R Praggnanandhaa, one of the few chess players who has troubled World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen, revealed what makes the Norwegian so great.Praggnanandhaa first defeated Magnus Carlsen at the Champions Chess Tour in 2022. His maiden classical victory over the Norwegian came at Norway Chess 2024. In July 2025, he achieved a remarkable feat at the Las Vegas Freestyle Chess event, beating Carlsen twice in just three days.“He has this intuition in every position, which is just amazing,” Praggnanandhaa said on Raj Shamani’s Figuring Out podcast.“Like when you actually see his game — even in shorter formats — he usually plays the top three choices of the computer every single time. That intuition is something that he developed over a period of time.
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What do you think is the key factor behind Magnus Carlsen’s success in chess?
“He’s one of the players who knows a lot of classics from the past. He has read a lot, and I think that’s one thing he has that helps him.“Also, mentally he’s really strong. You can never see him collapse in a tournament completely. Even when you actually make a mistake when he’s lost, he’s there fighting every chance he’s getting, and he pushes till the end. He tries every resource possible.“He exhausts them, and I think that’s one of the reasons he’s at the top. When he was coming up, he was playing these endgames which, in earlier days, people thought were completely fine. They would just make draws because of mutual respect for the players.“They would think it’s okay, no one is going to win this, let’s make an early draw. But Magnus started playing all those positions.“He started grinding and then started winning also. So he’s just universally strong, and he’s mentally strong as well, which is really…” Praggnanandhaa added.Praggnanandhaa also revealed the reason why, whenever they lock horns, the match ends up being exciting.“I have never thought about this actually. If I have to speak about the style, he’s more of an intuitive player,” he said.“His intuition is so good. Even though my intuition suggests a move, I usually try to go into details.“It’s possible that I can catch him there because he hasn’t gone into the details. Sometimes intuition can also be wrong, and I can catch him. Our games are always exciting.”
