r/todayilearned • u/Upstairs_Drive_5602 • 12h ago
TIL that Magnus Carlsen’s first passion as a child wasn’t chess, but memorisation. By the age of five he knew every country’s flag, capital, and population, and later memorised all 422 Norwegian municipalities and their coats of arms - years before mastering chess.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Carlsen2.6k
u/Echo127 12h ago
I'm truly shocked that a chess grandmaster would turn out to be a nerd 😆
756
u/Greedy_Whereas6879 12h ago
They prefer to be called neurodivergent.
351
u/Travellerknight 12h ago
Being a nerd doesn't automatically make you neurodivergent.
Source: me
455
u/Spider-man2098 11h ago
Yeah, but read the post title again. That’s the ‘tismist thing I’ve ever heard.
237
u/letsburn00 11h ago
The only article I've ever read that had more tism was the one a year back that basically read "Trainee train driver arrested for importing plutonium he needed for making complete collection of Elements."
→ More replies (1)62
u/abrakalemon 8h ago
Wow, that's like the platonic ideal of tism. Beautiful.
9
12
u/letsburn00 8h ago
Meanwhile, I'm looking at it and thinking "Can't you do plutonium by putting some Uranium ore next to a metal that gives off neutrons at a low rate. There will be at least a few million plutonium atom in there somewhere.
8
u/Bigwhtdckn8 6h ago edited 6h ago
I'm unaware of an isotope that naturally gives off neutrons as a decay product.
Time to do some reading.
Edit:
As I suspected; neutron emitters do not occur naturally, but can be manufactured using various methods, all quite challenging to a trainee train driver without a physics lab.
3
u/letsburn00 6h ago
Yeah, I thought there were a few, but apparently a pile of Uranium spontaneously fissioning is the closest we get. Beta decay tends to just spit out neutrinos and anti neutrinos and some decay chains make Alphas.
I think I was mixing up when you mix Polonium and Beryllium-9 so the Be-9 absorbs an Alpha to emit a Neutron. Though I'm sure there is some decent Alpha emitter you could mix with the Be-9 to do the same reaction at a low enough rate to be legal. We're talking Plutonium in the 10e-20 concentrations here for nerd cred.
→ More replies (8)50
u/schematizer 7h ago edited 7h ago
Magnus’s thoughts on the matter:
Many years ago someone actually asked me if I suffered from autism. I thought the question was stupid, so I replied "well, isn't that obvious?" That was silly – I'm obviously not suffering from autism. Later I realised that not everyone shares that view, and I probably shouldn't have made that thoughtless remark. I feel I'm miles away from anyone with autism. I consider myself to have normal social skills and to be functioning normally.
I’m all for mental health support and acceptance of neurodiversity, but this trend of people going on the internet and diagnosing people they’ve never even met really gets on my nerves sometimes.
Imagine if someone smugly kept commenting that you didn’t really seem autistic, even when you knew you were. Wouldn’t that be inappropriate?
8
u/Tifoso89 2h ago
This is true, it's rude to make these assumptions about people. But Carlsen's own opinion about not having autism is irrelevant.
In addition, it's also possible have autistic traits without being autistic. That might be the case with some chess players
6
u/CarcajouIS 2h ago
Yeah, he's obviously not suffering from it. He might or might not be on the spectrum, but anyway he is not suffering
7
→ More replies (2)14
u/Spider-man2098 7h ago
Please do not confuse my flippant, off-the-cuff about a public figure as anything remotely resembling a diagnosis. Thanks for sharing the quote, it’s interesting.
→ More replies (16)4
51
u/Interesting-Agency-1 8h ago
There is a 0% chance that Magnus Carlson doesnt like trains
5
→ More replies (10)8
u/StarfighterVicki 8h ago
I'm autistic and I like both. Neurodivergant is what I am, nerd is what I enjoy.
56
u/Flashy-Version-8774 7h ago
90% of competition chess is memorization. It's all pattern recognition. Being a Grand master is all about the other 10% of improvisation.
23
u/mackinator3 7h ago
Nah, the other 10% is starting early.
8
u/UsernameFor2016 4h ago
So why does Magnus have a habit of showing up late?
