国际象棋天才卡尔森：是棋手，更是明星

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国际象棋天才卡尔森：是棋手，更是明星

LONDON — After 22-year-old Magnus Carlsen dispatched him in 36 deadly moves over three speedy hours in their first match at the 2013 Candidates’ Tournament here, the Russian grandmaster Peter Svidler spent a moment musing on why, to be blunt about it, Carlsen receives so much more attention than he does.

伦敦——在此地举行的2013年世界冠军挑战者资格赛(Candidates' Tournament)上，22岁的马格努斯·卡尔森(Magnus Carlsen)仅用了三小时，就以致命的36招棋战胜了俄罗斯国际象棋大师彼得·斯维德勒(Peter Svidler)，这是双方的第一场比赛。赛后，斯维德勒花了点时间思考一个问题，直白地说，就是为什么卡尔森所吸引的关注大大超过他?

He is not jealous, he said, of Carlsen’s high profile, No. 1 ranking and lucrative sponsorship deals (“Should I be?”). Svidler is 36, ranked 14th, but has no companies clamoring to shower him with cash.

他说，他并不嫉妒卡尔森的高调、世界第一的排名和诱人的赞助协议(“我应该嫉妒吗?”)。斯维德勒今年36岁，排名第14，没有任何公司吵着要给他送钱。

“He’s exceptionally good, and so he gets extra opportunities,” Svidler said. “Somehow, I’m less marketable than Magnus. I’m somewhat less young, and somewhat more Soviet.”

“他特别出色，所以他得到更多机会，”斯维德勒说，“出于某种原因，我没有马格努斯好推销。我也没他年轻，而且有些前苏联的烙印。”

Chess has its superstars, but on a wider stage, there is no one like Carlsen, of Norway, who won the tournament and remains the first world No. 1 from a Western country since Bobby Fischer.

国际象棋领域有着自己的一些超级巨星，但是，在一个更大的舞台上，没有一个人像挪威的卡尔森吸引了那么多的注意，他赢得了这场资格赛，并仍是自鲍比·菲舍尔(Bobby Fischer)以后第一位来自西方国家、排名世界第一的国际象棋大师。

Carlsen sits at the center of a carefully constructed campaign by him and his handlers to use his intelligence, looks and nimble news-media-charming skills to increase his profile outside the sport, as if he were a tennis or golf star. Not since the days of Fischer, Kasparov and Karpov has a player managed to move so deftly beyond the world of chess into the world at large.

卡尔森和他的经理人们利用他的高智商、外表和能迅速取悦于新闻媒体的技能来提升他在这项竞技领域之外的曝光度，就好像他是网球或高尔夫明星，他正处于这一系列精心打造的商业运作的中心。菲舍尔、卡斯帕罗夫、卡尔波夫之后，就没有一位棋手能如此巧妙地跨出国际象棋领域，在世界范围引起如此多的关注。

“Magnus probably sees himself more like a modern sports star who wants to have fun than like a traditional stereotype of a chess player,” said his manager, Espen Agdestein. “Magnus is becoming more a global person.”

“马格努斯可能更多地将自己看做是一位现代体育明星，想要享受生活，而不是一名传统意义上的国际象棋手，”他的经理人埃斯彭·阿德斯特恩(Espen Agdestein)说，“马格努斯正在成为一位国际名人。”

Carlsen has been profiled on “60 Minutes”; has modeled (along with Liv Tyler) for a major clothing label; has met Jay-Z at a Nets game; and has been offered a role, as a chess player, in the coming “Star Trek” film (the role fell through because of work-permit issues).

《60分钟》(60 Minutes)节目曾介绍过卡尔森;他曾(和丽芙·泰勒[Liv Tyler]一起)为一个大型服装品牌担任模特;曾在一场篮网队(Nets)的比赛上与Jay-Z见面;还曾受邀在新的《星际迷航》(Star Trek)电影中扮演一位国际象棋手(后来因为工作许可的问题，他的角色被取消)。

Much of the attention is because Carlsen has accomplished so much so young; the word prodigy has been trailing behind him for more than a decade. His chess rating — which reflects a player’s relative standing and is calculated according to a complicated win-loss formula — is 2872, the highest ever for any player. (The previous record was 2851, set by Garry Kasparov in 1999.) Viswanathan Anand, a Bollywood-level celebrity back home in India and the current world champion, has a rating of 2784.

