Magnus Carlsen Gets Married, After Stirring More Controversy With 'Shared' 8th World Blitz Chess Title (cnn.com) 25
Today 34-year-old chess champion Magnus Carlsen married 26-year-old Ella Victoria Malone, "in a ceremony packed with guests on a sunny winter day in Oslo," reports Chess.com.
According to Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet, a film crew from Netflix was also present. The streaming giant is shooting a chess-related TV show rumored to air in 2025... Ella Victoria is now expected to have a more central role in her husband's career. According to VG, she played a crucial role in securing Magnus a deal with fashion brand G-Star Raw...
Their wedding was surely a fairy tale, but the Carlsens aren't heading for their honeymoon just yet. Magnus is set to make his debut for St. Pauli in the German Bundesliga on January 10, when he'll face Dusseldorf led by none other than GM Gukesh Dommaraju.
The article adds that "For Carlsen, this caps off a whirlwind week that began in New York, highlighted by his eighth World Blitz Championship title," a victory that they say was "controversially" shared with Russian grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi. CNN reports: [Carlsen] had taken a 2-0 lead in the four-game contest before Nepomniachtchi launched a stunning comeback to level the scores, sending the match to a sudden death tie-break. The pair then drew the next three games, and it was later determined that they would share the title after the proposal was accepted by Arkady Dvorkovich, the president of chess governing body FIDE. "I thought, at that point, we had already played for a very long time and I was, first of all, very happy to end it, and I thought, at that point, it would have been very, very cruel on both of us if one gets first and the other gets second," Carlsen later told reporters....
[T]he decision to share the Blitz title with long-time rival Nepomniachtchi has sparked outcry from some of the world's top players — the first time in history that a world championship title has been shared. "This is a situation where I cannot stand with what Magnus has done," prominent player Hikaru Nakamura said on his YouTube channel. "I do not think that there is any precedent for this, when you put out rules about the game itself and then suddenly you decide, 'It's okay, we're going to go home' ... It's unconscionable to me...."
"FIDE goes from forfeiting Carlsen (over the jeans debacle) to creating an entirely new rule," Hans Niemann, whom Carlsen had defeated in the quarterfinals, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. "Seems like the the regulatory body of chess has no intention of being unbiased. They seem to only care about what one player thinks...." Former world champion Garry Kasparov made a pointed reference to the jeans controversy, writing on X: "I thought the first FIDE tiebreak was pants."
Magnus apparently tells his opponent "If they like refuse, we can just play short draws until they give up," according to a behind-the-scenes video clip posted to X.com. The CEO of FIDE, Emil Sutovsky, re-posted it on X.com, complaining that FIDE president Dvorkovich's decision to accept the players' proposed draw was made "under the spur of a moment, and of course, the video appeared much later. I do think it is VERY BAD though..."
FIDE later told CNN that "This situation has already prompted valuable discussions within FIDE management to improve our regulations." (And their article adds that some — including grandmaster Ivan Sokolov — suggested ties be settled with a new chess format known as Armageddon.) "In Armageddon, White has more time but a draw on the board counts as a win for Black," explains the Guardian — adding that back in 1983, "Fide determined the winner of a Candidates match by a roulette wheel."
The Guardian adds that Russian-born FIDE president Arkady Dvorkovich "probably felt he had little choice but to rubber stamp the agreement by the players." He would have been pilloried in Moscow as preventing a Russian world champion had he ruled otherwise, and a negative could also have provoked a series of the notorious Berlin draws, the standard method for a quick mutually agreed half point. However, that course of action would have brought the players into disrepute, and it is more likely that an inspired game or a blunder would have settled the final. The audience on Wall Street applauded the decision, but the considerable online reaction from professional players and fans has been mostly critical.
It was the first ever shared over-the-board individual world title in chess history.
Their wedding was surely a fairy tale, but the Carlsens aren't heading for their honeymoon just yet. Magnus is set to make his debut for St. Pauli in the German Bundesliga on January 10, when he'll face Dusseldorf led by none other than GM Gukesh Dommaraju.
The article adds that "For Carlsen, this caps off a whirlwind week that began in New York, highlighted by his eighth World Blitz Championship title," a victory that they say was "controversially" shared with Russian grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi. CNN reports: [Carlsen] had taken a 2-0 lead in the four-game contest before Nepomniachtchi launched a stunning comeback to level the scores, sending the match to a sudden death tie-break. The pair then drew the next three games, and it was later determined that they would share the title after the proposal was accepted by Arkady Dvorkovich, the president of chess governing body FIDE. "I thought, at that point, we had already played for a very long time and I was, first of all, very happy to end it, and I thought, at that point, it would have been very, very cruel on both of us if one gets first and the other gets second," Carlsen later told reporters....
[T]he decision to share the Blitz title with long-time rival Nepomniachtchi has sparked outcry from some of the world's top players — the first time in history that a world championship title has been shared. "This is a situation where I cannot stand with what Magnus has done," prominent player Hikaru Nakamura said on his YouTube channel. "I do not think that there is any precedent for this, when you put out rules about the game itself and then suddenly you decide, 'It's okay, we're going to go home' ... It's unconscionable to me...."
