World No.1 Magnus Carlsen forced to a draw by a team of 143,000 players: 'They haven’t given a single chance'

Even if it’s more than 143,000 players on one side, many would have expected world No.1 chess player Magnus Carlsen to win his match against ‘The World’. Surprisingly, the ‘Magnus vs The World’ has ended in a draw after a 46-day online freestyle chess clash between the Norwegian grandmaster and 143,000 people from across the world.

The ‘Magnus Carlsen vs The World’ online match began on 4 April on Chess.com. As per the rules of the game, each side had 24 hours to make the move and Carlsen started the match with 1.e4.

How Carlsen was forced to a draw

The highest rated player in the history of chess, Carlsen, was billed as a mega favourite in the match, but ‘The World’ team managed to secure a draw after 32 moves by checking Carlsen’s king and repeating the position three times.

While the match ended in a draw, the five-time world champion Carlsen has set the record for facing the highest number of players in an online chess match. He was full of praise for his opponents after settling for a draw.

“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.”

“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.”

Carlsen sets world record

In 1999, Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov took on over 50,000 opponents through the Microsoft Network. After four months of play, the former world champion emerged victorious and described it as “the greatest game in the history of chess."

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More than two decades later, Indian chess legend Viswanathan Anand defeated nearly 70,000 players in a similar “versus the world” challenge on Chess.com.

The aim of Magnus Carlsen’s match was to surpass Anand’s mark — and it did so emphatically, doubling the number of participants.