Can You Beat Magnus Carlsen?

Magnus Carlsen. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Can You Beat Magnus Carlsen?

Gserper GM Gserper

Nov 26, 2017, 4:00 PM 103 Fun & Trivia

The Wall Street Journal is not the publication you want to read looking for a good laugh, unless you
find such terms like GDP, P/E ratio or volatility index particularly funny. Yet, I couldn't stop smiling
reading through their recent article about a beginner who wanted to learn enough about chess in
just one month to beat the reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen.

You cannot make this stuff up!

To tell you the truth I had to check numerous times if it was indeed the Journal and not The Onion!
Judge for yourself: the self-anointed "obsessive learner" Max Deutsch had a streak of monthly
projects like solving a Rubik's cube in less than 20 seconds, doing a backflip, etc. Being successful in
all of them, he decided to conquer the chess world and beat Magnus Carlsen. While I am not quite
sure about the logic here and don't see a direct connection between a backflip and chess, I can
respect the man's dream.

Then the surrealistic part of the article starts. It tells us about the chess algorithm that Max tried to
create to start thinking like a computer, but unfortunately, he was not able to finish it on time.
Nevertheless, at the beginning of the game, according to the article Magnus was shaking.

Moreover, the Journal tells you:

"Max had been right about the opening. If his algorithm had worked, he wouldve been in a solid
position. But he was anyway. After eight moves, using his own limited chess ability, the unthinkable
was occurring: Max was winning."

null

Magnus Carlsen. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

I read part three times. Can it be for real? I was praying that they provided the text of the game at
the end of the article and my wish was granted. Well, the Journal didn't win 40 Pulitzer Prizes for
nothing, so here is the game!
Max Deutsch vs. Magnus Carlsen

Exhibition Game | Hamburg GER | Round 1 | 9 Nov 2017 | ECO: C60 | 0-1

87654321abcdefgh

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nge7 4. O-O g6 5. d4 exd4 6. Nxd4 Bg7 7. Be3 O-O 8. Nc3 d6 9. Nd5 Nxd5
10. exd5 Ne5 11. Re1 Ng4 12. Qf3 Qh4 13. h3 Nxe3 14. Qxe3 Bxd4 15. Qd2 Bxb2 16. Rab1 Be5 17.
Rb4 Qf6 18. Bd3 Bc3 19. Qf4 Qxf4 20. Rxf4 Bxe1 21. c4 Bb4 22. g4 Bd7 23. Kg2 Rfe8 24. h4 Bd2 25.
Rd4 c5 26. Re4 Rxe4 27. Bxe4 Bxg4 28. Kg3 Be2 29. f3 Bxc4 30. Kg4 f5+ 31. Bxf5 h5+ 32. Kg3 gxf5 33.
Kf2 Bf4 34. Ke1 Re8+ 35. Kf2 Re2+ 36. Kf1 Rxa2+ 37. Ke1 Be3 38. Kd1 Bd3 39. Ke1 Ra1#

fJ#,.@

You can come to your own conclusion about the situation after the first eight moves, but it is
undeniable that after 14 moves White was completely, unquestionably lost!

So what went wrong? And more important, can any person reading this article regardless of her
chess expertise beat Magnus Carlsen?

Well, the question if a self-tutored beginner can beat a world champion was asked by many famous
people. Read "The Royal Game" by Stefan Zweig, where the protagonist has read and re-read just
one chess book hundreds of times just to keep his sanity. Yet, in just three months he becomes so
strong that he even beats the world chess champion! A similar plot of a complete amateur beating
the world champion was seen in Tal's story that we discussed in this article.

Unfortunately, both stories are just absolute fiction, so, the question stands: can a non-master beat
the world champion? Well, look at the next game:

Robert James Fischer vs. John Dedinsky

Simul, 57b | Milwaukee, WI USA | 14 May 1964 | ECO: C19 | 0-1

87654321abcdefgh

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 c5 5. a3 Bxc3+ 6. bxc3 Ne7 7. a4 Qa5 8. Bd2 c4 9. Nf3 Nd7 10. Ng5
h6 11. Qh5 g6 12. Qh3 Nb6 13. Nf3 Bd7 14. Qh4 Bxa4 15. Qf6 Rh7 16. h4 Nf5 17. h5 Nd7

fJ#,.@

I never heard about John Dedinsky and didn't find any of his games in a database, so I am pretty sure
he is as an amateur as you can be! Yet, he beat great Bobby Fischer in just 17 moves! OK, OK, you
caught me here. Yes, it was a 57-board simul, and there were hundreds of games in chess history
where completely unknown players beat world champions in simuls.
Let's rephrase the question: can a non-master amateur beat a world champion in a regular one-on-
one game? While I never heard about such an event, let me tell you an unusual story that
supposedly happened about 35 years ago.