"FIDE goes from forfeiting Carlsen (over the jeans debacle) to creating an entirely new rule," Hans Niemann, whom Carlsen had defeated in the quarterfinals, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. "Seems like the the regulatory body of chess has no intention of being unbiased. They seem to only care about what one player thinks...." Former world champion Garry Kasparov made a pointed reference to the jeans controversy, writing on X: "I thought the first FIDE tiebreak was pants."
Magnus apparently tells his opponent "If they like refuse, we can just play short draws until they give up," according to a behind-the-scenes video clip posted to X.com. The CEO of FIDE, Emil Sutovsky, re-posted it on X.com, complaining that FIDE president Dvorkovich's decision to accept the players' proposed draw was made "under the spur of a moment, and of course, the video appeared much later. I do think it is VERY BAD though..."
FIDE later told CNN that "This situation has already prompted valuable discussions within FIDE management to improve our regulations." (And their article adds that some — including grandmaster Ivan Sokolov — suggested ties be settled with a new chess format known as Armageddon.) "In Armageddon, White has more time but a draw on the board counts as a win for Black," explains the Guardian — adding that back in 1983, "Fide determined the winner of a Candidates match by a roulette wheel."
The Guardian adds that Russian-born FIDE president Arkady Dvorkovich "probably felt he had little choice but to rubber stamp the agreement by the players." He would have been pilloried in Moscow as preventing a Russian world champion had he ruled otherwise, and a negative could also have provoked a series of the notorious Berlin draws, the standard method for a quick mutually agreed half point. However, that course of action would have brought the players into disrepute, and it is more likely that an inspired game or a blunder would have settled the final. The audience on Wall Street applauded the decision, but the considerable online reaction from professional players and fans has been mostly critical.
It was the first ever shared over-the-board individual world title in chess history.
I know him so well (Score:2)
Sounds like Bjorn and Bennie need to make a sequel to "Chess"
Is Tim Rice still alive?
Why? (Score:1, Insightful)
So, some chess player gets married. Why the fuck is this on Slashdot?
Re: Why? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Godspeed and good luck!
Re:Why? (Score:4, Funny)
Because it's inspiring for basement dwelling nerds to know that they too might one day find a girl, and the fact they played chess before is not an automatic hard pass?
Although a prerequisite is - they need to leave the basement first...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Love? Not in this case. This is very obviously a marriage of mutual benefit.
Love and mutual benefit are not mutually exclusive.
Re: Why? (Score:1)
ONE nerd got married. How is this NOT slashdot material?
Re: (Score:2)
Nerds get married all the time. Sometimes we even figure out how to procreate.
If you can't find a partner, it's not 'nerdiness'. It might be the degree of nerdiness, though. The nerdier you are, the worse your social skills are likely to be. There's likely a threshold below which your social skills are so poor you couldn't find a partner if someone did it for you and locked the both of you in a room together with a 'get to know each other' Q&A script.
But without the Ubernerds, how would we ever know
Re: Why? (Score:1)
We need something else to blather on about between the twice annual rants about daylight savings time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So, some chess player gets married. Why the fuck is this on Slashdot?
Because it's not the main story. Keep reading and you'll find the interesting piece that does belong on Slashdot.
Writing shitty headlines and burying the lead is what Slashdot is all about.
Well that's interesting (Score:3)
From TFS:
[Magnus Carlsen's new wife Ella Victoria] played a crucial role in securing Magnus a deal with fashion brand G-Star Raw...
And looking at what G-Star Raw sells [g-star.com] may clarify why Carlsen was so insistent on wearing jeans to the FIDE tournament, against the dress code. [slashdot.org]
And oh look, FIDE later relented, and let him wear jeans. [chess.com]
I don't care what Carlsen wears, or what FIDE doesn't let and later lets him wear. But all of this fuss over jeans looks like it might have had a promotional angle.
Re: (Score:1)
Someone needs to get Hans Niemann a hip sponsorship. Perhaps this company [njoytoys.com] could reach a new market?
Re: (Score:2)
That makes sense. Carlsen is a dishonest scumbag, after all.
The world is watching! (Score:2)
It's today's hot topic around the water cooler, now that everyone's returned to the office at Amazon!
Sharing the title? (Score:2)
Seems like without a victor they have tied for second place. Perhaps people would be more willing to approve that agreement. Let the winner's purse go unclaimed.
Bad decision (Score:2)
President of FIDE: "I thought, at that point, we had already played for a very long time and I was, first of all, very happy to end it, and I thought, at that point, it would have been very, very cruel on both of us if one gets first and the other gets second,"
Fire this guy. This was blitz, where these guys play online tens or hundreds of games every day. There was really no excuse not to continue playing until you find a winner. If tennis players fight for over 8 hours to win the decisive set, chess player
She has him: mate (Score:2)
But, presumably, the one mate that he did not try to avoid :-) With him king and her queen I wish them many happy knights in their castle resulting in healthy small pawns.
Publicity (Score:2)
All publicity is good publicity. (ok, almost) .. Anyway, this is good for chess that ridiculous nerd world problems keep cropping up .. helps sustain chess as a thing. Somewhat.
Very simple solution: No Winner No Title (Score:1)
STOCKFISH Chess Engines beats grandmasters (Score:2)