On April 6, 5-Time World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen misplaced in a dramatic and stunning manner: His mouse slipped and he moved his queen to the incorrect spot, immediately costing him the match. Not solely did this knock him out of the event and price him an opportunity on the sizable $30,000 prime prize, however this was additionally the final occasion he’d take part in because the reigning World Champion.
Final 12 months, you may keep in mind that one of many largest tales on the planet {of professional} chess was the stunning defeat of Carlsen by the hands of the younger Grandmaster Hans Niemann. The gorgeous upset shortly sparked on-line accusations of dishonest, with one explicit Reddit (joke) concept about vibrating anal beads spreading like wildfire. Carlsen believes Niemann is a cheater and Chess.com accused him of dishonest, too. Niemann denied the costs and in October 2022 sued Carlsen, his chess app Play Magnus, the web site Chess.com, Chess.com’s Daniel Rensch, and streamer Hikaru Nakamura for $100 million.
However earlier than all of this, Carlsen had already introduced his plans to vacate his Chess World Champion seat. And Thursday’s match in opposition to Hikaru Nakamura was a part of his final occasion as champ. I doubt anybody anticipated it will all finish with a easy error brought on by a mouse slip.
Carlsen’s misclick prices him the match
As reported by Chess.com, Carlsen was competing in opposition to his outdated rival, Nakamura; the 2 are thought of to be two of the perfect on-line chess gamers on the planet. They have been competing in an armageddon-rules play-off within the Losers Bracket. However within the ultimate seconds of the tense match, Carlsen by accident dropped his queen on the incorrect spot. In accordance with chess grandmaster David Howell it was “the worst attainable mouse slip.” Proper after the error, Nakamura took down Carlsen’s misplaced queen and the sport ended immediately.
The event remains to be ongoing, and Nakamura has superior out of the Losers Bracket and towards the prize cash.
As for Carlsen, this probably gained’t be the top of the world. Whereas he’ll vacate his World Champion title quickly, he gained’t be retiring. In July 2022, he defined in a podcast that he’ll stay an lively chess participant and has occasions and matches to come back sooner or later. He simply now not needed to defend his title, as he discovered it was beginning to be a extra damaging than constructive expertise, even when successful.
Nonetheless, I guess he didn’t have “mouse slips and I lose my ultimate match as World Champ in a million-dollar event” on the bingo card for the way this chapter of his profession would wrap up.
