Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen is playing a single game of chess against 140,000 people worldwide in a mega-match that could overturn expectations by ending in a draw in the next few days.
Billed as “Magnus Carlsen vs The World,” the online match began April 4 on Chess.com, the world’s largest chess Web site, and is the first-ever online freestyle game to feature a world champion.
While Chess.com had predicted Carlsen would win by a wide margin, his Team World opposition could force a draw if it checks Carlsen’s king three times.
Photo: AP
“Right now we’re heading toward a draw by perpetual check,” Carlsen said in a statement on Friday.
“I felt that I was a little bit better, early in the opening, then maybe I didn’t play that precisely. Honestly, since then, they haven’t given me a single chance. So now, I think, it’s just heading toward the draw,” he said.
“Overall, ‘the world’ has played very, very sound chess from the start. Maybe not going for most enterprising options, but kind of keeping it more in vein with normal chess, which isn’t always the best strategy, but it worked out well this time,” he added.
As a freestyle match, the bishops, knights, rooks, queen and king are randomly shuffled around the board while the pawns remain in their usual spots. It is popular because it allows players to be more creative and avoid memorization.
Team World votes on each move, and each side has 24 hours to make their play. Carlsen is playing the white pieces.
“For most of the world, it is their first chance to say they’ve played a chess game against Magnus Carlsen,” said Mike Klein, a senior journalist with Chess.com.
“I think ‘the world’ is going to be kind of tickled pink to be able to say, ‘I was part of a draw against Magnus Carlsen,” he said.
Klein has played, and lost, to Carlsen twice in blitz matches in a hotel bar when the Norwegian was bored during some downtime in a world championship.
“He beat me twice without much effort, so I would have happily signed up for a draw in any of those games,” Klein said.
A grandmaster at 13, Carlsen has a celebrity status that few other chess players have.
The 34-year-old became the world’s top-ranked player in 2011 and has won five World Chess Championships.
He achieved the highest-ever chess rating of 2882 in 2014 and has remained the undisputed world No. 1 for more than a decade.
Last year, he garnered headlines for quitting a tournament in New York after refusing to change out of the jeans he wore to the competition. He later accepted a US$200 fine, and officials agreed to loosen the dress code.
Carlsen auctioned the jeans off for charity and donated the winning US$36,100 bid to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, a national youth-mentoring charity that carries out its mission through local chapters across 5,000 communities nationwide.
This is the third “vs. The World” record-setting online game.
In 1999, Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov played against more than 50,000 people on the Microsoft Network.
A few top-ranked players helped steer the world’s moves, but Kasparov won after four months and hailed it as “the greatest game in the history of chess.”
Klein was a summer camp chess teacher at the time.
“We would start class each day by checking out Kasparov’s next move and talking about it and spending a few minutes each morning deciding what we’d reply,” Klein said.
Indian grandmaster Viswanathan Anand won his “vs. The World” match last year against nearly 70,000 players on Chess.com.
The goal of the Carlsen match was to break Anand’s 70,000-player mark, and ended up doubling it.
Fred Kerley is competing unaugmented against drug-fuelled athletes at this weekend’s Enhanced Games and still hopes to race in the 2028 Olympics, the suspended former 100m world champion said on Friday. Arguably the biggest name at the divisive event in Las Vegas, where doping is permitted, the US sprinter said he had chosen not to take any of the banned substances including testosterone and steroids that his competitors have been using. “I don’t need it. God gave me fast feet for a reason. And I’m here to showcase my talent,” Kerley said. Kerley last September became the first US competitor and first track
VICTORY ABROAD: The team took home a fistful of medals and secured spots for the autumn’s Asian Games, scheduled for September in Nagoya Taiwan’s women’s team captured the overall title at the Asian Taekwondo Championships in Mongolia on Sunday, finishing with two golds, one silver and one bronze medal. The strong showing, led by gold medalists Wang Chieh-ling and Chang Jui-en secured the full quota of available spots for Taiwan at the Asian Games in Nagoya, Japan, in September. Wang opened Taiwan’s medal run by winning gold in the women’s under-46kg class on Thursday, the first day of competition. Liu Yu-yun later earned a silver in the under-49kg class. On the final day on Sunday, Chang won Taiwan’s second gold medal in the under-62kg event, and
MLB is experiencing an epidemic of guys being dudes. At ballparks all across the US, groups consisting of mostly young men are joining in on the “Tarps Off” trend that is loud, goofy, infectious and new to the baseball world. Joining in on the fun is simple: Go to the section where the party is happening, take off your shirt and start twirling it above your head. Soccer-like chants or singing usually follow — injecting a jolt of energy for a sport that is occasionally chided for its lack of energy inside the stadium. After getting its start in St Louis, Missouri, on
Hull City AFC are to play Middlesbrough for a place in the Premier League after Southampton on Wednesday failed in their appeal against expulsion from the Championship playoff final for spying on opponents. Southampton were thrown out of the final on Tuesday and handed a four-point deduction for next season after they had beaten semi-final opponents Middlesbrough. “The original sanction of expulsion ... remains in place, as does the four-point deduction to be applied to the 2026/27 Championship table and the reprimand in respect of all charges,” the English Football League said in a statement. The final is to be played at Wembley
RSS