Do you see many brilliant ideas waged by Magnus over the board? Well, probably not.
What does Carlsen himself think of inspiration and new ideas?
“You can play good games and you can win, but flashes of true inspiration are very hard to come by. It feels like making a big scientific discovery in a way. It doesn’t happen very often, at least not with me.” Fair enough. (source here)
Now think of a true artist, or a genius, who is without inspiration and new constructive ideas. That simply cannot be true. Period.
Risk
Among the elements that should be considered to describe the playing style of a chess player, risk is a major indication of it. By the way, risk is our intentional interaction with uncertainty through exposure to potentially harmful, but also rewarding situations by being creative and original.
In the recent years Carlsen has got used to winning in an unassuming manner, without taking the slightest risk. From a creative point, it is equal to suicide. Let’s give word to chess #1 again.
“I played solidly. And I am pretty happy with what I got. Very solid position. No weaknesses. As the game went on he started to drift a bit, I thought as long as there is no risk (all highlights in the article mine) I should try and win it.” (the Chennai post-match press conference).
Product of his time
We have seen how Carlsen’s play resembles one of automaton. It doesn’t change much and is lacking fresh ideas. No risk, no inspiration (in this view GM Dreev and Tkachiev’s words could be now seen from a different perspective).
But to be fair, Crlsen is the product of the time. A time that wants everything quantified. A time that has established the system that praises players for rating and results, and not for the beauty of their games. In such a system inventive and artistic effort is limited to a minimum. No imagination, no original creations. (If you dared to play courageously and creatively, your rating would soon plummet and less and less often you would see yourself be invited for tournaments).
The legendary GM Bronstein once said that chess has ceased to exist as a game, as a lively play. Chess has long been reduced to struggle for space. It seems that’s exactly what Carlsen has developed, a sense of how to take up and effectively use space on the chessboard for his men. Here is Bronstein, “the majority of chess players today know only how to set groups of pieces. They don’t think in a creative way any more. Groups of pieces fight for some square or sector of squares on the board.”
That way, chess, devoid of magic we used to see before (say in the games of the Magician from Riga or the Sorcerer’s apprentice Bronstein), is left to the machines that we foolishly praise.
So chess is lost to humanity. What human activity we have enjoyed up to now will be next victim?
The fundamental question here is, will human intellect and traditional way of thinking magic be able to free itself from automation? To be able to stay in control and use machines only as good servants, not our deciders.
Or we have already become part of the equation of doom?
https://www.chess.com/blog/RoaringPawn/magnus-carlsen-a-genius-or-automaton
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/automatization.html