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‘Magnus Carlsen always took the idiot test before…’: Russian GM reveals huge secret behind Norwegian's success
Magnus Carlsen used an 'idiot test' during his preparations for World Championship matches, and it was explained by a Russian GM recently.
Considered by many to be the greatest chess player in history, Magnus Carlsen is a five-time World Champion, five-time World Rapid Champion and the reigning (shared with Ian Nepomniachtchi) eight-time World Blitz Champion. He got his first World Champion title in 2013, beating Viswanathan Anand. He retained his title in 2014, and also clinched both Rapid and Blitz titles, becoming the first player to hold all three titles simultaneously, which he also repeated in 2019 and 2022. He defended his world title in 2019, 2018 and in 2021. He didn’t defend his title in 2023 due to a lack of motivation.
Recently, Daniil Dubov, who worked with the Norwegian for two of his World C’ship titles, revealed that Carlsen used to take something called an ‘idiot test’. It was taken to decide whether an idea in the opening should be played in a World C’ship match.
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Magnus Carlsen's ‘idiot test’
Speaking on a Russian podcast, he said, “Magnus always had that method to try out ideas which we called the ‘idiot test’. The ‘Idiot Test’ is that if you have found an (opening) idea, you have to play it against an unprepared Laurent Fressinet (French grandmaster) and beat him. If you don’t win, the idea is refuted.”
“(If you don’t win with that idea against Laurent Fressinet) The idea doesn’t work! I can tell you that it’s a 90%-reliable piece of statistic! That’s how it is.”
He further revealed, “Earlier, the certified idiot would be Hans-Ludvig Hammer, but when I joined the team Hammer was no longer there, so this was Fress (Fressinet). But thank God I played much better than Fress, so the majority of the ideas passed the test, regardless of their quality.”
Commenting on a member of Carlsen’s team, Dubov said, “That was the problem with Jorden van Foreest’s ideas later on, because as it turned out, Jorden is a desperate case in blitz, and strangely enough Fress was better than him in blitz. Jorden would tell me ‘Come on, let me show you the idea, and you go ahead and play it yourself!”
