Let me first say that I entirely agree that Simen looked rather foolish in his awkward effort to ask provocative questions from Anand, but I doubt this was at all motivated by any personal ire that he has for Anand since he did more or less the same thing with every player that he had a chance to interview in that he asked provocative questions with varying effect.

But rather than having any personal motivation, it's best understood as motivated by so-called journalistic requirements to be "interesting" and "provocative", so on and so forth.

Personally I found the question in poor taste, but it has nothing to do with Carlsen's "reference to the psychology". Moreover, Carlsen's interest is in the "over the board" psychology of chess, and his reference to it is simply his own belated discovery that psychology matters in chess between human beings, a fact that has been known for centuries, and is largely common place. It's embodied in the slogan that chess, among other things, is "a test of wills".

It has nothing to do with "cheap tricks", like blowing smoke across the board. That's not psychology, it's infantilism.

The relevant sense of psychology is more like this, for example, as said of Lasker ...

<His contemporaries used to say that Lasker used a "psychological" approach to the game, and even that he sometimes deliberately played inferior moves to confuse opponents.>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanue...

There is no doubt that Magnus Carlsen is confident - quite confident - that he will win. Given that the match has not yet occurred, you (or any one else) aare in no position to be able to say whether or not his self-confidence was misplaced.

<The funny thing is how overconfident Magnus is>

What is not so funny is that you make absolutely no good faith attempt at quantifying the claim you are making and thereby make no attempt at an *objective* assessment, even though such objective measures are easily defined. For example, here is one way to define it ...

<The overconfidence effect is a well-established bias in which someone's subjective confidence in their judgments is reliably greater than their objective accuracy, especially when confidence is relatively high>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overco...

And the question now is this: do you have any empirical evidence that Carlsen's level of confidence is miscalibrated with respect to his objective results?

Let me therefore suggest to you that, speaking of psychology, you have your own *psychological* reasons to deliberately mischaracterize his true level of confidence since you have no actual *evidence* to actually make a rational assessment of it. Put more simply, you're simply blowing smoke, a well known pscyhological ploy.

Finally, you have absolutely no empirical basis for this claim about what Carlsen Allegedly believes of Anand:

<he is seriously underestimating Anand>

Using that Lasker quote in relation to Magnus was clearly a blunder on your part as Magnus always aims to play the best move every time after his sideline openings. His extremely high accuracy scores prove this decisively. One of the main points of your argument was weak and was easily refuted. Carlsen prefers to put psychological pressure through his interviews and comments.

If you think psychology is only limited to playing inferior moves please keep reading some more wikipedia articles.

Some advice is to make broader searches when your looking up articles it's clear you're missing a lot of information in your reading.

Magnus has stated numerous times how important psychology is in chess going as far as saying Chess is basically a psychology game with a few tricks. It is you who is attempting to limit the concept strictly to "playing inferior moves" when psychology can be influenced through a multitude of ways.

It is an attempt to influence your opponent's thinking/feelings through your actions and words, those actions can be direct or subtle. Magnus making that stupid smirk while Anand is saying his point of view in that post game press conference is an attempt at subtle psychology. Anand also caught this too and you see him stop talking when he notices it to see what Carlsen has to say and Carlsen immediately starts talking and basically agreeing with Anand.(effectively backing down from his aggressive psychological stance which means he is just playing childish games, someone who is really cold hearted would have found a different approach here.)

Simen Agdestien was clearly driving the point that Anand is of the old generation and the Carlsen is the new generation. It was set up methodically by first congratulating and praising Anand of being the best in his generation and then saying but that was the old generation, the new kids are coming and they have a new approach he also said Carlsen's name last to mask his intentions. Asking Anand that question forces him to acknowledge that point once again that he is old. You can act like it wasn't a deliberate needle and (trust me) I couldnt care less.

Magnus highly values gaining a psychological edge and Agdestien is his manager, I'm sure he understands that and is aiming to help his boss.

click for larger view

There's a nice (and non-trivial) winning line here after 31...Qxh4: simply 32.Qxf4? is bad because of 32...Qxf4 followed by Rxd5; 32.Qe7 also doesn't work because of 32...Rcxd5! 33.Rxd5 Rxd5 34.Rxd5 Qh1+ & Qxd5. White wins rather by 32.Bxf7! and now (a) 32...Rxd4 33.Qxd4+ Re5 34.Be6!! (preparing Qd7 - an immediate 34.Qd7? is met by 34...Bxg5) 34...Qxg5 35.Qd7+ Kh6 36.Rh1+ and Black has to give up the queen; (b) 32...Bxg5 33.Qb7! (attacking both the king and the queen on h4) 33...Qg3 (or 33...Rxd4 34.cxd4 Rc1+ 35.Rxc1 Bxc1 36.Bb3+ Kh6 37.Kxc1) 34.Rxd8 Bxd8 35.Rd7! (35.Rxd8? Rc7! & Rxf7).