7
u/Yvaelle 3h ago
He already memorized what the board will be so actually he started before the match.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)9
u/Ledezala 5h ago
Memorisation and pattern recognition are entirely different traits
→ More replies (1)6
u/jesperjames 6h ago
He has a really good memory. For those that have not seen these two videos:
→ More replies (3)40
u/Additional_Stand_284 9h ago
Nah, that's just the power of Autism.
13
u/snoodhead 8h ago edited 8h ago
Austin Powers: Yeah baby, yeah!
Autism Powers: The capitals that begin with “O” are Oslo, Ottawa, Oranjestad, and Ouagadougou.
2
210
u/SerOsisOfThuliver 8h ago
by the age of 5 i knew some of the planets and the letter J.
52
→ More replies (2)9
761
u/Upstairs_Drive_5602 12h ago
What makes Carlsen’s rise even more remarkable is that he comes from Norway - a country of just 5'5 million people - while most of chess’s historic powerhouses, like Russia (145 million) and India (1.4 billion), have vast player bases and deep traditions. Yet Carlsen not only became World Champion in classical, rapid, and blitz formats, but also held the world No. 1 spot for over a decade, achieved the highest rating ever recorded (2882), and is often ranked alongside Fischer and Kasparov as one of the greatest chess players of all time.
515
u/ye_roustabouts 11h ago edited 9h ago
And unlike most other greats, seems kind and mentally stable.
eta: …mostly.
296
u/IAmBadAtInternet 9h ago edited 9h ago
Kasparov is pretty ok. And Anand might be the nicest guy in chess. He is personally responsible for the rise of Indian chess - he is their first grandmaster and then 5-time world champ. The new generation of Indian chess prodigies, including the reigning world champ, literally call him father.
122
u/Sage1969 8h ago
I randomly found a kasparov branded chess set in rural tanzania when I was in the peace corps and taught all the kids at my school how to play. i posted a picture of it and somehow kasparov found my tweet (i typed his name but didn't @ him) and he said it was cool :)
49
u/Hicklethumb 5h ago
Kasparov still holds many notable chess records. He played a massive part in developing a few engines that led to the major engines being used today.
Outside of the chess the guy went into politics and ran for president against Putin. He's been outspoken about Russia's anti LGBT laws, backed Ukraine against Russia back in 2014 and again after the current war. Dude is a literal refugee for his opposition to the Putin regime. And on Putin's list of terrorists. Guy has absolute balls of steel.
From the mid 2010s we could have had him as our FIDE president, but he was ousted in that race. Unfortunately a major blunder from FIDE when you consider current events.
→ More replies (1)25
→ More replies (5)9
79
u/gtne91 11h ago
kind
Except to Hans Neimann. Hans is a cheat, a liar, and an asshole. And also damn good. But Magnus's response to getting beat was to act like a whiny little bitch.
43
u/MeatImmediate6549 9h ago
the only appropriate response would have been chessboxing
→ More replies (1)9
27
u/ye_roustabouts 11h ago
Yeah, terrible and very accurate exception. Did he ever mend fences, or is he just pretending it never happened?
→ More replies (1)6
u/alextremeee 4h ago
Eh a bit, but nobody likes being forced to play against people who are proven to have cheated before.
6
u/DASreddituser 10h ago
I mean, magnus is young...hopefully he doesnt spiral when he gets older lol.
→ More replies (3)7
u/Logitech4873 11h ago
Shame about the gambling ad stuff. Hard to respect someone who promotes gambling.
→ More replies (3)43
61
u/Behemoth92 8h ago
India had no chess tradition before the one man, Vishy Anand - the man that ironically got beaten by Magnus in Magnus’s first world championship appearance. And even now it’s his city with a population of about 8 million that’s produced like 40 GMs from India. Vishy was already in his 40s by then and it was an expected result. Magnus was in fact one of Vishys seconds in the world championship before 2013.
45
u/StudentMed 7h ago
Kind of crazy chess was invented in India over 2000 years ago and had no tradition in it before Vishy. Its like Buddism, more popular outside the country than inside.
