On April 6th 5-time world chess champion Magnus Carlsen lost in a dramatic and surprising way: his mouse slipped and he misplaced his queen, which immediately cost him the match. That didn’t just blow him away The competition and cost him a shot at the sizable $30,000 top prize, but this was also the last event he would compete in as reigning world champion.
You may recall that one of the biggest stories in the world of professional chess last year was Carlsen’s surprise loss to young grandmaster Hans Niemann. The mind-blowing excitement quickly sparked online allegations of cheating, with a particular Reddit theory (joke) about vibrating anal beads spread like wildfire
But before all that Carlsen had already announced his plans to vacate his seat as world chess champion. And Thursday’s match against Hikaru Nakamura was part of his final event as champion. I doubt anyone expected it would all end with a simple bug caused by a mouse bug.
Carlsen’s misclick costs him the match
As reported by Chess.com, Carlsen took on his old rival Nakamura; The two are considered to be two of the best online chess players in the world. They competed in a play-off under Armageddon rules in the Losers Bracket. But in the final seconds of the tense match, Carlsen accidentally dropped his queen in the wrong place. According to chess grandmaster David Howell, it was “the worst possible mouse slip”. Immediately after the mistake, Nakamura defeated Carlsen’s misplaced queen and the game ended instantly.
The tournament is still ongoing and Nakamura is out of the losers bracket and moving towards the prize money.
As for Carlsen, this probably won’t be the end of the world. Although he will soon vacate his world title, he will not retire. In July 2022, he stated in a podcast that he would remain an active chess player and that he would continue to have events and matches in the future. He just didn’t want to defend his title anymore like he found it begin to be a negative experience rather than a positive one, even when you’re winning.
Still, I bet he didn’t have “mouse slip and I’ll lose my last match as world champion in a million dollar tournament” on the bingo card for closing out this chapter of his career.