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Classic Games (Games)

World Chess Champion Plays Recklessly Online Using a Pseudonym (slate.com) 54

Posted by EditorDavid from the suicide-kings dept.
World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen has been sneaking onto online chess sites using stupid pseudonyms and taunting his opponents by using pointless maneuvers with names like "the Bongcloud." One YouTube commenter calls it "a revolution in the history of chess."

Slate documents the antics in an article titled "DrDrunkenstein's Reign of Terror." "DrDrunkenstein" is one of many aliases Magnus Carlsen has played under during the past two years, when he went on a killing spree across the speed chess tournaments of the internet. Since winter 2017, Carlsen has taken to livestreaming his games on a variety of platforms, which has provided a surprisingly entertaining window into the mind of an all-time great.

Lichess.org is a free, ad-less web platform for chess players, a favorite in the online chess community... Carlsen appeared incognito as "DannyTheDonkey" and won, donating his small prize money back to the website. Carlsen's first showing as DrDrunkenstein was in Lichess' second Titled Arena the following month... Carlsen streamed the games on Twitch, where he lived up to his username, pounding Coronas while bantering in Norwegian with his friends. Chess fans were astonished. There's something hypnotizing about watching a guy known as "the Mozart of chess" — a player who is quantifiably better than Bobby Fischer — taking a big gulp of beer, announcing his position as "completely winning," then singing along to Dr. Dre saying "motherfuck the police" while coasting into another quick checkmate...

In an interview with a Norwegian newspaper in October, Carlsen admits he quit drinking for his health. "I wouldn't say I was an alcoholic exactly," he said, "but I found out this year, if I'm going to travel and play a lot... I need to prioritize differently...." On the eve of his world championship defense, Carlsen appeared in the next tournament as "manwithavan," playing a large chunk of his games on a phone from a minivan, where the touch screen presented a massive handicap. He again earned the adoration of spectators, this time for riskily walking his king into the center of the board against one of the most dangerous players in the tournament. He came in third... As DrNykterstein, he alternated between two ways of wasting his early, important opening moves. Sometimes, he'd take his queen on a four-move tour of the board before swapping her home square with the king's, letting his opponent develop their pieces while he showboated... Other times, he'd fidget his knights back and forth from their starting squares, offering his challenger a six-move time advantage. In this tournament he filled with gags, he came in first again...

One of the sweetest benefits of watching these matches is enjoying Carlsen's dry, self-deprecating sense of humor — something no chess prodigy has any right to have.
In December, Magnus also reached the #1 spot, beating seven million other players, on a fantasy football table.
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World Chess Champion Plays Recklessly Online Using a Pseudonym More

World Chess Champion Plays Recklessly Online Using a Pseudonym

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  • It's not that he's better than me (Score:5, Insightful)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Sunday March 01, 2020 @12:25AM (#59783446) Journal
    I understand that he's better than me. The amazing thing is how he beats other Grandmasters as if they didn't know how to play chess.

    Against less experienced players (probably me) he can give away his queen and still win.

    • It would be interesting to see just how many pieces he could give away and still expect to beat a typical player (meaning a non-grandmaster). Could he do it with just a king, a bishop, a rook, and all his pawns for instance?

    • Re:It's not that he's better than me (Score:5, Informative)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Sunday March 01, 2020 @02:29AM (#59783630)

      Magnus is especially skilled in speed chess. The faster the better.

      When he played Fabiano Caruana for the world championship, they played 12 standard games, with a speed chess showdown in case of a draw after the standard games.

      Magnus played very conservatively, forcing every standard game to a draw. If he had played more aggressively to win, there is a chance that he could have made a mistake and lost. So the match was settled by a series of speed chess games where Magnus had an overwhelming advantage and won every game.

      It was a very smart strategy.

      • Caruana was also playing rather conservatively that match.

        Don't expect that this time if Fabiano makes it to the world championship game. Carlsen has been practicing dynamic chess, so expect him to play some 'surprise' "aggressiveness."

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Yeah but reckless chess playing? What has the world come to.

        An absolute hooligan, it doesn't matter how good he is if he's playing recklessly. Whatever next? Something even more reckless like a game of Scrabble?

        Before you know it he'll be doing heroin or coke with that kind of mad lifestyle.

      • I played a GM online in a speed chess game, wasn't Carlsen but anyway, most of my moves looked really silly. Such a huge difference...

