Carlsen - Playing Style

Playing Style

As a youth, Carlsen was known for his aggressive style, and, according to Agdestein, his play was characterised by "a fearless readiness to offer material for activity." His win over Sipke Ernst in the 2004 Wijk aan Zee C-group, which ended with an epaulette mate, was admired by several other chess players. As he matured, Carlsen found that this risky playing style was not as well suited against the world elite. When he started playing in top tournaments, he was struggling against top players, and had trouble getting much out of the opening. To progress, Carlsen became a more universal player, capable of handling all sorts of positions well. In the opening, Carlsen starts with both 1.d4 and 1.e4, as well as 1.c4 and 1.Nf3 on occasion, thus making it harder for opponents to prepare against him.

has been known to say that he isn't all that interested in opening preparation; his main forte is the middlegame, in which he manages to outplay many of his opponents with positional means. ... Carlsen's repertoire is aimed at avoiding an early crisis in the game. He invariably aims for middlegames that lend themselves to a strategic approach.

Garry Kasparov, who coached Carlsen from 2009 to 2010, said that Carlsen has a positional style similar to that of past world champions such as Anatoly Karpov, José Capablanca and Vasily Smyslov, rather than the tactical style of Alexander Alekhine, Mikhail Tal and himself. According to Carlsen, however, he does not have any preferences in terms of playing style. Viswanathan Anand said of Carlsen: "The majority of ideas occur to him absolutely naturally. He's also very flexible, he knows all the structures and he can play almost any position. ... Magnus can literally do almost everything." Kasparov expressed similar sentiments: " has the ability to correctly evaluate any position, which only Karpov could boast of before him." In a 2012 interview, Vladimir Kramnik attributed much of Carlsen's success against other top players to his "excellent physical shape" and his ability to avoid "psychological lapses", which enables him to maintain a high standard of play over long games and at the end of tournaments, when the energy levels of others have dropped.

Carlsen's endgame prowess has been described as among the greatest in history. Jon Speelman, analysing several of Carlsen's endgames from the 2012 London Classic (in particular, his wins against McShane, Aronian, and Adams), described what he calls the "Carlsen effect":

... through the combined force of his skill and no less important his reputation, he drives his opponents into errors. ... He plays on for ever, calmly, methodically and, perhaps most importantly of all, without fear: calculating superbly, with very few outright mistakes and a good proportion of the 'very best' moves. This makes him a monster and makes many opponents wilt.