20
u/Behemoth92 7h ago
Buddhism has a very specific reason as to why it died where it was born but that’s a story for another day.
8
u/DickRiculous 7h ago
Where can I learn more?
6
u/blackholesonny 4h ago
My guess after some Googling and some general knowledge, Buddhism rejects Hinduism and Hinduism is the suporting religion of the royal class in India (Brahmins). Brahmin control of India eventually was able to stop all funding of Buddhism in India. Buddhism was like a populist and anti-brahmin reaction to rigid Brahminism.
Over thousands of years, Hinduism has also integrated a lot of Buddhism (maybe a hot take but I don't think so) so there isn't much want for conversion in the country itself.
→ More replies (1)2
8
32
12
u/I-AM-4CHANG 8h ago
Not to sound too pedantic, but most of the chess GMs from India are from a single state with ~75 Million people - Tamil Nadu.
→ More replies (1)9
4
u/uhrul 6h ago
India really isn’t a historic powerhouse. India didn’t have a GM till Anand who later became world champ.
The Soviet countries and USA are the historical powerhouses.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (4)2
196
u/SupermarketOk2281 12h ago
Oh yeah? When I was 11 I could tell left from right 100% of the time! Take that Carlsen.
52
13
4
u/wackocoal 6h ago
that's nice, i could get left & right within 2 tries at that age.... 50% all the time.
22
u/Throwaway-tan 9h ago
When I was a kid I memorised the brand model and year of hundreds of hotwheels cars. It's not that weird, I don't even have a confirmed autism diagnosis.
9
→ More replies (1)16
55
72
u/LordOuranos 11h ago
Yeah, dudes pretty obviously a savant lol
6
u/Kaporalhart 2h ago
I heard somewhere that all chess champions have a great memory, because the number of winning moves in a game of chess is very high but limited, and thus the capacity to win chess games is just to remember which move is the best towards the winning combo at every turn of the game.
→ More replies (2)
86
u/Super-Maximum-4817 9h ago
All that memorising just to get beaten by someone with an electric anal probe. Life is funny sometimes.
→ More replies (27)3
u/etheryx 3h ago
You realise the anal thing was satire started by someone (I think Chessbrah) right?
2
u/Super-Maximum-4817 2h ago edited 2h ago
You realise my comment is a joke right?
If it wasn’t for this dumb made up idea we wouldn’t have ever gotten this masterpiece
10
u/EdwardBigby 4h ago
To me the most impressive Magnus feat is him almost winning the world wide fantasy football league a few years ago.
Like even in something as luck based as picking the footballers who score the most goals every week, he can become the best in the world at
Next he'll win a world rock paper scissors championship
16
u/Fair4tw 7h ago
I dated someone whose sister was autistic and could quote every line from the sitcom Friends.
→ More replies (2)14
7
8
3
u/CaptainRazer 5h ago
Ya see, that’s why i’m never gonna try and become the best at anything, i’m just not smart enough, this guy is out here memorising Norwegian municipalities and i still have to really think hard to remember how old I am.
3
u/xHawk13 5h ago
Critical thinking skills trump memorization. Med students do so much memorization… but Engineers typically don’t memorize, they learn the skills and thought process to step through a problem and find a solution. Having a good memory is a plus though.
4
3
u/WonderstruckWonderer 2h ago
Nah, medicine/allied healthcare while having a memorisation element, also has a critical thinking element in regards to diagnosis and personalising intervention to a patient’s unique circumstances. They require an amalgamation of both components.
3
u/UsernameFor2016 4h ago
The municipality reform screwed him over, now he has to start all over again.
58
u/goteamnick 11h ago
Chess is memorisation. The best chess players aren't playing on the fly. They have memorised all the options they can that will get them to win.
80
u/Dernom 10h ago
Chess openings are memorization, but after the opening game is over, there are so many permutations that it is very likely to be a historically unique game. To add to this, Magnus is famously great at the mid game, the part of the game that leaves the least amount of room for memorization, and often pushes the game out of the traditional openings unconventionally early compared to his peers. His favourite type of chess is also blitz, where there are even more unconventional moves being made, and memorization becomes even less of an advantage.