    • The Youtube video linked from the article shows him beating GM Sergei Zhigalko - misidentified as a top ranked Russian grandmaster (he is from Belarus and around 80 rating points away from the top 100) - some IMs and then coming up against Alireza Firouzia who was 15 at the time and is a potential world champion. I abandoned the 2+ hour video at that point - the mix definitely included some extremely good players.

    • You get two kinds of chess players, those that memorize moves and those that actually play the game.

  • Perhaps Carlsen's "wild" behavior is an extension of his marketing partnership with gambling company Unibet [msn.com].

    Showing the appeal of "living the good life", maybe.

    From talking about this with a friend in Norway, this "deal" is quite controversial there. Unibet has a reputation for being quite predatory toward "problem gamblers".

    Correlation versus causality is hard as usual to determine here, though...

    • Nah, you can see the evolution of his play over time. At first he was playing very carefully, treating each opponent as if they were a top GM, even if they made a mistake. Then over time, he got more and more casual. Eventually he got drunk and started playing moves given to him by his friend (who was also drunk), which were bad moves. Once he got into impossibly bad positions, then he would try to win, and he did win.

      He is a lot more sloppy now.

  • Finally! Something in common! (Score:3)

    by Aighearach ( 97333 ) on Sunday March 01, 2020 @02:21AM (#59783614)

    I play recklessly on lichess, too!

    • Yes, but he wins.

      • He wins more than I do, but I'm rated about 2100 which is already high enough that most of my opponents aren't as good as me, as I have to win a lot just to keep from losing rating points.

        • You can set a minimum rating

          • If you set a minimum rating above your own, you won't actually be "playing recklessly" you'll be "waiting for a game." To actually be paired in a reasonable amount of time you have to set it for your own rating class, and if you're above about 1500 the result will be a larger number of opponents just below your rating.

  • They let you do it. Truer words have never been spoken.

  • play on https://www.chessclub.com/ [chessclub.com] using a pseudonym

  • It looks like arrogant showboating, but I suspect that perhaps the madness is actually ineffability. That he is deliberate exploring positions far outside the grandmaster norm.

    • I've been watching some of his games, and while I know shit all about chess past the rules and basics, he's hilarious to watch. Calls his opponent's every move, including his resignation, well before they even make them, etc.

      "Feeding two birds with one scone."

      This guy is just funny. He's having a good time and not taking himself too seriously.

      • Wrong. That is not what "not taking himself too seriously" would look like.

        This is him taking himself very seriously. And enjoying it tremendously.

        It is other people he's not taking seriously.

        He takes everything seriously, even the "friendly" soccer matches on the days off at major tournaments. He enjoys himself a lot, because he wins a lot.

    • That is definitely at least partially true, he gets bored of the normal stuff, so tries something different.

  • That's not Fantasy Football. It's Fantasy Soccer.

  • In this world there are nerds, and then incels...and then chess fanatics.

  • heh (Score:2)

    by nomadic ( 141991 )

    Given how pompous a lot of amateur but "serious" chess players are, it gives me some happiness knowing that some of his victims are those people.

  • I've just watched 1/2 hour of that youtube video and at 29:23 he finally loses after seconds earlier saying "no mate as far as I can see".
    At 27:40, at the start of the game he says his opponents name, "Rebecca Harris" and then a few seconds later "I hate playing this guy he's so much better than me" and laughs.
    She was! Take a bow Rebecca for handing Mozart his ass on a plate!
    Magnus is incredible to watch. I couldn't believe I'd clicked on the link from here and then watch 1/2 hour of it.
    Had to finally stop

  • Might seem entertaining to some, but this is just being a jerk. A lot of people put a lot of effort into these tournaments. Carlson's acts are like letting a drunk driver into a car race. He's going to get in the way and screw up any form of real competition by giving points away to some, while creaming others.

    It also hinders other people's learning. They might try a nee opening, get creamed and then spend the next month trying to figure out why.

    If he's going to play anonymously, it should be under circ

  • Lichess T's & C's not being honoured. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by seoras ( 147590 ) on Tuesday March 03, 2020 @01:57AM (#59790644)

    I just signed up to Lichess to try it.
    It makes you click on 4 radio buttons agreeing to 4 things.
    One of which reads "I agree that I will not create multiple accounts."
    But, hey, if you are World #1 at chess and rapid chess I guess the rules can be ignored...

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