I Played Magnus Carlsen. He called it "Pretty Terrible." I Disagree.

I think you might have misinterpreted Magnus's comment. I think when he says the game was pretty terrible, he means his play was terrible for his own expectations. He played below his capabilities and you definitely played very well.

I think Magnus was criticising himself . he was totally outclassed in the middlegame in a gambit line he himself provoked . Also , Eric can take heart that Magnus had fallen victim to the "Rosen trap" against Danya so he is aware . 😊

I thought it was crazy, that his heart rate jumped from 60 to 142 on fifth move lol. Whoever suggested him wear that deserves a thanks!

The line "Playing Rosen... might stalemate him" sounds to me like he holds you in high regard.

„I have no idea what to do“ Me every single time i play chess.

”I disagree”🥶🥶

6 moves in, his heart’s already going at 144 lol

Yeah, he was referring to his play. I can't imagine how nervous you had to be playing him. Anytime I compete in anything and I'm ahead and upsetting a better opponent, it's hard not to let the pressure take over. Well done on this one!

“A terrible game… but not for me!”

“Never resign when you have a knight”

I was expecting you to countergambit, but still respect that you fought until the end, even tried to set up your classic stalemate trap ❤

I think he was saying it was pretty terrible because you put up such a good fight and he had to think to win

I find that whenever Magnus makes such comments, in the blunt criticism way, he's usually referring to himself. Typically when he refers to dubious moves his opponent makes, he phrases it as not understanding the purpose behind that move or he refutes the move by say, capturing a hung piece. He's not much for ridiculing his opponent's positions, but he's super blunt about his own mistakes. When he plays badly enough that someone many hundreds of ELO points below him is possibly better or clearly better, he says how badly he played. I find that he's pretty consistent about that, because he has a pretty good handle on when he's made a blunder or when his position is clearly losing or worse, but if his opponent is playing in a way he doesn't agree with or understand, he almost always leaves open the possibility he's missed something particularly in online chess where he's commenting and not spending a lot of time deeply analyzing the moves. I've seen quite a lot of Magnus playing people online, and especially in the games where he blunders or loses outright, his reactions are almost universally identical. Often he is playing an opening he knows is inferior so he knows his position is bad, so he can save lost or worse positions, points out the opening itself is bad. Sometimes he will make a move just to not waste too much time and later decide the move has definitely made his position worse, and the few times his opponent makes some brilliant attack or sack that he didn't see, he usually says something akin to wow, immediately tries to assess if he's being mated and if he can stop it, or if it is time to resign. He's usually not very prideful about his position, he suffers from a remarkable lack of arrogance for someone who could beat literally anyone. It's a very Norwegian perspective. I say this as an American living in Norway for 8 years now, this attitude is super common. Norwegian itself as a language is very blunt, for example, when you pay for gas, the machine tells you something that directly translates to "friendliest insert your card now." They throw in the word "friendliest" because otherwise, it sounds like the machine is being bluntly rude and ordering you around. The culture itself is very not egotistical. The belief is mainly that we're all in this together, we're a team, individuals who perform above expectations are helping the team, or making the country better, as opposed to personal glory. Because Norwegian is so blunt, and English is his second language, and he's not very arrogant or egocentric, he will usually dispassionately rip apart his own position using very blunt language, but watch how he phrases his criticism of his opponent's position. He tends to use that non-judgment language like I don't understand this move, or he thinks it is a mistake, especially because he is aware he could be missing something in the position that gives his opponent an edge. I think part of why he is so strong is that his skill level and experience never gives him a swelled head, he's constantly in a state of wondering how his position is bad or what mistakes he has made or leaves open the possibility he missed a brilliancy from his opponent. When the position is clearly bad for his opponent he can occasionally say something like that, but he's usually really confident his opponent is in a dead lost position at that point. Because his personality, culture he grew up with, and native language makes him inclined to harshly criticize himself and leave it open that his opponent is somehow better even against his best judgment, and because that perspective is usually wildly different from the norm, I find that Magnus' criticism of his own position often gets mistaken for criticism of his opponent. I have a similar thing where I'm too afraid of making a social mistake and too afraid of hurting someone else's feelings in person that I often freeze up and don't talk to people and people mistake that as be being too full of myself to talk to them. Inward harsh criticism OFTEN gets mistaken for outward criticism. People just don't expect it, they expect people to be rude and arrogant.

I love watching Eric's games and the way he explains things, objectively and always with calm and nice attitude. He's respectful but fearless. So, when the deserved GM title?

The fact that magnus is aware of the rosen stalemate is so cool

I think he meant his own performance. We wasnt happy about it since you had the better position up until a certain point.

Magnus just meant terrible as in how he played. You did great...the time situation was your biggest downfall though. You'll get him next time gg

I know it's not quite the same, but anytime I play someone who has a significantly higher rating than me I just get scared to play the most natural moves, even if I'm still in the opening, because I'm so scared of tactics that I might not be seeing.

Could hear Eric's shaky breath on the mic

1:35 Tge heart rate jump is crazy. Can’t believe it was around 65 when the game started 😂