Sweet surrender

It’s over. Magnus Carlsen’s undefeated streak in classical chess has finally come to an end, after 125 games. It is hard to exaggerate what an unlikely accomplishment this is: Carlsen faced top-flight opposition in almost every game, winning 42 and drawing 83. He was beaten by the Polish grandmaster Jan-Krzysztof Duda at the Altibox Norway Chess tournament (played over the board!) earlier this month.

Carlsen’s preceding loss came against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov during a difficult period in late 2018. Back then, the talk of the town was Ding Liren’s progress toward what became a 100-game unbeaten streak, while Carlsen’s confidence looked at a low ebb. With gritted teeth, he defended his world championship title against Caruana. Getting through that match apparently reinvigorated the champion, and he has enjoyed an extended purple patch ever since. His game looked fresher, and he breezed past Ding’s milestone late last year.

Streaks like this remind me of the retro computer game Snake, in which one controls a grid-bound hatchling bent on gobbling up pixellated treats. Growing longer with each bite, one is soon corralling an unwieldy serpent which must never consume its own tail. I envisage the psychological burden of a long unbeaten streak growing in the same inexorable fashion.

I would hazard a guess at one mitigating factor: top players these days do not subsist on a diet of classical chess. During Carlsen’s unbeaten classical streak, occasional losses during rapid and blitz games provided a break from perfection, releasing the pressure just a little. Nonetheless, Carlsen declared that the end of his run at the hands of Duda was ‘very, very disappointing’. Maybe so, but one suspects it was accompanied by a sense of relief. At any rate, a crucial win in the penultimate round against Alireza Firouzja (who finished second) wrapped up yet another tournament victory for Carlsen.