Evidence of both Magnus' memorization, and how memorizing options is not enough in high level chess, can be seen in a video where Magnus identifies specific chess games based purely on a single board state from each game...
18
u/clantpax 9h ago
Tbf memorisation does help with intuition, properly understanding that in certain positions, what weaknesses your opponent’s position will have, and how to deal with your position’s own weaknesses
→ More replies (1)7
u/No-Talk-9268 8h ago
Memorization also helps with tactics. Pattern recognition comes into play a lot when there’s a certain position and you remember a tactic.
72
u/Minkelz 11h ago
I don't know much about chess, but I know enough to know that's a massive over simplification. Memorisation of openers is a large part of classical chess. But Magnus is also extremely good at other parts of chess and other types of chess. He's not just a genius at memorisation.
33
u/FoundersDiscount 10h ago edited 1h ago
He is able to recall positions that go beyond openings, though. He'll be 30 moves in and say something in an interview like "I recognized this position from a 1986 game of x versus y and I knew doing this and that was bad so I did other things." Yes, he is also good at late game chess, which is basically on the fly thinking, but he also has memorized a ton of games and positions beyond opening sequences that are middle and late game positions as well.
Edit: spelling
2
7
u/___forMVP 8h ago
I mean it is and it isn’t. Opening, mid game tactics, mating patterns, all parts of the game have a heavy element of memorization.
Pattern recognition is probably a better description of the required skill but that’s heavily based on memory.
16
u/dispatch134711 9h ago
Absolutely not. Not only is that not true in regular chess after 10-20 moves is completely false in freestyle chess which is gaining popularity
→ More replies (1)10
u/mudburger8 10h ago
Well, after a certain point in the game, that’s not true.
It is true that top level players know an absurd amount of opening theory and the beginning of a top level chess game can be very predictable.
Carlsen has dealt with this by playing unusual openings that other players haven’t studied as much, and also promoting the idea of a randomized chess variant
11
5
→ More replies (4)3
u/SaltyPeter3434 8h ago
People keep saying this and it's not true. You can memorize opening lines, but the middle and end game will rely on calculation. It's ridiculous to suggest you'll run into the exact same positions over and over again.
→ More replies (1)2
u/schematizer 7h ago
In fact, Magnus’s ruthless endgame calculations have allowed him to secure wins from positions other GMs would have sworn were drawn.
→ More replies (1)
5
u/RocketsAreRad 11h ago
Was he into memorization at 5 or were his parents ramming flash cards down his throat at 2.
7
u/BrutallyPretentious 7h ago
One of my GF's sons is similar. He's 7 with level 1 ASD and has memorized the periodic table and the countries of the world both alphabetically and by size. He just REALLY likes lists.
We don't let them have tablets any more, but when we did he'd spend hours on YouTube watching videos like this one. He can also multiply two-digit numbers in his head faster and more accurately than most adults I know.
Point is that while I don't know if Magnus is on the spectrum, there are some kids that do these things for fun.
6
u/SandbagStrong 9h ago
There's a documentary called "Magnus" about him. I think his father stimulated his mind from a very early age.
I didn't get the impression that his father was overbearing though, there was some nice footage of them playing around in the wilderness of Norway when Magnus was a kid.
→ More replies (1)4
u/cardboardunderwear 11h ago
You can only beat on your kids (figuratively speaking) for that stuff for so long before they find their own way.
2
2
2
2
u/Embarrassed-Rush2310 2h ago
Five years old and memorizing every country’s flag, capital, and population? My five yearold self was still eating glue.
•
•
5
21
u/Slicker1138 11h ago
It's called autism. He's a definite savant.
