09 November 2013

Carlsen Played Chess960

This week, in an email message, I received an offer from the Internet Chess Club (ICC) that said, 'The first two days of the World Championship match will be free for everyone in ICC.' That sounded good to me, so while I was watching game one of the Anand - Carlsen match on another site, I followed the instructions and joined ICC.

As most of the chess world knows by now, game one of the match ended in a draw by repetition after only 90 minutes of play. Signing up with the ICC took somewhat longer than that. What to do with the new membership? While watching GM Benjamin's commentary, I remembered that Carlsen was rumored to have played chess960 on ICC. One of my posts earlier this year, Carlsen and Chess960, started,

Magnus Carlsen and chess960? As far as I know, the world no.1 has never shown any interest in Fischer's invention.

A few days later, I was corrected in one of the comments to the post.

I read somewhere some years ago that Magnus Carlsen likes to play chess960 on ICC.

After a few minutes reading various ICC help pages, I learned how to search the game archives and discovered that the Norwegian GM had indeed played at least three games on the site.

I was able to download the three games, but will save any discussion about them for another time. It appears that saying, 'Carlsen likes to play chess960', is an exaggeration, but three games are better than none.

I hope game two of the Anand - Carlsen match will be more exciting than the first game. In any case, I'll be watching it on ICC.

1 comment:

Goommba88 said...

It is known now the magnus likes to play on anonymous accounts. He must have played dozens if not hundreds of games on icc that way.