Global Chess League Is IPL Moment For Chess: Magnus Carlsen

Magnus Carlsen will go down as one of the greatest who played the sport. At the moment he is the biggest brand that chess has. Not alien to controversy either, the Norwegian Carlsen, currently leading the SG Alpine Warriors in the Global Chess League in Dubai, said that he has "learnt a lot from his Indian teammates D Gukesh, R Pragnanandhaa and Arjun Erigasi during training."

"Each of them are exciting players and it has been good to train with them. Each of them have a very different style of play," said Magnus Carlsen on the Backstage with Boria show on Revsportz. He also spoke on his career, the new league, issues of sexual discrimination in chess and most importantly on how it is to play and train with the new generation of Indian talent in D Gukesh, R Pragnanandhaa and Arjun Erigasi.

Speaking on the new league Carlsen termed it as the "IPL moment for Chess."

"You are absolutely right when you say it is the IPL equivalent for chess. Franchise teams, which include men and women from various nationalities, an exciting format, different points system, the league has indeed added to the sport. It is a good start and it is to be seen how the competition evolves in the future. But yes you can say it is the IPL moment for Chess with more people watching and a new buzz around the sport," said Carlsen.

On the SG Alpine Warriors, his own team he said, "We have enjoyed playing together. It is a very good team environment and we have trained together and played against each other during training."

Interestingly Carlsen has also played some games against his Indian teammates in training. He confirmed this and said, "Yes we played some games in training amongst us SG Alpine Warriors Teammates and it was exciting. Each one of them are very exciting players and have a lot of talent. It says a lot about the future of the sport in India. It is now my turn to learn from them. The important thing is each has a very different style of play and when you train and play with them you get to learn a number of new things. That's what has been the highlight for me. In sport there is always the quest to learn and get better and that's what has happened here while training with my teammates."

Commenting on the key question on whether Chess is still a male dominated sport and if women need to be given far more opportunities, he argued, "Yes I agree that traditionally it has been a male-dominated sport. And I absolutely believe that more and more women need to be given opportunities. You need to strive towards equality. It will never happen in a day but you need to make the effort to get there. In my own family two of my sisters played the sport and we played a lot of chess together. I wish they had more opportunities to take up the sport as a career. In fact, this is one aspect where I wish to see a lot more done going forward. It is certainly an important aspect of the GCL and one of the best things about the SG Alpine Warriors, the camaraderie among the players."

Finally, he said that his earliest chess memory is playing against his father. "The earliest memory is that of playing with my father. And I also remember that despite being in the best possible position I wasn't able to win!"