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On the surface it hardly seemed like a fair fight. But after 46 days the online freestyle chess match between the Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen and 143,000 enthusiasts from around the globe has ended in a surprise draw.
There was, however, a major consolation for Carlsen as he smashed the record for facing the biggest number of opponents in an online chess match.
The game, which was billed as Magnus Carlsen vs The World, began on Chess.com on 4 April, with the former world champion and highest-rated player in history regarded as a significant favourite. After he played his first move, Team World then voted on a reply, with each side then having 24 hours to make their next move.
Despite appearing to have the early initiative against Team World, Carlsen was unable to find a way to further improve his position. The match ended after 32 moves when Team World was able to force a draw by checking Carlsen’s king and repeating the position three times.
“I felt that I was a little bit better, early in the opening, then maybe I didn’t play that precisely,” said Carlsen. “Honestly, since then, they haven’t given me a single chance.”
With freestyle chess, the bishops, knights, rooks, queen and king have randomised starting positions, while the pawns remain in their usual spots.
Carlsen has proven a master at the format, which allows for more creative and unusual positions, and last month won a tournament against other grandmasters in Grenke with a staggering 9/9 score.
However, he admitted he had been able to find a way past the Team World’s defences, with many casual fans using chess computers to help them choose sensible moves.
“Overall, ‘the world’ has played very, very sound chess from the start,” added Carlsen. “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.”
The match was the third record-setting online chess match between a grandmaster and the World.
In 1999, Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov played against more than 50,000 people on the Microsoft Network. The former world champion won after four months and hailed it as “the greatest game in the history of chess.”
Last year another chess legend, the 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.
