SPIEGEL: Mr Carlsen, what is your IQ?
Magnus Carlsen: I have no idea. I wouldn’t want to know it anyway. It might turn out to be a nasty surprise.
If you enjoy a bit of chess, Amberchess could be your kind of tourney. All games are over in about an hour and each day two games are played between super grandmasters – from say the top fifteen in the world. The first game is blindfold, the second sighted, with both being played in the space of the time allowed by giving each player 25 minutes and (I think) ten seconds per move (It may be 25, I’m not sure – no doubt you can look it up). Anyway, it beats chessboxing.
Anyway, if you want to check out the Amber tournament, here is the website and the first game starts at 12.30 am Australian Eastern Standard time every day. And here’s a rather interesting and engaging interview with the new World Number One – who has had an amazing tournament so far, losing both games on the first day and then winning both the next two days. He certainly doesn’t muck around when he comes after your king as you can verify for yourself by looking at his game as black in either round 2 or 3 three of Amberchess.
I love the way that some people think that chess is a measure of intelligence, not some skill that you learn. Even better is when they still get angry when they lose to some little kid that practices 5 hours a day.
One of the defining features of chess genius appears to be memory as much as calculation. Studies have shown that the best players are not necessarily better at calculating but are able to more quickly disregard potential moves as bad based on memory of having played or analysed similar positions previously.
Fischer is meant to have recited all moves from 22 games (ie over 1000 moves) he played in a Blitz tournament (5 minutes/game for all moves)