Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen was forced to play a draw as more than 143,000 people from all over the world took part in a single record-breaking game.
The online match, billed as “Magnus Carlsen vs. the World,” launched on April 4 on Chess.com, the world's largest chess site, and was the first-ever online freestyle game featuring a world champion.
The mega-match ended after the world team put Carlsen's king in check for the third time, a surprising outcome as Chess.com had predicted a landslide victory for the grandmaster.
Team World members – anyone could join – voted on each move, and both sides had 24 hours to make their moves. Mr Carlsen played the white pieces.
The world team secured a draw on move 32, by checking Carlsen's king three times in a corner of the board where he could not escape. This rule is called “threefold repetition,” meaning that all the pieces on the board end up in the same position three times, resulting in a draw.
Mr Carlsen, 34, became the world's highest-rated player in 2010 at the age of 19 and has won five world championship titles. He reached a record chess rating of 2882 in 2014 and remained the world's undisputed number one for more than a decade.
In a free match, pieces such as bishops, knights, rooks, queen, and king are placed on the board in a random order at the start, while pawns remain in their usual places. Free chess is popular because it allows players to be creative and avoids the need for memorization.
It was the third record-breaking online game “against the world.” In 1999, Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov played against more than 50,000 people on a Microsoft platform and won four months later.
Last year, Indian grandmaster Viswanathan Anand won a match “against the whole world” against nearly 70,000 players on Chess.com.
In the Chess.com virtual chat this week, participants were divided on whether to force a draw and gain glory or continue playing against Mr. Carlsen, even if it might ultimately lead to defeat.
“Don’t stop! Let’s keep playing Magnus,” one user wrote. “This is a unique opportunity that may never come again. I’d rather play Master until the end and see if we can last another 20 or 30 turns! Let’s have some fun!!!”
Another added: “Thank you Magnus for such a great game. We made history.”
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
