Last month Dutch no. 1 Anish Giri joined The Late Knight Show studio in Oslo for a fascinating two-hour interview. The candid 27-year-old Grandmaster opened up about a variety of topics ranging from the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour to his ambitions to become World Champion and missing out on the Candidates.

A candid Anish Giri joined our Oslo studio last month where he recorded a 2-part podcast interview for The Late Knight Show

Anish Giri is not only one of the top 10 chess players in the world, but also an immensely popular influencer with an impressive 223,000 followers on Twitter and 150,000 followers on Instagram.

The 27-year-old is so popular that the Play Magnus Group recently announced a long-term agreement with the star to be an ambassador for the company. Alongside a range of activities, Giri will continue to create and publish his elite-level chess courses for Chessable.com. 

Giri joined The Late Knight Show studio in Oslo with Askild Bryn and David Howell during his appearance in the Oslo Esports Cup. It was a fascinating interview that lasted a total of almost two hours.

The podcast is available on all major platforms, such as Spotify and Amazon. As a Premium member you can also watch the video of part 1 and part 2 in our Oslo studio. The code MAYSALE currently gives you 40% off a one-year membership.

Here are some highlights.

On what the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour has meant for the chess world:

You can play online chess as seriously, with as much exposure and as many prizes and as much passion as in normal over-the-board chess. That was important, because that was a big shift. Before there were online events, but that was something on the side, something not serious. That was a real big game-changer. We have some great folks among the organisers. They saw the potential and decided not to save up the sponsor money and say, "okay, we guarantee the next 10 years of the tour," but instead just do one very good, and you saw that it actually brought more. That was nice.

Now we see that even as the normal chess started, the tour still remains, and we now have a very interesting situation where you've got both over-the-board chess and the tour, and that's an ideal situation.

On the mix of players in the tour:

It doesn't harm the tournament that there is a player who is not in the top 10 of the world. To be honest, it doesn't damage it that there is a world number 23, or even world number 43 or whatever. These are still great players and they are able to beat other great players. Each of them has their own story, they have something unique to offer. Somebody is young, somebody is old, somebody is almost retired, somebody just started. That's really nice. Nobody was daring to do that, because at some point there was too much focus on the rating. Before it used to be like that. 

At some point somebody said, "I have the strongest tournament ever," and then the other tournament said, "No, no, I have the strongest tournament ever!" And everybody got obsessed with it. Now the organisers are forced to let go of that, because they cannot. They want to host this event, but there are three other events and some players agree to play somewhere else. They are forced to expand, to enrich their tournament with new faces. And that's great.

On failing to qualify for the Candidates:

The question is not whether you can try to squeeze your way into the Candidates Tournament. The question, for me, is if I am able to at some point get my chess level so high that, first of all, I won't be ashamed of squeezing my way into the Candidates Tournament. But more importantly, am I going to get to be able to get to the level to be the best player in the world, or at least the second best player in the world, and that's what I am chasing. And I will be very pissed if once I reach that level, I won't qualify for the Candidates. Right now I feel I am not at the level... I am able to play at that level at some point for a certain amount of time, but I have to be better, and I have to improve, and I have to really feel that I belong to the very, very top. I have to feel that I am the best. When I am there, I will be annoyed that I didn't qualify. Right now, just qualifying for the Candidates itself, I have played two of them, and it's an opportunity and opportunities are only turning into achievements once you use them. You can have ten opportunities, but if you are not worth it, it will give you nothing. So I am not obsessed with the Candidate Tournament.

On the goal of his chess career:

Qualifiying for the Candidates is not the ultimate goal of my chess career, which is to improve. The purpose of my chess career is to become the best player in the world. I am okay with becoming the best chess player in the world. If I'll be the best player in the world, and I'll not be the World Champion, the World Championship title will lose its value. And everyone will come to me. 

On Alireza Firouzja and his 'weird' Candidates preparation:

Everybody is excited to see what Firouzja is up to with his very high rating. He's preparing very hard, somewhere. On the one hand, it's weird, and you'd think you shouldn't do weird things. But if you are 2800 and 18, maybe you can do weird things and weird things is the way to go.

Normally you shouldn't do what Firouzja is doing. Normally. But for him probably different rules apply. And that is a very special case. Maybe that gives him that extra edge and that extra confidence. If someone like him gets that extra confidence. Imagine if he wins one game...

On 'sport and politics':

That phrase when they say sport is outside politics... in Russian it's a very common phrase you hear a lot. It's such nonsense. Seriously. It's so much a part of politics. It always has been. It's getting support from politics, in return you have these ceremonies celebrating sportsmen. It's a part of it and always has been.

Giri also gave his thoughts on Magnus Carlsen, the "short-draw problem", Sergey Karjakin and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, FIDE, sexual harassment in chess and being hacked on Twitter.

chess24 Premium members may want to check out Giri's brand new course on the Najdorf, that has just been released.

Giri visited our office in Barcelona for an introduction.

Giri was not the only guest who recently appeared on The Late Knight Show. During the Oslo Esports Cup there was also Dutch no. 2 Jorden van Foreest, who spoke about being part of Team Magnus during the Dubai World Championship match and his own ambitions as a player.

Watch the episode on Spotify, Amazon or the full video.

Another guest was Canadian chess streaming legend Eric Hansen, who talked about mental health in chess, the challenges of staying motivated as a streamer, and when fellow Chessbrah Aman Hambleton was mistaken for a hobo when meeting Magnus Carlsen at the Isle of Man.

Watch the episode on Spotify, Amazon or the full video.

You can watch all the episodes of The Late Knight Show on our Collection page. Previous guests include none other than World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen, while episode two features Meltwater Champions Chess Tour commentator Jovanka Houska and runs over two parts.

See also:

• Premium members: Watch the full videos of the shows
  
• The Late Knight Show: Simon Williams
• The Late Knight Show on Spotify
• Frequented by chess fans, celebrities & the world champion: The inside story of The Good Knight
  
• Henrik Carlsen on the moment he had to pinch himself