3 min readOsloUpdated: May 25, 2026 11:59 PM IST
Magnus Carlsen heard the question — would Gukesh make him slam the table in anger again by beating him — and burst out laughing. On his right, the teenager who now holds the world champion’s title tried to hold a straight face for a few seconds, exchanged a glance with Praggnanandhaa beside him, and gave up. The room at the Thon Opera Hotel in Oslo had been waiting for a press conference like this for a long time. Chess, it turns out, had been waiting longer.
A year ago, at the same pre-tournament press conference before Norway Chess 2025, a reporter had asked the 12 grandmasters on the dais how boring they found press conferences. Nobody wanted to answer. They exchanged glances. Eventually Hikaru Nakamura, the most outspoken of them, admitted the truth: very boring. This year was different.
The mood shifted with every question. One minute the grandmasters were giggling about challenges set by the Norway Chess social media team. The next, Carlsen, Gukesh and Ju Wenjun — three world champions across formats, sharing a dais — were peeling back something they rarely show. The question that unlocked it was simple: what has been the hardest thing about being world champion?
Carlsen went first. He has won the title five times and walked away from it four years ago, a decision that still baffles the chess world. What he said explained something about why.
“The hardest thing about being a world champion was that there were a lot of expectations of me to find the world championship as important as the others did,” he said. “I never really felt that way. I felt like I was doing it a lot for others rather than for myself. The motivation didn’t come from within a lot of the time.”
He paused, then went further. “Having so much of my identity — in other people’s eyes and, to some extent, my own eyes — connected to just that one thing that I didn’t even completely like was difficult. I guess that is a personal problem. But that’s one of the reasons why I’m not a part of that at all.”
Then it was Gukesh’s turn. The boy who became the youngest world champion at 18 has since struggled for form, drawing criticism from Carlsen and Garry Kasparov among others. For once, he did not deflect it.
“I think everybody underestimates the pressure and expectations that come with being a world champion,” he said. “Sometimes I have struggled to deal with these expectations. But it also gave me a chance to grow and build character.”
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In a sport where stoicism is the professional default, the two world champions had just found common ground in something neither usually admits: that the crown is heavier than it looks.
The conference ended the way only a Carlsen press conference can. Asked how hungry he was to win Norway Chess for a record eighth time, he smiled. He had been on holiday in Spain before flying to Oslo, he noted. Then: “As for hunger, I think I’ll find hunger when I see the meal in front of me.”
Chess rarely does press conferences. After Monday in Oslo, it should reconsider.
(The writer is in Oslo at the invitation of Norway Chess)
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