Hans Moke Niemann

American GM

“Carlsen is kind of moved away from serious Classical chess — the typical format. He is about 10 to 20 games a year, which is like Novak Djokovic playing one Grand Slam, winning it, getting his ranking, and then never playing for the year, keeping his number one ranking.

In chess there’s no minimum activity requirement to not decay in your rating. And we don’t have a typical Grand Prix system. In chess it’s a terrible system: guys like Magnus can play 10 games a year for 10 years. It’ll be very-very hard for anyone to surpass him because he’s not going to compete against people who are chasing him. So, there’s no decay.

Magnus avoids me pretty well. If he’s playing a tournament — he’ll make sure I’m not invited. For example, he’s playing in a tournament in Sweden this May, which I actually won in 2022 right before I beat him in the Sinquefield Cup.

I won that tournament, and they never invited me back. And in chess when you win a tournament — you’re always invited back.”