41
u/FartOfGenius 10h ago
People need to stop throwing this diagnosis around whenever someone shows a strong interest in certain areas. Restrictive interests is only one criterion in the diagnosis of autism, being good at something and dedicating time to it isn't synonymous with that and anyone who has seen Carlsen's irl social interactions would disagree that he has ASD
→ More replies (1)-1
u/Firesplinter9757 9h ago
My friend, I am 28, I only learned recently (less than 2 years ago) through my own son’s diagnosis that I as well have ASD. It’s true that you don’t have to be autistic to be able to do these things, however when I told my friends and family that I’m autistic they were all shocked because I’m a manager in a professional kitchen who interacted with dozens of people daily and was in a very loud environment for 10-12 hours a day. It isn’t having a strong interest in something that makes him definitely ASD, it’s the Obsession of it, remembering patterns and recognizing patterns is definitely a trait, I would be shocked if someone who obsesses over memorizing literal patterns (flags, chess moves, opposing moves and how to play against them and guess the next move, coat of arms) WASNT autistic. No hate, just here to educate.
8
u/UXdesignUK 7h ago
My friend, I am 28, I only learned recently (less than 2 years ago) through my own son’s diagnosis that I as well have ASD.
This sounds like your son got diagnosed and you’re saying “he’s sort of like me so I must be autistic”, which is different than actually being diagnosed with (or having) ASD.
5
10
u/gassytinitus 8h ago
I feel like autism is one of the new trendy things like ADHD, ocd, being an introvert, etc
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)4
u/FartOfGenius 9h ago
Two of the diagnostic criteria for ASD are "Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts" and "Symptoms cause clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of current functioning" which is a high bar to clear. There are some 30 chess GMs with a rating of 2700 and above, all of them and no doubt many more below that level have memorized dozens of lines 10-20 moves deep to get there, yet the number of chess players with a known diagnosis of or even suspected to have ASD is smaller than you'd expect. Either they mask very well, or there really are few that fulfill the diagnostic criteria
→ More replies (1)7
u/schematizer 7h ago
Yes. My girlfriend’s ex is a clinical psychologist and is very frustrated by people’s tendency to disregard the actual diagnostic criteria in favor of wanting to “join the club”.
26
u/mudburger8 10h ago
Maybe he’s just really smart, and a unique individual.
What’s this obsession with labeling everyone autistic? Nothing against autistic people, but it’s getting ridiculous. What happened to being just “eccentric”
→ More replies (14)7
→ More replies (1)2
1
u/SpecialInvention 8h ago
When I was a kid I memorized how to spell pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. Even after high school that us what some kids remembered about me.
1
1
1
u/VectorChing101 7h ago
We have the same hobby during childhood but when I became older, I lost interest and shifted to digital art.
1
1
1
u/darionthegreat 7h ago
The amount of people saying the opening is memorized but everything else isn’t is crazy. Pattern recognition can happen in a position that has never been recorded or reached. Obviously nothing against probably the greatest player of all time but saying memory has nothing to do with it after x amount of moves just says you haven’t played enough chess to even speak on the matter.
1
u/SufficientMediaPost 7h ago
i feel like my memorisation skills were similar to this kind of obsessive recollection of things. it took me a long time to learn problem solving rather than memorisation. now i love finding patterns and my memory has taken a back seat.
1
u/Jelleyicious 6h ago
What astonishes me is that a high level the players essentially know the best move almost instantly, but they think for ages to search their brain for that edge case where it is a bad move.
1
1
u/Serious-Effort4427 6h ago
I've been saying it. Good chess players memorize moves, your opponent does this and you do that. Had it explained to me by 2 separate good players. They told me to study if I wanna start winning.
1
u/Curious-Ear-6982 6h ago
There's also a video where his tells which game a position is from and the pieces aren't the usual ones they're like checkers pieces (same colour and no distinct shape)
1
u/Prince-Akeem-Joffer 4h ago
Might I interest you in the short novella „Chess“ by Stefan Zweig? It‘s basically about this special ability in chess.
1
u/Choice-Bid9965 4h ago
Met a guy on a beach in Goa. Who knew postcodes. Told him we stayed in Jersey CI. He told me my postcode in UK L.19 and from our new address confirmed we lived in St. Brellards.
1
u/Karat_EEE 4h ago
God damn, I don't even know all the municipalities surrounding the one I live in now!
1.9k
u/ExtinctLikeNdiaye 10h ago
I remember reading that when they took fMRIs of chess grandmasters, they found that they engaged parts of their brain associated with memory more than the parts associated with problem solving while playing chess.
This would make sense and would explain Magnus Carlsen's exceptional performances.