The brevity and bluntness in his responses is pretty amusing. I'm surprised he so candidly rates his own abilities and the abilities of his peers - I feel like many people would dodge those questions in public interviews.
>I'm surprised he so candidly rates his own abilities and the abilities of his peers //
In chess though you have a ranking, you have past games to compare. It would be silly for him to say "oh, I'm not that good" as there's a measured value which [possibly incorrectly] says he's the world number one. Similarly he spends a lot of his time assessing his opponents, their games, their characters.
I found it interesting that he said Kasparov can judge which opening a player will play taking in to account their mood. It would be nice to test that claim some how.
I think there's a great analogy for why he cares so little about his intelligence: do you think Michael Jordan sat around admiring his build, his height, etc? In a competitive environment, it's best to accept that some of your abilities are fixed, so you can focus on training what can be bettered.
>I think there's a great analogy for why he cares so little about his intelligence: do you think Michael Jordan sat around admiring his build, his height, etc?
Well, when you consider that Michael Jordan obsessed about his height before he was tall, there's a good chance that he felt that it was at least partly responsible for his skill.
In actuality, it did play a significant role. If Michael Jordan had the same level of skill, and was 5'9", he would have been above average(for an NBA player) at best.
I don't find his disclaimers about his intelligence persuasive. He's obviously a pretty smart guy; at least, he was quite the smart kid.
That said, I had monumentally high IQ scores as a little kid, and they are surely vastly lower in adulthood. So I'm not very eager to be retested either. ;)
Being smart is one thing, but does intelligence account for his chess accomplishments?
The urban legend of Kasparov's IQ being in the 190 range is still purported, but once he was actually examined (an initiative of "Der Spiegel" magazine) it turned out his IQ was 135 or so.
This is highly intelligent, of course, but that's like 1 in 100 or 1 in 150, so people with higher IQ are still dime a dozen.
Personally I'm of an opinion that IQ doesn't mean much - it's a "dexterous fingers" thing. You surely need dexterous fingers to become an accomplished neurosurgeon or a violinist, but this trait is pointless by itself, and 1 in a 1000 level of dexterity is good enough, so you don't gain anything by going beyond that.
He briefly talks about Kasparov here as they were training together at the time. They later broke up.
I wonder if some of the conflict they felt was was really Magnus's more organic, natural approach clashing with Kasparov's more like systematic and rigid type of training, which he no doubt inherited from Botvinnik. This isn't to say Magnus doesn't work hard at his game but on a chess approach scale of, say, Capablanca to Botvinnik, he would very much tilt towards the former.
edit: Actually he specifically talks about that; somehow I skipped it upon first reading.
This past two weeks, I have been reading Kasparov's "Life Imitates Chess" and your comment certainly rings true. He spends a fair number of pages discussing about Botvinnik's rigid and systematic training system and how that helped instill a strong work ethic in him.
There is also a section on Casablanca and how his laziness cost him his crown to Alekhine, who was Botvinnik's predecessor.
If history serves right, I am predicting Carlsen will lose the throne to Caruana in 2016!
I was not particularly interested; I was bad and soon stopped again.
I don’t know why I learnt all the countries of the world off by heart, including their capitals and populations. Chess was probably just another pastime.
I’m not a disciplined thinker. Organisation is not my thing; I am chaotic and tend to be lazy. My trainer recognised that and as a rule allowed me to practise whatever I felt like at the time.
When I was 13, my parents took me out of school for a year. They travelled around the world with me and my sisters, and on the way they taught us. That was fantastic, much more effective than sitting in school.
What are you saying? That defining one's identity by the intensity, quantity and quality of the work that one does, might not the best way to live a life and be really good at something?
I think there might be a correlation between being lazy and being creative. I've seen this pattern in many other greats (and in my not so great self :)
Aaron Sorkin talks about procrastinating a lot between writing sessions. Lots of painters and artists procrastinate as well.
I think its a matter of digestion, your mind is focused on a "task" and churning in the background, but you don't actively work on it except when you "feel like it". I saw some scientific article to this affect that the downtime is actually very valuable for the brain to form creative thought.
I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and diligent -- their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy -- they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent -- he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief.
Laziness is relatively defined to other people's minds. Your mind works the best when it does, and it works best with the minds it works best with, which is actually really complicated to think about. Also, persistently evaluating your mind for whether it is lazy or not has side effects on how your mind works.
Just because it doesn't fit someone else's mold doesn't make your mind lazy, and just because a bunch of minds fit together perfectly to propel one person skyward doesn't make them a genius. A bunch of geniuses arguing about progress doesn't create progress. We aren't very good at mapping our minds while using our minds to do it, but maybe we are.
I hope science one day recognizes that we can spend centuries churning our wheels without actually getting anywhere - we create the same problem we begin with by convincing ourselves we found the solution.
