Published on: Aug 16, 2026, 09:49:36 IST

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Paris, Magnus Carlsen said he swapped his trademark appetite for complex positions for a more pragmatic, Mourinho-inspired approach at the Esports World Cup, and the strategy paid off as the Norwegian world No. 1 successfully defended his chess title here.

Carlsen secured back-to-back EWC chess title on Saturday, defeating Belarusian grandmaster Denis Lazavik 2-0 in the best-of-three grand final. He won both sets 3-1 and finished the tournament without losing a single match.

The 35-year-old revealed that his conservative approach was a deliberate strategy, shaped partly by the demanding 10-minute, no-increment format and partly by concerns over his physical condition during the tournament.

"I started watching the Mourinho documentary on Netflix the other day and they were talking about the first season that they were just winning 1-0 every match and I was thinking, well, that sounds pretty nice, doesn't it?" Carlsen told reporters.

"In this tournament I stayed very, very true to not trying to do much and obviously I wanted to save energy when I could and there were some boring games because of that, but that's how it is. I don't know if it's a general change but for this tournament it was a very conscious choice."

The reference was to Portuguese football manager Jose Mourinho, whose teams have long been associated with pragmatic, result-oriented football.

Carlsen, who had been battling illness during the tournament, said he initially felt he was in "survival mode" before gradually recovering.

"I really needed the day off. On Thursday, that's kind of the day where I felt the worst as well. And then throughout Friday, I started feeling a bit better," he said.

"And then I started thinking, you know what, I could maybe actually do this. Started to see light at the end of the tunnel. Today, again, I felt a little bit better and I was able to kind of make it fun and execute it very well."

Carlsen said he had consciously decided before the tournament to reduce the amount of risk in his play.

"My main thought leading into this tournament was that I was going to be a lot more conservative with my choices, especially considering the match format here," he said.

"Obviously with feeling under the weather as well, following that path became a more obvious choice as well."

The result was particularly satisfying given the circumstances, although Carlsen said his first EWC title last year would probably always occupy a special place.

"I think the first one is always going to feel a little bit more special in a way, because it was the first year at the EWC," he said.

"But this is certainly a very big title for me, it's something I've been thinking about for a long time, and I really, really wanted to get this one."

Wasn't going to play poorly here

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Carlsen's victory also served as a response to questions about his form following a difficult Norway Chess tournament, where he suffered several losses.

"I made sure not to do the same things here, that's for sure," Carlsen said.

"I wasn't going to play poorly here because I played poorly in other tournaments. My motivation comes and goes a little bit at times but for this one specifically, it's something that I've wanted to do for a long time."

The Norwegian also rejected the suggestion that his unbeaten run meant the competition had simply been too weak.

"There were certainly moments where things could have happened differently, but I managed to be a little bit better in the critical moments for sure, and I think I also strategised in a really good way," he said.

"I tried not to do anything that I wasn't very comfortable with."

He acknowledged, however, that remaining unbeaten in such a format requires more than skill.

"Not losing a single game in such a format, you need not only skill, but a little bit of luck, a little bit of randomness as well," Carlsen said.

Explaining his endgame prowess, Carlsen said his objective is not necessarily to create an immediate advantage, but to gradually reduce the number of moves available to an opponent that preserve equality.

"What you want is to get to a situation where it goes from your opponent having 10 moves that keep the equality to maybe three moves and at the end one or two," he said.

"That's what I'm trying to see, how can I put any pressure, how can I achieve something where my opponent might have to make a difficult decision, especially with little time."

Carlsen said Lazavik defended accurately for much of their first game, but eventually faced a critical decision with only 20 seconds remaining.

"All of a sudden with 20 seconds left on his clock, suddenly he just had two moves that drew and the most obvious move lost," he said.

The Norwegian also embraced the event's identity as a major esports competition, arguing that chess does not need to replicate the traditional tournament environment to belong in the esports ecosystem.

"I think this is just a little bit different, and I think we should embrace that, that this is not kind of traditional chess, but this is chess as an esport with all that it brings," he said.

"I think we've done a really good job here in the last two years of doing that with chess. I think it's here to stay."

"I think that it's just in many ways better that you can have a little bit more of a fan experience the way it's going here. It's fast-paced and really demanding but also fair for the players. I hope it can be a very happy marriage."

The format itself also changes the strategic equation because games are played without an increment.

"The clock just becomes another piece in a way it doesn't in most formats, and if you don't adjust you're gonna have a serious disadvantage here," he said.

Talking about evolution of the game, Carlsen said: "I think progress, evolution, whatever you want to call it is never going to be linear. There are always going to be other things that are going on and so on but I'm happy that things are moving in this direction generally where chess is becoming faster and more accessible."

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.

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