Peter Heine Nielsen

Danish GM, Magnus Carlsen’s coach

“I am the only second who accompanies Magnus during his tournaments. Part of the coaching involves detecting the champion’s apprehensions and not stressing them out.

I make a lot of effort not to appear stressed in front of Magnus. If he wants to talk about his game, we do it. If he doesn’t want to, I don’t ask him anything. I try to be as unobtrusive as possible.

In such a stressful environment, he couldn’t always remain confident if I passed on my own stress to him. What I sometimes feel, Magnus must not realize it, neither before nor after the game. There are already enough people putting pressure on him: it’s not my role to add to it.

His father explained it to me very well when Magnus was very young: ‘Don’t put any pressure on him, and things will happen as they should.’”