I think it's actually more causal than you first give it credit for. I think creativity cultures a certain laziness for that person.
From observing my friends and I, my anecdata suggests that the most creative are on average more lazy because they can use their creativity as a clutch to make up for a relative lack of hard work. The other intelligent but less creative individuals must suppliment that with grinding away more time on the problems.
The creative lazy people also tend to be more 'hot and cold' than consistent, because if they rely on creativity but it doesn't fire then they end up falling short. Consistent hard work is more reliable, but takes more effort and doesn't necessarily produce as high peaks (though in doing so, avoids as low troughs)
I think it's commonly assumed that people procrastinate because they are lazy. Even procrastinators will berate themselves for being undisciplined and lazy. But it's not that simple; I think there is value in being "lazy", or what is perceived as lazy.
Interesting how he says that extremely high IQ may even be a disadvantage:
And that’s precisely what would be terrible. Of course it is important for a chess player to be able to concentrate well, but being too intelligent can also be a burden. It can get in your way. I am convinced that the reason the Englishman John Nunn never became world champion is that he is too clever for that. At the age of 15, Nunn started studying mathematics in Oxford; he was the youngest student in the last 500 years, and at 23 he did a PhD in algebraic topology. He has so incredibly much in his head. Simply too much. His enormous powers of understanding and his constant thirst for knowledge distracted him from chess... Right. I am a totally normal guy. My father is considerably more intelligent than I am.
And that his big shtick is his focus, intuition, and domain expertise - not his IQ:
No. In terms of our playing skills we are not that far apart. There are many things I am better at than he is. And vice versa. Kasparov can calculate more alternatives, whereas my intuition is better. I immediately know how to rate a situation and what plan is necessary. I am clearly superior to him in that respect.
This makes sense in that IQ is a measure of general intellectual capacity at the concscious level, but the underlying raw processing power of the human brain is much much greater, we just usually lack the ability to apply it directly to problems—it's like a very high level programming language; whereas mathematical savants or intuition, in this case, can outperform much higher IQs by having a sort of unconscious ASIC under the hood, as it were.
I find it odd and funny that he considers a career in mathematics a distraction. He later says there's more in life than chess, but in this quote he doesn't seem to realize that.
I doubt I'd want to be world champion if it required giving up all those "distractions".
My favourite quote: "I listen to music on the Internet, but don't download any songs. It's all totally legal. Many people may find that boring, but I think it is important."
I would guess that he'd feel like there is too much chance. The issue with a game like Magic is that you can play perfectly and still lose. And I say this as someone who loves the game.
EDIT: I read further and it seems like he enjoys poker. So I guess it's possible that he'd enjoy MTG.
I'm currently reading a fascinating book on world-class performance, "The Art of Learning" by Josh Waizkind, a chess and martial arts champion. It gives some really great insights into the world-class players' psychology. Highly recommended!
Yeah, Waitzkin is a good read. I've got this book, too.
I first heard about him when I got Chessmaster, which came with his video tutorials. And these were the best I've ever seen, in terms of insightfulness and pedagogical skills.
His quote was "tend to be lazy". When he feels good he trains a lot. No amount of brilliant talent, that is lazy, is sufficient to be world champion in any endeavor. There's too much competition from the others who want to be champion.
[+] [-] eddotman|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dasil003|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] easytiger|11 years ago|reply
You don't know many Russians do you? ;)
[+] [-] pbhjpbhj|11 years ago|reply
In chess though you have a ranking, you have past games to compare. It would be silly for him to say "oh, I'm not that good" as there's a measured value which [possibly incorrectly] says he's the world number one. Similarly he spends a lot of his time assessing his opponents, their games, their characters.
I found it interesting that he said Kasparov can judge which opening a player will play taking in to account their mood. It would be nice to test that claim some how.
[+] [-] V-2|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kizer|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phaus|11 years ago|reply
Well, when you consider that Michael Jordan obsessed about his height before he was tall, there's a good chance that he felt that it was at least partly responsible for his skill.
In actuality, it did play a significant role. If Michael Jordan had the same level of skill, and was 5'9", he would have been above average(for an NBA player) at best.
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gargantian|11 years ago|reply
I think reverse Dunning-Kruger is much more likely in Magnus's case.
[+] [-] CurtMonash|11 years ago|reply
That said, I had monumentally high IQ scores as a little kid, and they are surely vastly lower in adulthood. So I'm not very eager to be retested either. ;)
[+] [-] V-2|11 years ago|reply
The urban legend of Kasparov's IQ being in the 190 range is still purported, but once he was actually examined (an initiative of "Der Spiegel" magazine) it turned out his IQ was 135 or so.
This is highly intelligent, of course, but that's like 1 in 100 or 1 in 150, so people with higher IQ are still dime a dozen.
