IN A historic and unprecedented online chess encounter, Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, the reigning world champion, faced a formidable challenge from a global collective of over 143,000 players, ultimately resulting in a draw.
The match, dubbed “Magnus Carlsen vs. The World,” commenced on April 4 and was hosted by Chess.com, the world’s leading online chess platform. This groundbreaking event marked the first-ever online freestyle chess game to feature a reigning
world champion.
Despite pre-match predictions from Chess.com favoring a decisive victory for Carlsen, the game concluded dramatically when Team World delivered a third check to
Carlsen’s king.
This “vs. The World” event follows two previous record-setting online games.
In 1999, Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov triumphed over more than 50,000 participants on the Microsoft Network after a four-month battle. Last year, Indian grandmaster Viswanathan Anand emerged victorious in his own “vs. The World” match against nearly 70,000 players on
Chess.com.
Carlsen, 34, ascended to the world’s number one ranking in 2010 at the age of 19. He achieved an unprecedented peak rating of 2882 in 2014 and has maintained his position as the undisputed world number one for over a decade.
Adding a unique dimension to the contest, the match was played in the freestyle chess format. This variant involves a random shuffling of the bishops, knights, rooks, and queen, while the pawns remain in their standard positions.
Freestyle chess is favored by some for its emphasis on creativity and reduced reliance on rote memorization.
Team World operated by a voting system for each move, with each side allotted 24 hours to make their play. Carlsen played with the white pieces.
The game reached its conclusion on move 32, when the world team delivered a third check to Carlsen’s king in a corner of the board, leaving him with no legal moves.
This situation triggered the “threefold repetition” rule, which mandates a draw when the pieces on the board occupy the exact same positions for the third time. / FROM THE WIRES