Magnus Carlsen shared his thoughts on the accessibility of complex chess knowledge. Magnus explains that in the past, only professionals could understand elite players, and notes that for amateurs, there is no longer any ‘mystery’.

Magnus Carlsen

Magnus Carlsen

World No. 1

“We used to be magicians on the board. And now any idiot can sit online and go: ‘Ha-ha! You missed a certain engine move!’ — The one, they wouldn’t have seen in a million years without a chess engine.

Back in the days there were Grandmasters trying to explain Grandmaster moves. And then they couldn’t understand our moves and they were like: ‘How did he do that?’

But now you just press the button — there’s no mystery anymore…”

Stockfish is the most popular open-source chess engine first released on November 2, 2008. Stockfish is widely considered one of the strongest chess programs in the World with more 4000 rating points. Chess with 7 pieces was fully solved using chess engines and endgame tablebases in August 2018.

Credit: Saint Louis Chess Club