it had me laughing allright

even MC had a funny moment or two!

(and he's from Norway)

I don't think this interview is from his recent trip to Las Vegas (which is now). He says he is 21, which he was when he actually met Rainn Wilson in LA in august last year. Perhaps Rainn has just - for some reason - awaited publishing his interview for half a year...

garbage!!!

Looks and sounds very artificial...

Interesting and entertaining "performance interview". Magnus has done a few of appearances both in the U.S. and Europe. Clever publicity!

Not funny at all.. ;(

Looks pretty lame to me, but I guess this isn't really aimed at chess fans.

not bad

Magnus seems bored, except when playing. BTW the guy is all chin! I never noticed that before.

Wow. Magnus rocks.

I like Magnuis - all over again.
Like Anand, he is grounded, and very intelligent + humorous beyond his chess smarts.

I liked it. Magnus was at ease and cracked a couple of funnies as well as giving some candid responses to some non-standard questions.

There's great value in these types of interviews that don't have the cookie cutter questions being fired out. You get to see more of the real person behind the mask.

Rainn: What would the first sentence of your autobiography be?
Magnus: I'm not a genius.
Rainn: What would the title of your autobiography be?
Magnus: Magnus Carlsen, Chess Genius *laughs*

So it’s partially confirmed that Carlsen isn’t a genius. Despite of this, it seems like he still wants to convince the world that he is in fact a genius, hence the title of the autobiography (which is of course a hypothetical autobiography, but it shows his way of thinking). I’m not criticizing him, I guess it’s a perfectly normal business strategy to promote yourself as much as possible. But I can’t help to wonder how many of the Carlsen fanboys on this site watched the video and didn’t notice the discrepancy between Carlsen saying he isn’t a genius and then saying that he is. I’m sure some of them noticed, but will they admit it to themselves? He is certainly a good chess player, but it’s important that people understand that he isn’t a genius, even in his own perception.

how can something be "partially confirmed"?

There was a second video of their game. I tried to piece it together -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_575528&feature=iv&...

[Event ""] [Site ""] [Date ""] [White "Rainn"] [Black "Magnus"] [Round ""] [Result ""]

1.e4 Nc6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 Qxd5 4.Nc3 Qxd4 5.Qxd4 Nxd4 6.Nf3 Nxc2+ 7.Kd2 Nxa1 8.Bc4 Be6 9.Ne5 c6 10.Bxe6 fxe6 11.b3 Rd8+ 12.Ke2 Nc2 13.Bf4 Nd4+ 14.Ke3 Nf6 15.Rd1 Nf5+ 16.Ke2 Nd5 17.Kf1 Nxc3 18.Rc1 Nxa2 19.Rc2 Nb4 20.Rc4 Nd5 21.Bg3 g6 22.Bh4 Nde3+ 23.fxe3 Nxe3+ 24.Kf2 Nxc4 25.Nxc4 Rd4 26.g3 Rxc4 27.bxc4 Bg7 28.g4 Rf8+ 29.Kg2 Be5 30.h3 a5 31.Be1 a4 32.Bb4 Bd6 33.Bc3 a3 34.Bg7 Rf4 35.Ba1 Rxc4 36.Bg7 h5 37.gxh5 gxh5

6...Nxc2+ Rainn:"Arrgh! Terrible, I want a rematch."

17...Nxc3 "Magnus: Just calm down."

32...Bd6 Rainin attempts Bxa5, whilst removing the pawn at a4.

35...Rxc4 Rainin resigns

The hustle appears with some confusing illegal moves that were taken back and corrected such as 38.Kg3 and this line is somehow corrected after the king takes the h-pawn and tries to move into the 4th rank where lies the black rook.

Of course he is a chess genius, so is everyone above 2700 Elo, how else could they get so high? But the whole discussion of who is a genius is quite pointless, as Carlsen also clearly agrees :)

Rainn:
"What's odd to me is that you are a totally normal person. People think about chess geniusses as hanging out in their basements, obsessively chewing on their own skin, maybe bodies hidden somewhere in the house..."
Magnus:
"Well, you know I am only 21 years old, so give me some time to develop the crazy."

Is Parallels the same company who make the 'Parallels virtual machine" , i.e where you can harness the VM capabilities of the modern processor and run two OS'es at once?