The city of Kharkiv (the former Soviet Union, now Ukraine) has always had many very strong chess
players. Currently the former women's world champion Anna Ushenina and the super-GM Pavel
Eljanov as well as a number of "just very strong" GMs live there. So, one day in the beginning of
1980s an unknown man entered Kharkiv's chess club and started playing blitz with everyone for
money. Despite giving serious time odds, the stranger kept winning. The strangest thing was that the
guy had a bag full of cucumbers and he was munching them non-stop during the games!

Eventually the local masters entered the fray, but the mysterious guy was beating everyone! The
situation looked more and more like Fischer's famous visit to the Central Chess Club in Moscow. The
young American prodigy demonstrated his amazing blitz skills beating famous Soviet masters!
Eventually grandmaster Tigran Petrosian came to the rescue and successfully defended the honor of
the Soviet chess.

Back to our story, Kharkiv's strongest blitz player, Mikhail Gurevich, was called. The stranger
recognized Gurevich and said: "If you were just a regular master, I would give you odds of three
minutes vs. five minutes, but you are a very strong master so we are going to play five minutes
each."

The man was absolutely correct: in a couple of years Mikhail Gurevich won the Soviet championship,
got a GM title and in the June 1990 rating list he was number seven in the world! So they played for
several hours but the total score was about even. At the end of the day the bizarre stranger picked
up his winnings and the remaining cucumbers and left the speechless crowd.

He was never seen again. The word on the street is that the man was returning home after many
years spent in prison where, just like the protagonist of "The Royal Game," he learned to play chess.
Personally, I don't buy this version since I totally agree with the famous statement by Botvinnik that
no amount of analytical work is a good substitute for a tournament play.

So, if the mysterious man never played chess tournaments, he had no chance to beat a strong
master like Mikhail Gurevich even in one blitz game. From the other side, the Soviet Union had a
very closed chess community since during the years of the iron curtain you couldn't just go abroad
and play chess. Therefore all strong chess players, even candidate masters were well known, and the
guy wasn't one of them!

It is a great pity that the "cucumber guy" was never again seen playing chess.
null

If we get back to Max Deutsch's challenge, it was obviously a publicity stunt. How do I know?

Well, as a smart guy Max Deutsch would definitely think that before challenging a 2800-rated world
champion, it makes sense to test his own chess abilities against intermediate players first, and
therefore he would play a weekend tournament at his local chess club. The expected result would
have been a good reality shot. As he didn't do it, it is absolutely clear that he knew what was coming
and yet he traveled all the way to Germany to play Magnus.

In this case, I want to point out a huge mistake he committed on move 11 when he missed his big
chance.

Max Deutsch vs. Magnus Carlsen

Exhibition Game | Hamburg GER | Round 1 | 9 Nov 2017 | ECO: C60 | 0-1

87654321abcdefgh

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nge7 4. O-O g6 5. d4 exd4 6. Nxd4 Bg7 7. Be3 O-O 8. Nc3 d6 9. Nd5 Nxd5
10. exd5 Ne5 11. Re1 Ng4 12. Qf3 Qh4 13. Qxf7+!!

(13. h3?This weak move was played in the game 13... Nxe3 14. Qxe3 Bxd4 15. Qd2 Bxb2 16. Rab1
Be5 17. Rb4 Qf6 18. Bd3 Bc3 19. Qf4 Qxf4 20. Rxf4 Bxe1 21. c4 Bb4 22. g4 Bd7 23. Kg2 Rfe8 24. h4
Bd2 25. Rd4 c5 26. Re4 Rxe4 27. Bxe4 Bxg4 28. Kg3 Be2 29. f3 Bxc4 30. Kg4 f5+ 31. Bxf5 h5+ 32. Kg3
gxf5 33. Kf2 Bf4 34. Ke1 Re8+ 35. Kf2 Re2+ 36. Kf1 Rxa2+ 37. Ke1 Be3 38. Kd1 Bd3 39. Ke1 Ra1#)

fJ#,.@

You might ask what was the point of this crazy sacrifice? Well, actually there are two ideas behind it.
First of all, there was a remote chance that Magnus would faint since according to the report he was
already shaking. In this case Max would have achieved his goal winning the game by forfeit. In the
more probable case of Magnus snatching the queen and grinning from ear to ear, Max Deutsch
would have achieved another goal. He would have been forever remembered as a beginner player
who managed to check the world champion's king!

Finally, let me answer the question in the title of this article. If you never played official chess
tournaments and still hope to beat Magnus Carlsen in a serious one-on-one game in the next three
years, then forget about it!