Personally I'm of an opinion that IQ doesn't mean much - it's a "dexterous fingers" thing. You surely need dexterous fingers to become an accomplished neurosurgeon or a violinist, but this trait is pointless by itself, and 1 in a 1000 level of dexterity is good enough, so you don't gain anything by going beyond that.
[+] [-] tbrake|11 years ago|reply
I wonder if some of the conflict they felt was was really Magnus's more organic, natural approach clashing with Kasparov's more like systematic and rigid type of training, which he no doubt inherited from Botvinnik. This isn't to say Magnus doesn't work hard at his game but on a chess approach scale of, say, Capablanca to Botvinnik, he would very much tilt towards the former.
edit: Actually he specifically talks about that; somehow I skipped it upon first reading.
[+] [-] netvarun|11 years ago|reply
If history serves right, I am predicting Carlsen will lose the throne to Caruana in 2016!
[+] [-] simplegeek|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dont_be_mean|11 years ago|reply
I was not particularly interested; I was bad and soon stopped again.
I don’t know why I learnt all the countries of the world off by heart, including their capitals and populations. Chess was probably just another pastime.
I’m not a disciplined thinker. Organisation is not my thing; I am chaotic and tend to be lazy. My trainer recognised that and as a rule allowed me to practise whatever I felt like at the time.
When I was 13, my parents took me out of school for a year. They travelled around the world with me and my sisters, and on the way they taught us. That was fantastic, much more effective than sitting in school.
[+] [-] marvin|11 years ago|reply
;)
[+] [-] mhomde|11 years ago|reply
Aaron Sorkin talks about procrastinating a lot between writing sessions. Lots of painters and artists procrastinate as well.
I think its a matter of digestion, your mind is focused on a "task" and churning in the background, but you don't actively work on it except when you "feel like it". I saw some scientific article to this affect that the downtime is actually very valuable for the brain to form creative thought.
[+] [-] smacktoward|11 years ago|reply
I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and diligent -- their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy -- they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent -- he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief.
[+] [-] drcomputer|11 years ago|reply
Just because it doesn't fit someone else's mold doesn't make your mind lazy, and just because a bunch of minds fit together perfectly to propel one person skyward doesn't make them a genius. A bunch of geniuses arguing about progress doesn't create progress. We aren't very good at mapping our minds while using our minds to do it, but maybe we are.
I hope science one day recognizes that we can spend centuries churning our wheels without actually getting anywhere - we create the same problem we begin with by convincing ourselves we found the solution.
[+] [-] NamTaf|11 years ago|reply
From observing my friends and I, my anecdata suggests that the most creative are on average more lazy because they can use their creativity as a clutch to make up for a relative lack of hard work. The other intelligent but less creative individuals must suppliment that with grinding away more time on the problems.
The creative lazy people also tend to be more 'hot and cold' than consistent, because if they rely on creativity but it doesn't fire then they end up falling short. Consistent hard work is more reliable, but takes more effort and doesn't necessarily produce as high peaks (though in doing so, avoids as low troughs)
[+] [-] alejoriveralara|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chubot|11 years ago|reply
I think it's commonly assumed that people procrastinate because they are lazy. Even procrastinators will berate themselves for being undisciplined and lazy. But it's not that simple; I think there is value in being "lazy", or what is perceived as lazy.
[+] [-] sayemm|11 years ago|reply
And that’s precisely what would be terrible. Of course it is important for a chess player to be able to concentrate well, but being too intelligent can also be a burden. It can get in your way. I am convinced that the reason the Englishman John Nunn never became world champion is that he is too clever for that. At the age of 15, Nunn started studying mathematics in Oxford; he was the youngest student in the last 500 years, and at 23 he did a PhD in algebraic topology. He has so incredibly much in his head. Simply too much. His enormous powers of understanding and his constant thirst for knowledge distracted him from chess... Right. I am a totally normal guy. My father is considerably more intelligent than I am.
And that his big shtick is his focus, intuition, and domain expertise - not his IQ:
No. In terms of our playing skills we are not that far apart. There are many things I am better at than he is. And vice versa. Kasparov can calculate more alternatives, whereas my intuition is better. I immediately know how to rate a situation and what plan is necessary. I am clearly superior to him in that respect.
[+] [-] dasil003|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcv|11 years ago|reply
I doubt I'd want to be world champion if it required giving up all those "distractions".
[+] [-] lukeholder|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nemo1618|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonny_eh|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adamnemecek|11 years ago|reply
EDIT: I read further and it seems like he enjoys poker. So I guess it's possible that he'd enjoy MTG.
[+] [-] KhalilK|11 years ago|reply
I can definitely relate to that when it comes to my studies, too bad it's not yielding any good results.
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] wavesandwind|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] V-2|11 years ago|reply
I first heard about him when I got Chessmaster, which came with his video tutorials. And these were the best I've ever seen, in terms of insightfulness and pedagogical skills.
[+] [-] jc123|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|11 years ago|reply