Carlsen wins Handicap simul 11-0

by Johannes Fischer
9/27/2016 – Maybe Magnus Carlsen took it as a good omen. On 22nd September 2016, 50 days before his World Championship match against Sergey Karjakin in New York, which will begin on 11th November, he played a handicap simul against eleven opponents in New Jersey. All his opponents were users of the Play Magnus App and they all had 30 minutes for the whole game while Carlsen had 30 minutes for all his games. But the World Champion had no trouble to win with a clear 11-0 score. Games, impressions, video...

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Host of the event was the Liberty Science Center in New Jersey.

The moderator of the event, an ardent fan of games and game shows

Eleven opponents and only 30 minutes for all his games but Magnus Carlsen seemed confident

Games

 

 

After the game the World Champion complimented his youngest opponent:

"He plays much better than I did when I was eight years old."

The event was shown live on the internet.

After all games had finished the World Champion
revealed some of this thoughts about their game to his opponents.

No chessplayer likes to get mated...

...but maybe it's easier to bear if you play against the World Champion.

Soeren Marx from Germany is an ardent Carlsen fan:
he got interested in chess when reading an article about Carlsen
in the German weekly "Der Spiegel".

Isaac Wiebe from Canada was the last to lose.

But the result of the game was never really in doubt.

Magnus Carlsen enjoyed his victory

The whole event was shown live on the internet - here is the video:


Johannes Fischer was born in 1963 in Hamburg and studied English and German literature in Frankfurt. He now lives as a writer and translator in Nürnberg. He is a FIDE-Master and regularly writes for KARL, a German chess magazine focusing on the links between culture and chess. On his own blog he regularly publishes notes on "Film, Literature and Chess".

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Resistance Resistance 11/5/2016 02:16
The event wasn't about the strength of the participants, but that people had the unique chance of playing their idol. The occasional occurrence of these type of events do chess a huge favor, for they show people all virtues chess can encourage in you: determination, discipline, responsability; but also fun, clean fun, and camaraderie. Thank you Magnus for donating some of your time to causes such as these, I'm sure many people appreciate it as well.
Sveshnikov78 Sveshnikov78 9/29/2016 11:17
Both of you would probably have done better. What a pity we couldn't see that !!
gmwdim gmwdim 9/27/2016 07:47
Yes, that was very week play from some of his opponents.
psamant psamant 9/27/2016 03:16
How were the opponents selected? Random users of the Play Magnus apps? I went through all the games... they were terrible! I am a complete patzer myself and would probably lose to a few of them. But, this is like feeding lambs to a lion. And the pressure of playing Magnus... it was silly to see people blunder entire pieces without provocation. Magnus would have taken on another 100 such without breaking a sweat.
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