Chess Champ’s Mouse Slip Prices Him Last Match, $30K Prime Prize

On April 6, 5-Time World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen misplaced in a dramatic and shocking manner: His mouse slipped and he moved his queen to the unsuitable spot, immediately costing him the match. Not solely did this knock him out of the match and value 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 do not forget that one of many greatest tales on this planet {of professional} chess was the shocking defeat of Carlsen by the hands of the younger Grandmaster Hans Niemann. The beautiful upset shortly sparked on-line accusations of dishonest, with one specific Reddit (joke) idea about vibrating anal beads spreading like wildfire. Carlsen believes Niemann is a cheater and Chess.com accused him of dishonest, too. Niemann denied the fees 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 towards Hikaru Nakamura was a part of his final occasion as champ. I doubt anybody anticipated it could all finish with a easy error attributable to a mouse slip.

Carlsen’s misclick prices him the match

As reported by Chess.com, Carlsen was competing towards his outdated rival, Nakamura; the 2 are thought of to be two of the very best on-line chess gamers on this planet. They had been competing in an armageddon-rules play-off within the Losers Bracket. However within the last seconds of the tense match, Carlsen by chance dropped his queen on the unsuitable spot. In response to chess grandmaster David Howell it was “the worst doable mouse slip.” Proper after the error, Nakamura took down Carlsen’s misplaced queen and the sport ended immediately.

The match remains to be ongoing, and Nakamura has superior out of the Losers Bracket and towards the prize cash.

As for Carlsen, this possible gained’t be the tip 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 energetic chess participant and has occasions and matches to return sooner or later. He simply not needed to defend his title, as he discovered it was beginning to be a extra damaging than optimistic expertise, even when profitable.

Nonetheless, I guess he didn’t have “mouse slips and I lose my last match as World Champ in a million-dollar match” on the bingo card for the way this chapter of his profession would wrap up.