Henrik Carlsen does not believe his son Magnus, the world No. 1, will retire anytime soon though he is a bit concerned about how long the five-time world champion will be able to keep checkmating a rising group of mature young Indian players.At 34, Magnus is not getting any younger, with young players, especially from India, excelling on the international stage. The prime example is D Gukesh, who became the youngest world champion at just 18 last year.
With R Praggnanandhaa, Arjun Erigaisi and others rising from India, the world No. 1 is feeling the heat, and his father conceded it was time to be “realistic”.
“You have to be realistic. You now have a generation of Indian players, which… let me say that one thing is the strength of the Indian players. That’s a bit boring for the rest of us, but the real worry is that they are so mature.
“Their mental state is more mature than their playing level. That’s really worrying because they are young, so they should still be lacking that (maturity), but they seem to (have that). They seem to be psychologically prepared for becoming the top guys.
“As the father of a competitor, that worries me because that used to be an advantage that Magnus had against this up-and-coming player. Magnus maybe still has a little bit of that intimidation factor, but it’s not enough (to keep that supremacy for a very long time,” added Henrik, a former chess player who reached a peak rating of around 2100 in 2007.
Henrik said with Gukesh competing in this edition of Norway Chess, Magnus was “thinking more” about facing the world champion, but in terms of preparation, he was following his regular regimen.
I think he (Magnus) thought more about it because Gukesh is here. But in terms of preparations, well I shouldn’t be revealing too much… but Magnus’ way of preparing for tournaments are quite different from what you guys might expect. You have (he has) a regimen in a certain way.