Magnus Carlsen vs. The World: the chess mega-showdown that ended in a draw

CBC

20-05-2025

One chess grandmaster versus the world. Who would you bet on?
Chess.com, the website where the record-setting match took place, had predicted Norwegian chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen would emerge victorious by a large margin in a mega-match against more than 143,000 players.
But on Monday, after an online freestyle match spanning 46 days — billed as "Magnus Carlsen vs. The World" — he was forced into a draw when Team World checked his king for a third time.
Biggest online chess match in history
Team World managed to lead Carlsen into a draw in 32 moves by executing a "threefold repetition" — prompting a draw when a position is reached three times. In this case, it was prompted after Team World checked Carlsen's king three times in the corner of the board.
Anyone in the world could sign up to play as part of Team World on Chess.com. Team members voted on each move, and each side had 24 hours to make their play.
"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," Carlsen said in a statement on Friday, before Monday's draw.
The match, which began on April 4, was the largest online freestyle chess game in history featuring a world champion of Carlsen's magnitude.
Freestyle chess is played with the king, queen, knights, rooks and bishops in shuffled positions, while the pawns remain in their usual places on the board.
Carlsen, 34, has been the highest-rated chess player in the world for almost 14 years. In April 2004, when he was 13, he became the youngest grandmaster in the world at the time. The mega-match also marked the first time Carlsen played against the general public.
'Maximum resistance' against Carlsen
Mike Ivanov, co-founder and head coach of Canada Chess Youth Club in Richmond Hill, Ont., watched the game unfold on Chess.com. A fan of Carlsen, Ivanov is also one of the many coaches on the site, some of whom participated in the match by assisting the world players in the comments section of the game.
"Usually, when you play Carlsen, it's like a train wreck and you're hoping it doesn't hit too hard," he said in an interview with CBC News.
While Ivanov didn't take part in the game, he said his fellow coaches were trying to put up "maximum resistance" against Carlsen and weren't expecting the outcome to be a draw.
"Over time, the advantage that Magnus had disappeared," he said. "He played some dubious moves, let's say, and that allowed the world to accurately equalize the game and just hold the draw to the end of the game."
Ivanov said it was "very exciting" to see the match play out in real time as the players from around the world engaged in mass discussions as they decided their next moves.
"Usually, chess is a quiet game, and here it was anything but quiet," he said.