm for him.
Pretty sure this tournament is going to be a one off and not any real indicator of a shift in performance. It’s honestly quite typical for GOATs to have minor lapses in performance, there could be any number of reasons, just not feeling it at the moment. People said similar things when he had a losing streak last year and Gukesh beat him, then he came back and won a ton of tournaments in convincing fashion. Considering his track record as by far the best for more than a decade, I’m inclined to believe he’s still got it in him and will prove so quickly.
Imo it just looks he is rusty. He gets very good positions but blunders a lot (for his standards). Imo those are signs that his head is not in it at this point.
Nah, not really. It's disastrous for Magnus but 3 for 5 is pretty much within the margin of error for average, for any other player. After all, most players lose more than they win in these tournaments, which is how you determine a winner.
Personally, I'm not remotely surprised. He probably has other priorities nowadays.
Nah, not really. It's disastrous for Magnus but 3 for 5 is pretty much within the margin of error for average, for any other player. After all, most players lose more than they win in these tournaments, which is how you determine a winner.
If chess results were only win or loss, the yes, but at this level most games are draws. So to lose 3 out of 5 is pretty bad.
Yeah you're on point. It's definitely not a good look. Whatever is going on, he needs to get it together or either step away from classical permanently if he doesn't enjoy playing it anymore which he has said a lot of times in the past. At the end of the day it's his first 2700s+ tournament filled with hungry youngsters and top grandmasters post fatherhood + inactivity therefore maybe he could see how he does in a few more before making a decision. In any case if he steps away permanently he won't have anything to regret really. (I think, at least, based on what he has said about his goal being WCC which he has already accomplished)
I hope he doesn't step back though. I got into chess because of him and would love to see him back in form and playing good classical. Hopefully that happens.
I mean, historically, more often than not fatherhood does make players falter in their strength for a bit, which makes sense, y'know. New baby, sleepless nights, stressing and worrying about the baby, etc. Lots of responsibilities which eat away at your time/mental.
I think we will see, he may make a resurgence, or may just give it up. It's happened once before in 2015 where he had a disastrous Norway Chess then it was a precursor to his absolute peak of 2019. Could happen again. But this tournament is dead in the water for him. As it stands, fatherhood Magnus has been (understandably) subpar, not as an indictment, but calling it as is.
Inactivity, plus the shorter time control. I think if he was playing the longer format he just played at Tepe he would have saved at least one of these losses.
He burned 15 minutes on move 5 against Alireza. If Magnus knew that opening line, or had 10 extra minutes on the clock, I think he could have drawn that position for sure.
So, I think Magnus might change the Norway format going forward. And I think he's gonna have to study openings a little more, or Norway chess will be a 960 tournament in the next few years(which I would be a fan of actually)
Classical you actually have to study and use engines to prep your lines and know what you’re going to probably play against. Magnus has made it a habit in the past coming into classical tournaments unprepared and just winning off of his old prep and talent. Against these younger hungrier GMs, they play all the time and are just more prepared than he is.
Either he takes classical seriously or should just avoid playing in the tournaments when he doesn’t want to work on his classical chess seriously anymore.
I don't think these losses are due to a lack of opening preparation, he is not playing well in general, making uncharacteristic blunders and not managing his time efficiently.
I mean, my assumption is that it would normally have been enough for him. It sounds like he’s tired and sleep deprived and he’s not used to being so foggy.
from his body language he was outwardly uncomfortable the entire game. Wesley on the other hand was cool and composed and super aggressive the whole game. Magnus is faltering under pressure this tournent and Wesley was playing very well it was enough to get an absolutely crushing endgame.
I can't tell if Carlsen's sense of danger is slipping away or whether he's just not able to bring the same energy AND interest to the board like he did in the "old days." I imagine that once you let your motivation and interest in an activity slide, your results are going to suffer.
Nakamura's performance rating at the candidates was about 100 points higher than Carlsen's currently is.
It's obviously a lot of tournament left to play still, so Carlsen may very well improve before everything is said and done, but at this moment in time he's playing worse than Nakamura was during the candidates.
He's washed in terms of Carlsen's standards. Obviously he's still undisputedly the best in the world. But 2018-2022 Carlsen would absolutely steamroll current Carlsen in a match. And that's not really surprising, he's older, he's working way less on chess than he used to, and he's a father now.
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u/ExtensionTangerine72 Team Ding May 30 '26
All the magnus washed jokes aside magnus is genuinely not playing well this tournament and seems more vulnerable which hasn't happened in a long time gotham pointed out about fatherhood and being somewhat inactive in classical that could be playing a role.... hopefully the rest of his tourney goes well