Chess Genius's Today

Last night I had already planned to write this post, before today's result, where Magnus Carlsen once again, not only pulled up from a slow start, but to win overall with a super strong finish.  He of course won against the always strong field of the Tal Memorial in Moscow.

Magnus is clearly a genius.  He is not the only one, but just the same.  Now, there are many, many players at the top who are very bright, very, very bright but of whom genius cannot be said, a wholly different matter.  Peter Svidler is a great example.  Not for this alone of course, but he speaks English better than most of us, almost accent free.  Anand and Shirov of course have very good Spanish, and thier chess and creativity cannot be questioned.  But geniuses?  I would not say that.  Fischer was clearly high genius, and clearly Kasparov also. What do these three have in common, besides the obvious? The quality of inevitability. Like a force of nature.

Aronian, Rabajov, Caruna, all these guys.  Caruna has lived in many countries, and picked up Italian and Hungarian along the way.  This is not meant to be a brief on ability in languages, but to note exceptional capacity for learning, and repeatedly.  Aronian has wide ranging interests in the arts, English literature, movies, and last but not least Jaz. Can you imagine?  He is colorful, and unlike many a Chess Grandmaster, can compare himself to, or expressedly ask in an interview what it would be like to be an animal.  Nakamura is a dangerous animal, a blood hungry carnivor of relentless ambition, but as bright and thus fast as he is, super fast, genius?  Probably not.  Kramnik, as even Kasparov has said, the person with the deepest understanding of chess among ALL CHESS players?  No.

Which takes me to a few to make note of.  Ivanchuk is clearly a genius, taught himself Turkish on the fly, memorized one hundred Russian poems, and needless to say has created--on a good day or during tournaments when he is in form--many a stunning chess painting, worthy of rememberance for a long time to come.  Chess beauty, classics of enduring value.  As is not well known, but generally not passed around in the chess media but nevertheless true, similar to  David Navara who is a high functioning autistic genius, is semi-autistic.

I cannot know it, but Grischuk is probably a genius.  Those eyes.  Same as Ivanchuk, as though he were looking off into in the priors case eternity, and in the lattter, eternity.

Which takes us to our main subject.  Who cannot doubt that Morozevich is a true genius, with his protean creativity and imagination, some sort of modern Morphy (whom he says is among his favorates, his idols).  It as though he were reaching out to some far off, inexplicable dimension of chess that is beyond knowing.  The same can be said for the other clear genius, Ivanchuk, who thirsts for great beauty.  And it is not accident that both have flirted with a definite desire to leave chess, if not quit (Ivanchuk) or take a long time off (Morozevich), only to come back from a deep and precipitous plunge in rating, back up to the top, like a towering plant in spring grabbing sunlight.