Carlsen vs. Nepomniachtchi

En ekstra sympatisk og behagelig bok om VM-matchen 2021, med fire forfattere, men der stormester Daniel Gormally har gjort hovedjobben med å kommentere og omtale partiene som ble spilt i Dubai.

Boka har også en ganske kort og elegant VM-historikk og et kapittel om de to spillernes bravader før denne matchen.

Fra innledningen til matchen:

Player’s predictions before the 1st game of the match were both brief and entertaining, of-fering some insight into their preparation, mindset and level of confidence. Of course, they remained secretive about their teams and seconds... Apparently, both players were anxious to start the match after long preparations, and got slightly fed up with interviews over the last few weeks...

• How does it feel to finally be ready to start in just two days, after months of preparation?

Nepomniachtchi: ”First of all, thank you! It feels great! Because that’s why I really prepared for the whole cycle, the Grand Prix, the Candidates and now the match. I can’t wait for it to actually start.”

Carlsen: ”It’s going to feel better in two days!”

• Why are you going to win this championship?

Nepomniachtchi: ”Well, normally I think the best player wins!”

Carlsen: ”I predict that the person who scores the most points over the next three weeks is going to be the winner, and hopefully that’s going to be me. And if I do win it will probably be because I made a lot of good moves and good decisions under pressure.”

• Does it get any easier, with nerves and pressure, as this is your 5th match?

Carlsen: ”I think some parts may get easier as you get more experienced, but after all it comes down to what you do over the board, and I think also Ian has experience now from the Candidates, which is really the best preparation that you can get for the match, since it’s so intense. And he also has lots of people in his team that have World Championship experience, so it remains to be seen if the experience of being here before helps, but in terms of your question, if it gets any easier, yes, I would say it gets a little bit easier in the sense that you probably are a little less nervous than you are the first time.“

• How do the lessons you learn in chess apply outside of chess?

Carlsen: ”That’s a very good question. I would say that chess can teach you a lot of things, when you learn it, especially when you’re young. For me, specifically, I think the most useful thing has been decision-making, to be able to make relatively quick decisions based on the data that you have, which I think is useful in almost any endeavour, and that is something that I’ve taken with me from chess. So far, I haven’t applied it successfully apart from chess, but I think theoretical-ly if I were to do something else professionally it would be very, very useful.”