人们对卡尔森的关注很大程度上是由于他这么年轻就取得了这样的成就，天才这一字眼十多年来一直如影随形。根据一个复杂的输赢公式计算的国际象棋评分反映一位棋手的相对等级，而他的评分是2878，是有史以来最高的。(之前的最高纪录是2851，由加里·卡斯帕罗夫[Garry Kasparov]于1999年创下。)维斯瓦纳坦·阿南德(Viswanathan Anand)在家乡印度可媲美宝莱坞(Bollywood)明星，也是现在的世界冠军，他的评分是2784。

With his Candidates’ Tournament victory, Carlsen will now challenge Anand in the next World Chess Championship, to be played in the fall. His presence is sure to generate new levels of interest in the contest, or so the organizers are hoping.

在赢得了世界冠军挑战者资格赛后，卡尔森将在秋季举行的国际象棋世界冠军赛(World Chess Championship)上挑战阿南德。他的出场一定会吸引更多人关注此次比赛，起码比赛的组织者是这样希望的。

“With the exception of Magnus, sponsors in general are not interested in individual players — they’re interested in being associated with the sport as a whole,” said Andrew Paulson, the chief executive of Agon, which develops and markets the World Chess Championship and other tournaments. For a sport hoping to find a way to attract spectators, Paulson said, Carlsen presents a corrective to the stereotype of chess stars as “old, cranky, strange Russians whose names all start with K,” Paulson said.

“通常来说，赞助商对个人不太感兴趣，他们更希望能与这项运动产生联系，但马格努斯是例外，”发展并推广国际象棋世界冠军赛及其他比赛的Agon公司的执行总裁安德鲁·保尔森(Andrew Paulson)说。保尔森说，对一项希望吸引观众的运动来说，卡尔森改变了人们对典型国际象棋明星的看法，根据这些看法，此类人往往是，“年龄较大的、坏脾气的、奇怪的俄罗斯人，他们的名字都以K打头。”

It would probably help even more if Carlsen were charting a path that others were capable of following.

如果卡尔森能铺就一条其他棋手可以跟随的道路，那可能会更有助益。

But that does not seem to be happening particularly quickly. Few chess players have managers; fewer still have sponsors, meaning they depend entirely on tournament money. Except for whoever wins the world championship, which carries a sizable cash prize, even the world’s dozen best players cannot hope to make more than several hundred thousand dollars a year. Almost all make considerably less.

但这种情况看来不会很快出现。多数国际象棋手都没有经理人，有赞助商的就更少，这意味着他们完全依靠比赛奖金。除了那些能成为世界冠军的棋手能拿到丰厚的奖金，其他就算是世界上顶尖的十几位棋手，都不能指望一年的收入超过几十万美元。绝大多数棋手的收入则远低于这个数字。

But in large part because of the companies — a Norwegian law firm, an investment bank, a Norwegian newspaper — whose logos decorate the blazers and shirts he wears in official appearances, golf-pro style, Carlsen earned about $1.2 million last year, some 60 percent to 70 percent of it from sponsorship deals, Agdestein said. That carried obligations, of course: hobnobbing with sponsors’ clients at business conventions; playing simultaneous matches against multiple (laughably bad, compared with him) opponents at recruiting fairs; dinners and cocktails and small talk.

对于卡尔森而言，企业起到了很大的作用，他在正式场合亮相时那一身职业高尔夫球手打扮，从外套到衬衫都点缀着企业标志，其中包括一家挪威律师事务所，一家投资银行，还有一家挪威报纸。阿德斯特恩说卡尔森去年的收入是120万美元，其中60%到70%来自赞助商合同。当然也要承担相应的义务：在商务大会上和赞助商的客户交谈;在招聘会上跟一些和他比起来水平差到没边的对手玩车轮战;晚宴、鸡尾酒会、闲聊。

“Being a genius, people think they can discuss anything with him — oil prices, the Middle East — even if he’s not interested,” said Stine Korsen, the marketing director at Simonsen, the Norwegian law firm that sponsors Carlsen and that hosted the night’s events. “But if I see that he’s starting to get tired or bored or thinking about his chess game, I whisper in his ear and he can go home.”

