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Chess stars speak at ICE Barcelona 2026
Three of the most influential figures in chess; Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, and Levy Rozman (GothamChess) arrived at ICE Barcelona earlier today to participate in a BETBY activation.
Ahead of their fireside talk and exhibition matches, the three chess stars spoke at a press conference, where they discussed how emotion and competitive drive play a role in chess.
Magnus Carlsen
Speaking about emotions when playing chess in stressful environments, Carlsen said that one aspires to be in control at all times when playing, and therefore practices in order to be in control, but that ultimately that may not always be the case.
“I guess I am the kind of person where I find it kind of easier to let things out in the moment than to keep it in. Fortunately I showed a side of me that I’m also proud of and that I’ve shown many times, that I can have these difficult moments and then recover,” he said.
Hikaru Nakamura
Nakamura remarked that “chess is a mental game” and that he likes to think that he is always capable of beating his opponent. He continued that when you look at players such as himself and Magnus, he believes that they are a product of how they grew up. He continued that when one actively follows sports, as he said that himself and Magnus do, one tends to emulate the players that they follow, “and when I look at baseball or basketball, you see a lot of emotions from the players”.
With that in mind, Nakamura said that in the case of Magnus and himself, he thinks that same emotion comes out in their game, and he said that this shows how passionate they are about chess, as he added that he wishes more chess players were like that.
Having said that, he remarked that he does his best, but that he has “tilted” and lost some games. “I do the best that I can… I am only human at the end of the day,” he said.
“There’s a famous saying that you have to spend 10,000 hours to become an expert at anything. I think that in order to reach the very top in any given field that’s competitive, it’s more like you have to spend every waking hour on it for many, many years. With chess, I think that the most important thing is that when I was younger I really just loved the game, and I could spend hours and hours studying or playing chess online. It has to be a complete obsession with the game of chess in order to get to the top 20 or 30 in the world. To get to the top 5, you have to have that drive and that obsession, I think you also have to have that strong mental will and believing that you can be better than everybody else, and just having that delusion essentially your whole life,” said Nakamura.
He continued that there is also an element of luck involved, as he said that he considers himself to have been very lucky as someone who comes from a family of chess players, as both his stepfather and brother played before he ever got into the sport.
GothamChess
For his part, Rozman spoke about how chess has somehow become associated with one’s capabilities in other aspects of life, such as school or work, and so one might be frustrated when seeing a low rating associated with their play. He spoke of how he has been a chess teacher for the last 10 years or so, and added that the last 6 years have been extremely noteworthy for how much chess has exploded in popularity, “especially online”.
He joked that he personally “tilts” whenever he plays chess on his phone, but that he would never be seen insulting children during in-person matches, “although I am thinking it in my head”.
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