After Magnus Carlsen, Chess Has Entered a New Age | The New Yorker

What stands out, in fact, is not Himelfarb’s illumination of the mechanics of chess but his insights regarding the psychologies of people. The ones he follows closely are so stamped by their differences that they become almost a full array of archetypes. (Almost—there are, notably, no women among the contenders.) There is the lamb-like dreamer, Wesley So, and the trollish Hikaru Nakamura, who believes that his unprecedented success as a streamer has secured him a greater legacy than any prestigious chess title would. Carlsen, whose continued presence in the chess world shadows the hunt for a new king, is aggressive in asserting his opinions. (In 2022, Carlsen announced that he would no longer contend for the world championship, but he participates in other tournaments, usually with faster time controls, and often wins.) The true feelings of Anish Giri, in contrast, are “obscured by a fog of irony.” Fabiano Caruana, a precise, brilliant American forever on the precipice of a world title, is described as a kind of “scientist,” while Ding, who plummeted into a depression after winning the world championship in 2023, has a sensitive, poetic soul.