Life and Chess Improvement Lessons from GM Simen Agdestein

I am privileged to interview accomplished and insightful chess players every week for The Perpetual Chess Podcast. I learn something from each conversation, but every once in a while, an interview really leaves a mark. My recent conversation with GM Simen Agdestein, the legendary Norwegian trainer, player, and former professional footballer was such an interview.
I knew about Simen’s successes. It’s hard to miss them. He was a top 20 player in the world, who tangled with Kasparov and finished ahead of Anand in the 1983 World Junior Championship. .

Via Douglas Griffin's Twitter

At age 15, he became Norway’s youngest-ever national chess champion (1982), and its at age 56 in 2023 he became its oldest. He also won his country's national title at many ages in between. Somehow, while scaling the chess ranks, Simen was also an incredible footballer. He played professionally in Norway and was a striker for Norway's national football team. Later, Simen became a chess trainer, and soon enough he was coaching a 9-year-old kid named Magnus Carlsen. Simen says that Magnus’ talent was unmissable, and pretty soon he was pulling aside GM Judit Polgar, (and anyone else who would listen) to tell her, - “Magnus Carlsen- Remember that name!”
What I did not know as well was the extent of Simen’s setbacks. It is one thing to read that someone’s soccer/football career was derailed by injuries. It is another to hear Simen describe, in painstaking detail, how at the age of 25 he suddenly had such difficulty breathing that he could no longer play football OR competitive chess. “My whole system collapsed. My brain, my breathing, my whole body simply didn’t work for a couple of years... I couldn’t sleep at night, I didn’t sleep for nearly half a year. I couldn’t concentrate, I couldn’t read anything, it was horrible.”
Through no fault of his own, Simen went from being near the top of two hyper-competitive fields to none, before the age of 30. A few years prior, Simen had been offered a lucrative contract to play professional soccer, but turned it down, so he never “cashed in” before his career(s) were suddenly over. After some years of suffering, and reflection, Simen opened a chess institute in Oslo in the late 1990s. It was (and is) a specialized high school for the most talented young chess players in the country. Shortly after that, he met Magnus and his family. Magnus was far too young for his chess institute, but his staggering talent gave Simen extra incentive to keep the school going until Magnus was old enough to attend it. Simen managed to do that, and the rest is chess history. Now, Simen is settled into a routine and just wants to teach his students some chess and enjoy himself. “I’m 56, I am just happy I am there. I don’t want to do anything else in my life. I just want to play and have fun with my students without stress.” Here are a few more lessons that stuck with me from our interview.

1. Don’t be too hard on yourself

In my interview, and in Simen’s 2020 interview with Judit Polgar, one gets the impression that Simen can be his own harshest critic. The nine-time national champion often speaks of “playing horribly,” especially in more recent years. But this year, Simen won the Norway national championship ahead of GM Aryan Tari, GM Jon Ludwig Hammer, and other younger, higher-rated players. Simen credited his continued competitive success in part to learning to live with his mistakes. He said “ Even the best in the world make horrible blunders. And that's quite good to see sometimes, it's actually part of being a chess player.”

2. The best chess training plan is the one that you enjoy

In doing research for my forthcoming book, I read Simen’s enjoyable book, so I already knew that Magnus Carlsen had a shockingly relaxed approach to chess improvement as a kid. He was obsessed with chess but channeled his energy into feeding his own innate curiosity rather than engaging in deliberate practice. Magnus played blitz, competed in tournaments relentlessly, devoured books, and even played bughouse when an obsession with it took hold.Having a legendary memory didn’t hurt Magnus either. Despite my familiarity with this story, it is revealing to hear Simen describe Magnus’ carefree approach to bettering oneself. As we discuss in the interview, this may be most exemplified by the fact that a teenage Magnus ignored Kasparov’s chess improvement instruction when they attempted to work together because it “seemed horribly boring.” Simen now espouses a casual, Magnus-inspired approach to chess improvement. A lot of the chess instruction at his institute is informal. He emphasizes playing a lot of games, having fun and even has his chess students play soccer to relieve stress. (Lucky for his students Simen is unable to join them on the pitch due to his health issues). In describing his own relaxed chess improvement philosophy, Simen memorably concluded, “Magnus has shown that we are good enough. There is no set formula for how to do something.”

A worthwhile book

3. You never know what someone else is going through.

I live in New Jersey, so it was inevitable that I would someday read the auto-biography of its most famous native, Bruce Springsteen. It is a fascinating tale of childhood trauma, musical obsession, clinical depression, and oh yes, rock and roll. In the book, there are a few memorable moments where Springsteen describes experiencing crippling depression at the same time that he was at the height of his fame. Springsteen’s depression may seem surprising, but when told within the context of his life, it is more understandable. While Simen is no Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, his friend and former student, Chess.com’s Tarjei Svensen has described Simen as “an A list celebrity” in Norway in the 1980s. But Simen also describes some challenging times, even before his injuries. From a distance, one might think that a professional-level footballer AND chess player has a charmed life, but as Simen told it, his happiest days playing soccer were before he joined Norway’s national team.
“Once I came on the national team. It became a job. It became stressful. I couldn't just go away playing chess tournaments like I used to, because I was being paid for being a football player... Once I came on the national team. there was kind of no way back, because then you are presented contracts, there is a lot of pressure and stress. So then suddenly I didn't play soccer for fun any longer, which meant I didn't play so well either. My football career was wonderful until I joined the national team. After that, it became stressful and when I got injured, then it became horrible. And now I can’t look at soccer. I'm not even interested in the national team, I don't look at it. I just get bad feelings about it, actually.”

In a similar vein, GM Agdestein described life as a young chess pro as “lonesome and boring” at times. While we all love to play chess, I can understand some of the joy dissipating once it becomes a profession, particularly without a support network in place. Simen now tries to provide support to the younger generation, helping them with the psychological and logistical challenges that he encountered on his own as a young player. Despite some tough times, the chess world is fortunate that Simen does not retain bad feelings about chess as he does about professional soccer, because he contributes so much to the world of chess as a trainer. His story is truly remarkable, and I learned so much from our conversation. GM Jonathan Tisdallsummed things up aptly:
Via GM Jonathan Tisdall's Twitter
The English translation of IM Atle Gronn’s book (which GM Tisdall is referencing) is tentatively called Goals and Games, and is due in 2024. I can’t wait to read the book to find out more about GM Agdestein’s fascinating life. In the meantime, if you would like to watch our interview, you can do so here.
You can also listen to it on the Perpetual Chess webpage or any of the podcast apps. I trust you will learn something from Simen’s disarming modesty and his fascinating and varied career!