It was Magnus Carlsen’s last tournament as world champion, reports CNN — and he was eliminated after a “dramatic slip of his mouse” in his online match against Hikaru Nakamura:
After drawing their first two games, the duo faced off in an Armageddon clash — similar to regular chess but black has draw odds, meaning that if black draws the game they win, and black starts with less time on the clock than white — to decide who would face Fabiano Caruana in the grand final.
After a tight encounter, the match was heading to its final seconds with very little to separate the two titans of chess.
And it was a moment of unfortunate luck which separated the two when Carlsen’s mouse slipped meaning he put his queen onto F6 which allowed it to be taken by Nakamura and seal the victory.
Nakamura — wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with “I literally don’t care” on the front — celebrated with a fist-bump while five-time world champion Carlsen could be seen exclaiming and grimacing in frustration.
On YouTube Thursday, Nakamura posted a 33-minute video titled “Dear YouTube, This Time Magnus Lost,” where he explains the every move down to the final queen blunder (which he calls by its YouTube nickname, a “Botez Gambit.”)
In the video Nakamura admits he’d missed a possible winning position (by drawing) earlier in the game. But he also believes he would’ve achieved the same result simply by checking Carlsen endlessly until a draw was declared.
And Chess.com tells the rest of the story. Friday Nakamura went on to win the event’s final round, defeating grandmaster Fabiano Caruana in another Armageddon-style showdown after they’d each won three out of six games.