斯蒂娜·科尔森(Stine Korsen)说：“他是天才，人们认为什么事情都可以跟他聊，油价啊，中东啊，哪怕他不感兴趣。”科尔森是一名市场总监，来自西蒙森 (Simonsen)，也就是赞助卡尔森的那家挪威律师事务所以及当晚活动的主办者。“但是如果我看到他感到疲倦或无聊，或者开始想象棋的事，我会耳语告诉他可以回家去。”

Carlsen recently signed a sponsorship deal with Parallels, a cloud computing company based in Seattle, which flew him over to impress its customers at a conference. There, Carlsen played chess against large groups — 20 people in one session, 30 in another (he won).

卡尔森最近和西雅图云计算公司Parallels签了赞助合同，公司想在客户面前风光一下，因而让他去参加一个交流会。卡尔森在会上和一大群人下棋——一组20人，另一组30人(他赢了)。

“There was even one guy who came in late and was really sad because he missed it,” said Birger Steen, the company’s chief executive, who is Norwegian and has known Carlsen for years. “But Magnus played him, and the guy lost in 25 moves. And then Magnus spent the next half-hour explaining the game and coaching him.”

公司的首席执行官比尔格·史迪恩(Birger Steen)说，“有个人来晚了，因为错过了感到很伤心。”史迪恩是挪威人，认识卡尔森很多年了。“但是马格努斯还是跟他下了，下了25手那人就输了。然后马格努斯又花了半个小时说棋，教他。”

Whether Carlsen should be devoting his energy to such things is another matter. Agdestein says he turns down deals all the time, like when random rich people offer him tens of thousands of dollars to play against them. Carlsen says he does only things he finds interesting and that his concentration on his more serious pursuits is unaffected.

至于卡尔森该不该把精力放在这种事情上就是另一个问题了。阿德斯特恩说他经常会拒绝一些合约，比如一些不知从哪来的有钱人会出几万美元要跟卡尔森下几盘。卡尔森说他只会去做他觉得有意思的事，并且不能影响他集中注意力做一些更重要的事。

“As long as the schedule is well organized, I have plenty of time for chess and other activities, as well as spare time,” he said via e-mail.

“只要日程安排合理，我还是有足够的时间去下棋和干别的事的，也有空闲时间，”他在电子邮件中说。

But there have been low-grade grumblings.

但有人对此还是有些微词。

“Some people find these kinds of activities rather vulgar and think that players who dilute their energies and start running after money risk becoming like Liberace,” Agon’s Paulson said. “But Magnus has incredible integrity. I think he’s interested in expanding his fan base out of Norway to America, but I really don’t think he’s interested in money.”

“有人认为这些活动很庸俗，他们觉得棋手分散精力去追逐金钱，搞不好会变成利布拉奇(Liberace)，”亚巩公司的保尔森说，“但是马格努斯非常有操守。我想他是乐意看到自己的棋迷群体从挪威扩展到美国的，但我真不觉得他对钱感兴趣。”

There is no worry that Carlsen is being exploited, according to his father, Henrik, a former oil executive, who says he could not make his self-assured son do anything even if he tried. Four years ago, for example, Carlsen lost interest in high school and dropped out. “We didn’t want him to do it, but he was capable of making his own decisions,” Henrik Carlsen said in an interview.

在他的父亲、前石油业高管亨里克(Henrik)看来，用不着担心卡尔森被人剥削，他说他这个儿子很有主意，自己都休想强迫他做任何事。例如四年前，卡尔森对高中失去兴趣后就退学了。“我们不想他那样，但是他就是能自己做决定，”亨里克·卡尔森在一次采访中说。

As for Magnus’s extra-chess activities, Henrik said that he trusts his son’s judgment, and that anyway: “He’s generally always done what he’s wanted to do.”

至于马格努斯在象棋以外的活动，亨里克说他相信儿子的判断力，而且无论如何：“他基本上永远都是在做自己想做的事情。”