Norwegian Woods (OT)

The song is narrated by the shepherd Celadon, who describes how he is brought by a "strange old man" into the Elysian Fields. He watches as the murdered Sinclair enters a great castle, where he is greeted by 12 kings ("twelve Swedish Carls", i.e. Charles I–XII), to whom he relates the circumstances of his death.

It must be possible to play the tone c in such a way that people let go...

Magnus Carlsen emerged from the Norwegian Woods yesterday with a spectacular save of his losing position proving why he is still Numero Uno! Signore Caruano is proving a worthy
challenger.

As Magnus Carlsen sat in his dressing room, euphoric and chatty after finally suppressing the stubborn resistance of Fabiano Caruana to retain his world chess title, he made a stark confession. “If I had lost, it could very well have been my last world championship match.”

The words came as a thunderous bolt from the blue and they are bound to send tremors through the chess world. After all, Carlsen has been the world No 1 since 2010 and would have been a warm favourite to regain his title in 2020 if he had lost. Yet, for the first time, here he was acknowledging that he would have contemplated turning his back on the biggest prize in his sport at the age of 27.

The brilliant Norwegian, who retained his title with a thumping 3-0 rapid-play victory over Caruana on Wednesday after all 12 classical games were drawn, was just as frank when asked whether he could ever again scale the heights of his peak Fide rating of 2,882, the highest in history, which he obtained in his early twenties.

“It is going to be very difficult,” says Carlsen, whose ranking now stands at 2,835, three ahead of his American rival. “It is a lot about the mindset. There is no pure chess reason in terms of understanding the game that I should play worse than I have before. But these games show that I have not been able to take all my chances. I need to work on that to be even sharper the next time.”

At least there will be a next time. Before the match Carlsen’s frustrations with his performances had led his sister Ellen to hint that Carlsen might retire if he was defeated. When asked whether such a course of action was really on his mind, he replies: “For sure,” before clarifying his position. “If I had lost, it could very well have been my last world championship match.”

When pressed why, Carlsen replies: “I don’t know. I wouldn’t have retired from chess but I might not have played another world championship match. But now we’ll see. I have a lot of time over the next two years to improve my game.”

The sport certainly needs him to stick around. For these days the Norwegian is a bona fide celebrity, guest-starring on The Simpsons, modelling for G-Star Raw and making $8m (£6.25m) a year according to Forbes magazine. Such is Carlsen’s popularity in Norway that his matches were shown live on NRK, the equivalent of BBC One, with Wednesday’s tie–breaks breaking all previous records for Carlsen’s games. Three million of the country’s five million population watched at least some part of the match.