<28... Qxh4 29. Qe2 Rc7 30. Qf3 h5 31. gxh6 Qxh6 32. Rxd5 Rxd5 33. Rxd5 Kg7>

click for larger view

looks rather drawish.

(possible) position after 28...Qxh4! (instead of Bd6):

click for larger view

In the press conference after the game, Anand mentioned looking mainly at the possibility of <29.Qg2> here, with the idea of trapping the black queen, but apparently he couldn't find a satisfactory continuation after <29...Re8(!)> with the idea of refuting 30.Be2 by 30...Bd6 31.Rh1 Rxe2!. Agedstein suggested 30.Bxb5 Rxb5 31.Rh1, but Anand thought that's a draw as well - and apparently he's right - after 31...Qxh1+ 32.Qxh1 Bxa3 33.b4 a5 34.Rxd5 Rxd5 35.Qxd5 axb4 and even if White manages to win the b4 pawn without losing any of his own pawns (which the computer shows he can do by some clever maneuvering with the queen) it would still be a fortress when Black brings the rook to e6, so White wouldn't be able to advance the b-pawn beyond b5 (e.g. 36.Qd6 Re4 37.Qd8+ Kg7 38.Qd5 [now Black can't take on f4 because of Qe5+] 38...Re1+ 39.Ka2 Bc1! 40.Qd4+ Kg8 41.cxb4 Re6 followed by Be3).

32 Bb3 also looks good here, (but not 32 Ba2?).

click for larger view

The idea is to threaten 33 Qe7 as well as protect the rook on d1.That makes 32...Re5 unplayable.

One continuation is 32...Rxd4 33 Qxd4+ Re5 34 Rf1, winning the bishop.

click for larger view

Another continuation is 32...Bxg5 33 Qb7 Qf2 34 Rxd8 Bxd8 35 Rxd8.

click for larger view

I'm not sure where this comes from ... or what this is in relation to.

In any case, is there a specific loss you have in mind to which he displayed "bad loser" behavior?

Which of these typical symptoms of being a sore loser has he displayed? Be specific as the what, when and where:

<Sore loser behavior includes blaming others for the loss, not accepting responsibility for personal actions that contributed to the defeat, reacting to the loss in an immature or improper fashion, making excuses for the defeat, and citing unfavorable conditions or other petty issues as reasons for the defeat.>

<wisewizard> consistently sees "stupid smirks" where I only see good natured smiles. Perhaps we have different definitions in mind. I use the following definition:

<smirk: To smile in an affected, often offensively self-satisfied manner>

You may wish to watch the Charley Rose interview, and see for yourself whether or not Carlsen "smirks".

__________

Charlie rose: "how will you prepare"

Carlsen: "I dont know ... I think things are working out so far ... maybe make some small improvements ... be in better shape ... not overfocus on preparation ... he [Anand] will do the same ... the only difference is that it wont be enough "

They both laugh [I see no "smirking"]

Rose: " he does not have enough to beat you ..."

Carlsen: "I mean ... you know ... it's my belief that I can beat anyone ... otherwise there would be no point in being in the match."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TI...
__________

I saw no smirk - but both Carlsen and Rose laughed as it was clearly said in the spirit of friendly competition. It was a good natured laugh and not a smirk. It was clearly a freindly jibe, and simply an honest reflection of his reasonably held beliefs.

It's also clear that Carlsen very much struggles with the english language, and has not yet mastered the finer more subtle nuances. That's one reason why he may sometimes appear to be more "blunt" than he intends.

This is an impossible claim to support. Unless you are a mind reader, you cannot possibly know how much time - if any - he spends "thinking he is very superior".

Moreover, his alleged "thinking he is very superior" is simply your own negative spin on more simply saying that he may think he is better, which sounds quite innocuous to me.

Btw, continuing my previous post about 28...Qxh4!:

click for larger view

Another important point of this move is that "simply" 29.Bg2 is met by 29...Rc4! to exchange a pair of rooks after 30.Bxd5 Rxd4 and ease the pressure (30.Rxd5? Rxd5 31.Rxd5 Qxf4 is already better for Black). In the actual game however, after 28...Bd6 29.Bg2:

click for larger view

Not only do I feel like I understand that particular game, but it feels like getting a micro-chess lesson as well .. . and all this for free! ... and in 15 minutes flat!