Joe Rogan Experience #2275 - Magnus Carlsen

(drum roll) Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.

The Joe Rogan Experience.

Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) All right, we're up and rolling. Magnets crossed, ladies and gentlemen. You want some coffee?

No. Oh, this is water. Yeah, excellent.

We, uh, tell Jeff we're bringing the coffee. Forgot to bring in the coffee.

No, no, I'm good with water.

Well, I need coffee. I wanna keep up with you, buddy. (laughs)

(laughs)

And of course, Tony Hinchcliffe is here, who's a, a gigantic chess fan, and d- just creamed his pants yesterday when I told him you were coming in. And then immediately, I said, "You gotta come with me." And so-

Yeah.

... Tony's here as well. It's an honor to meet you, man. Um, I, I, I'm always fascinated by people that are at the top of something that's insanely difficult, like chess. And I'm always wondering, like, how much time is involved? How much, how often do you play? And whe- when did you start? How old were you when you first started playing?

I think my dad... My dad is an avid chess player, so I think he, uh, t- thought that I might have some talent, so he thought... He taught me pretty early, at r- around five years old. But at that time, I wasn't that interested. Uh, I was mostly into LEGOs and I was into maths and, like, sports stats, and I had my little flag book with all, um, all the countries in the world, their flags and their inhabitants and area and everything. And I sort of... That w- that's what I did (laughs) uh, generally, just, um, taking in all the s- all the stats that I could also with, with sports, reading the sports section every day. And I didn't find chess that fun. Uh, a couple of years later, uh, my older sister is a year and a half older than me. She had a... She did a lot of chess with, with my dad. I started sitting in on them a bit, and, um, I, I started liking it. I really, really wanted to beat my sister as well at generally everything.

(laughs)

And, uh, yeah, from there on, it really just became, um, became my thing, and it's, you know, been my main hobby and, uh, eventually work as well since.

Yeah, obviously. (laughs)

Yeah.

It's fu- It's so funny though. A spark, a competitive spark with your sister is really what ignited you to get going with it.

Yeah, the, the funny thing is, like, she's not competitive at all.

(laughs)

So she hated the fact that I, like... I wanted to play, especially when I, I, I realized that I could beat her. Uh, and she, she, she liked chess, but she stopped for, for a while and only started when I had become, like, good enough that there wasn't a competition. So it turned like, like... My dad was right after all. I just needed, um, I just needed that, um, that extra push.