- Chess grandmaster is playing 140,000 people in freestyle game
- Carlsen has given his result prediction as things stand
- “Overall, ‘the world’ has played very, very sound chess from the start”
Norwegian chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen is currently playing a single game of freestyle chess against 140,000 people from across the world.
The online game began on 4 April and allows Team World to vote on each move, with each side given 24 hours to respond.
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Freestyle chess is a popular form of the traditional game whereby the bishops, knights, rooks, queen and king are randomly shuffled around the board, while pawns stay put. It gives players the opportunity to be a bit more creative.
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The showdown is happening on Chess.com, the world’s largest chess website, and is the first-ever online freestyle game to feature a world champion.
Magnus Carlsen predicts result
While Chess.com had predicted Carlsen would win by a long shot, in a statement released, Carlsen has given his own take on where he thinks the game is heading.
“Right now we’re heading towards a draw by perpetual check,” said the grandmaster.
He continued: “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 towards the draw.”
Turns out the internet knows its way around a chessboard, as the world chess champion admitted that some of Team World’s unorthodox gameplay has actually paid off.
“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” said Carlsen.
Mike Klein, senior journalist with Chess.com, told The Associated Press that “For most of the world, it is their first chance to say they’ve played a chess game against Magnus Carlsen”.
“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 added.
Celebrity of the chess world
Carlsen became a grandmaster in 2004 at the age of 13, making him one of the youngest grandmasters in history at the time.
The grandmaster title is the highest title awarded by FIDE, the International Chess Federation, earned by achieving a FIDE rating of at least 2500 at some point.
The 34-year-old became the world’s number one chess player in 2011 and has won five World Chess Championships – in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2021. He achieved the highest-ever chess rating of 2882 in 2014 and has remained at the top of the chess world for over a decade.
Carlsen chose not to defend his championship title in 2023 because he said he just wasn’t feeling motivated. Still, he hasn’t closed the door completely, adding, “I don’t rule out participation in the future, but I also wouldn’t count on it.”
In 2024, he made headlines when he quit a tournament in New York because he refused to change out of his jeans. He later accepted a fine, and officials agreed to relax the dress code.
Carlsen auctioned off his jeans for charity and donated the winning $36,100 to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, a youth mentoring group that supports kids in thousands of communities across the country.