Latest news with #chesscom
Malay Mail
21-05-2025
- Sport
- Malay Mail
Magnus Carlsen vs 143,000: Chess legend held to draw by the world
OSLO, May 21 — Chess legend Magnus Carlsen, considered one of the best players in history, has been held to a draw by a team of 143,000 opponents in an online match. Organised by the match site the duel — dubbed 'Magnus Carlsen vs. The World' — pitted the 34-year-old Norwegian against amateurs from around the planet who decided their moves by popular vote. The match with Carlsen, who was world champion from 2013 to 2023, opened on April 4, with each side allowed 24 hours to decide its next move. After more than six weeks, it ended in a draw Monday. 'I felt that I was a little bit better, early in the opening,' Carlsen said in a video. 'Honestly, since then, they haven't given me a single chance.' Carlsen is not the first grandmaster to take on a team of thousands. Russian chess giant Garry Kasparov played more than 50,000 opponents in a 1999 match, while India's Viswanathan Anand played around 70,000 last year, according to news agency NTB. — AFP
ABC News
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Top chess player Magnus Carlsen forced into draw in historic game against over 134,000 people
World's top-ranked chess player Magnus Carlsen has been forced into a draw in an unprecedented game where he played against more than 143,000 people from around the globe. According to — the world's largest chess website — the Magnus Carlsen vs The World match, launched on April 4, is the first-ever online Freestyle Chess match of its kind against the former world champion. This is also the first time Carlsen has played a match against the general public. The mega-match ended after Team World checked Carlsen's king a third time despite the chess website's prediction that Carlsen would win by a wide margin. Team World forced the draw on move 32 after checking Carlsen's king three times in the corner of the board, where it could not escape. The rule is called "threefold repetition," meaning that all the pieces on the board are in the exact same position three times, which prompts a draw. In a Vote Chess match, according to instead of a single player deciding on the next move, a group of individuals vote on the next move. The game proceeds with the move that got the most votes by the end of the voting period. During the game, Carlsen played by himself with the white pieces. This means that Carlsen alone would determine all the moves that he would play. The community would play with the black pieces and vote on each move. At the end of each 24-hour voting period, the move that won the most votes would be played. A group of well-known coaches also provided the community with assistance, such as offering analysis of the game and explaining the ins and outs of every position through the Vote Chess chat. Sam Copeland, Head of Community at said this was a great moment and milestone for the chess world. "It's incredible to see 100,000 chess players have the opportunity to compete against the greatest chess player of all time—passionately debating moves and ideas, strategising, and trying to guess what Magnus will play next. "We are also excited to see this battle take place in Freestyle Chess, a format which allows for the greatest freedom and creativity for the players and a format for which Magnus has long advocated," he said. This isn't the first time Carlsen has faced the world, according to In 2002, at just 11 years old, the Norwegian chess grandmaster drew after 31 moves in a match hosted by online newspaper Nettavisen. The game attracted nearly 300,000 Norwegians online, and more than 20,000 move votes. In 2014, as reigning world champion, Carlsen checkmated the nation in 34 moves during a prime-time match on NRK, Norway's largest broadcaster. The 34-year-old became the world's top-ranked player in 2010 at the age of 19 and has won five World Championships. He achieved the highest-ever chess rating of 2882 in 2014 and has remained the undisputed world number one for more than a decade. "Overall, 'the world' has played very, very sound chess from the start," Carlsen said. "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." In a freestyle match, the bishops, knights, rooks, queen and king are randomly placed around the board at the start while the pawns are in their usual spots. Freestyle chess is popular because it allows players to be more creative and avoid memorisation, website said. Carlsen's historic online match was the third "vs The World" record-setting game, according to In 1999, more than 50,000 players joined forces to play against the legendary Russian former world champion Garry Kasparov. At the time, the match broke the record and made headlines as the largest chess match in history. Last year, Indian grandmaster Viswanathan Anand won his "vs The World" match against nearly 70,000 players on According to the Associated Press, in a virtual chat on this week, the team world appeared divided on whether to force a draw — and claim the glory — or to continue playing against Carlsen, even if it ultimately meant a loss. "Don't Draw! Let's keep playing Magnus," one user wrote. "This is an opportunity that won't come along again. I'd rather play the Master all the way to the end and see if we can battle it out another 20 or 30 moves! Let's have some FUN!!!" Another added: "Thanks Magnus for such a great game. We made history." ABC/AP
New York Times
10-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Eberechi Eze's chess game analysed: King's Indian Attack, solid pawn structure and a booming fianchetto
