[constantcrying]

Magnus Carlsen is a performer.

If people wanted to see "perfect" chess they would be watching chess engine championships. These feature some of the deepest and most thought out moves ever performed in chess. They also get a few hundred live viewers.

Magnus is objectively an inferior player to top chess engines. If there was a technological problem that requires the best chess abilities, nobody would be paying Magnus to solve that problem, they would be using a chess engine.

The analogy does not work at all, because Magnus is not paid to be a good chess player in absolute terms, but a good chess player relative to other human top chess players.

[jacquesm]

> Magnus Carlsen is a performer.

Not everything that draws a crowd is a performance. I suspect Magnus Carlsen would play chess even if nobody watched. Just look at Mikhail Tal, Max Euwe, Garry Kasparov and all those others. None of them did it because of the crowds. They did it because the game itself fascinated them.

[echoangle]

> I suspect Magnus Carlsen would play chess even if nobody watched.

Maybe, but it wouldn't be his job then.