How Magnus Carlsen Trains

Now, as the former World Champion, Magnus Carlsen still trains for hours every day. But what is he training? What does the highest-rated player of all-time still have to learn?

Like most professional players, Magnus needs to study openings to find new ideas and hopefully catch out a future opponent. 

Carlsen analyzes every game he can get his hands on too. When he was young, he studied thousands of games from the top players of the past, and now he analyzes the games of his fellow pros - getting inside their head and understanding their thought processes.

It’s not just other players’ games either: “Magnus looked back at his levels as a 20-year-old - and, after all he was the top-ranked player at 20 - and he was astounded by his lack of understanding at a lot of positions at 20. He couldn’t necessarily play any better over the board, but his understanding had dramatically improved.”

Being able to analyze a game properly and draw the maximum instruction from it is a crucial skill when it comes to long-term improvement. No less important are the abilities to train tactics, endgames, and study the opening effectively. Magnus Academy teaches these skills so our students have everything they need to keep getting better.