Crystal Palace forward Eberechi Eze has an FA Cup final to look forward to, but he has found a novel way to take his mind off things in the buildup. Last week, he swapped his boots for bishops and romped to victory in a four-day online chess tournament, pocketing $20,000 (£15,000) in the process. So does he glide around the board? Does he stutter his approach ahead of converting his killer checkmate move? Here, The Athletic breaks down how he did it, drawing links — and yes, some of them are distinctly tenuous — between his performance in the serene sport of chess and his dazzling, explosive style on the pitch. Calling the PogChamps6 a proper chess tournament is a liberal use of the term. Much like the Baller League — a six-a-side football competition featuring an eclectic mix of YouTubers, Twitch streamers and ex-professionals — PogChamps is part of chess's broader attempt to court a younger, online audience by having 12 celebrities face off in timed matches. That effort has been wildly successful, with monthly users on surging from 5million in 2019 to more than 30million today. Advertisement But given the relatively low-calibre field, it's fair to ask: is Eze actually any good? The first port of call when assessing someone's chess chops is their Elo rating, chess's version of a ranking system. New players are initially given a rating of 800, which rises and falls with wins and losses. By the time of the final, Eze's rating had climbed to 1,143, the highest in the competition (only two of his opponents had a rating above 1,000). That places Eze in the top 15 per cent of all players, cementing him as a solidly above-average player. FIDE, chess's main governing body, classifies anything below 1,000 as novice. Eze's rating would put him above beginner level but still short of club standard — think National League South, the sixth tier of the English professional game, in football terms. Rankings are useful benchmarks of quality, but fail to capture stylistic nuances. Nottingham Forest and Manchester City are only three points apart in the Premier League, but their tactical approaches couldn't be more different. To understand how Eze plays, from his meticulous pawn structure to his clever forks, we need to take a peek under the wooden board and see what we uncover. Chess may look quiet on the surface, but with more possible board positions than atoms in the universe, it is, like football, a deeply chaotic sport. Those opening few moves are a player's one real chance to exert control before the chaos sets in. Like tactical setups in football, openings dictate the flow of the game, and Eze has honed in on a favoured approach. In 2023, Eze told The Athletic how Michael Olise was crucial in developing his opening theory. 'It was him and my brother who nudged me to learn how to play and face them, so that's when I started studying the game, watching YouTube videos of the best chess openings, things like that.' "What's wrong with this kid?" 😅😤#CPFC — Crystal Palace F.C. (@CPFC) April 7, 2023 Across PogChamps6, Eze consistently started with the King's Indian Attack, an unorthodox but robust setup that mirrors Palace's counterpunching style under Oliver Glasner. While most players going first look to dominate the centre and suffocate the opposition like Pep Guardiola's Manchester City, Eze prefers to sit back, castle early to solidify the defence of his king, and build behind a deep, solid pawn structure. It's not unlike the setup at Palace, the FA Cup finalists, who average just 43 per cent possession this season and, according to data from Footovision, are the fourth-most compact side in the league out of possession. Like Palace, Eze's conservative approach should not be mistaken as passive. It is designed for explosive counter-attacks. Advertisement The King's Indian lets him fianchetto the bishop (placing it on the board's longest diagonal), allowing him to sweep the length of the board to devastating effect, much like his darting diagonal run from deep that set up Daniel Munoz's winner in the 2-1 grudge match at home to Brighton & Hove Albion in April. Eze's system thrives against careless, lower-rated opponents who overextend their pawns and leave gaping holes in behind. And at the PogChamps6 tournament, careless low-rated opponents were not exactly in short supply. Chess has its own error taxonomy. Blunders are the most severe, akin to an error leading to a goal. Against experienced players, these are usually fatal. Eze's opponents blundered on 2.6 per cent of their moves, making them the Southampton (19 errors leading to goals this season) of the 64-square game. Eze's own blunder rate of 1.2 per cent wouldn't cut it in elite chess circles, but in a field that included the self-proclaimed 'greatest Pokemon player of all time', it placed him in rarefied air. Less severe are mistakes and inaccuracies and, again, Eze comes out relatively blemish-free compared to his error-prone chess-mates. Thankfully for Eze, most of his blunders, including a few reckless queen losses, came in the group stage where he was never in any real danger. But his sharpness increased as the tournament progressed, especially in the semi-final against his toughest opponent on paper, Stephen Nedoroscik. Nedoroscik, the bespectacled pommel horse athlete who won bronze for Team USA at the Paris 2024 Olympics and boasts a huge online following, had a similar Elo rating to Eze heading into the competition. In the first game, Eze recklessly launched a premature queen attack without the supporting structure to back it up, handing the advantage to Nedoroscik. But rather than punishing the mistake, the Olympian immediately blundered his rook, leaving it exposed to Eze's knight. From there, Eze pounced and the game quickly unravelled. Known for mastering horses of the pommel variety, Nedoroscik was undone by Eze's chess equivalent. The second leg was even messier. Eze built a commanding position, squandered it, then capitalised on a late mistake, forking Nedoroscik's queen to seal the win. 'I thought I was cooked,' said a relieved Eze after the match. The England forward's commentary was colourful throughout the tournament. At the end of the semi-final, he punctuated his match-winning moves by singing, 'Boom, boom, boom, boom, Mateta's in the room,' a fan-favourite chant at Selhurst Park in homage to his team-mate Jean-Philippe Mateta. Advertisement In another moment, a smirking Eze declared 'en passant', the name of a rare diagonal pawn capture that often catches novices off guard. Eze's Palace have come from behind to win just once all season, a 2-1 home victory in December against Southampton. But in the final against streamer Sapnap, Eze once again showed his resilience under the cosh. He took the first game on time, with his opponent running out of minutes. In the second, Eze again ceded the advantage, but ruthlessly capitalised on a costly blunder with a rapid-fire checkmate to seal the win and the tournament. Eze was a worthy champion. His spring-loaded, defence-first strategy consistently outclassed weaker opponents. He's no grandmaster, and five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen would, as he did to Trent Alexander-Arnold in 17 moves, dismantle him. But for someone who came late to the game, Eze's composure and tactical nous are impressive. Whatever happens at Wembley next week, the Palace man won't end the season trophyless — not after his performance in the game of kings. (Top photos: Getty Images)
