 "Magnus Carlsen during the 2018 World Championship match against Fabiano Caruana. Reuters")
Magnus Carlsen is regarded as one of the greatest chess players the game has seen and easily the best in his generation. He was the world champion from 2013 to 2023 before voluntarily giving up on the title to move away from classical to other shorter time controls and freestyle chess.
He dominated classical chess for more than a decade, but there were times when contenders came close to displacing him from the top. In 2016, Russia’s Sergey Karjakin put Carlsen under pressure and even led the World Chess Championship match after Game 8 before the Norwegian bounced back. In the next edition in 2018, Fabiano Caruana from the United States also gave him a tough time.
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Jan Gustafsson, who was Carlsen’s second during those victories, recently spoke about those wins, revealing how the Norwegian was made to sweat in those matches.
Carlsen’s former second reveals interesting insights
Gustafsson from Germany was once ranked in the top 100 but decided to move on to coaching. He was in Carlsen’s team for the World Championship matches in 2016, 2018 and 2021.
In 2016, Karjakin ran Carlsen close, but the Norwegian managed to hold on to a 6-6 draw in the first 12 matches and then fought hard to win the rapid tiebreaks. Gustafsson revealed to The Hindu that Carlsen was expected to win that match, but Karjakin gave him a tough fight.
“That 2016 match was tough. He was behind in the match and he was a big favourite. So it wasn’t exactly a smooth ride. But he did come through in the end,” Gustafsson, who also does commentary, said.
A specialist in opening lines, the German said that he worked on the same with Carlsen before the 2016 clash. “I was a bit of a specialist in the Marshall Attack after ‘e4 e5’, so we worked on that against Karjakin,” he said.
Carlsen’s next world title defence against Caruana was also a tough one. Caruana and Carlsen drew every single one of the 12 matches in classical to make it the first such feat in chess history. Gustafsson revealed that the games were “nervy”, but once it stretched into the tiebreaks, Carlsen became the favourite.
“Caruana was very strong then. Ratings were close and it was a very nervy match with all those draws [in the classical games]. We knew in the tiebreak, Magnus was probably going to be a big favourite, and he came through there, but it was very tough,” he said to the publication.
The 2021 world championship clash against Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia was not as close as the previous two and Gustafsson said that even though the start of the match was tense, once Carlsen won the first game, it all went smoothly.
“That one went well. In the first six games, Nepomniachtchi was very well prepared and it was a very tense fight. But after Magnus won the first game, it was sort of smooth sailing. I have enjoyed working with Magnus. He is impressive in every aspect of the game. And he is a fun guy, too,” he said.