Magnus Carlsen Checkmates Bill Gates in 12 Seconds
Magnus Carlsen only needed 12 seconds on the clock to checkmate the second richest man in the world, Bill Gates. As we reported earlier, Carlsen was to meet the founder of Microsoft, billionaire and philantropist as guests in the talkshow Skavlan. The show was recorded on Thursday and part of it was a game of chess, which didn't last very long.
Image: NRK/YouTube
For this blitz game, played in a studio in London, Carlsen was given 30 seconds on the clock against 2 minutes for Gates. The American billionaire opened with 1.e4, but didn't start the clock. Carlsen positioned his pieces, then started his own clock and played 1...Nc6. It was soon over:
Here's a video of the game, which was posted earlier today on Youtube and has been watched over 77K times already!
Gates had 1 minute and 10 seconds left at the end, while Carlsen still had 18 seconds left and so only used 12 seconds. (In fact he lost about 2 when he tipped over a pawn on move 2, and it seems he also needed about 2 seconds to stop the clock!) Obviously the difference in strength was so huge that chess fans won't be that surprised, but for the rest of the world “Magnus Carlsen Checkmates Bill Gates in 12 Seconds” probably sounds quite astonishing!
Norwegian TV channel NRK posted a report on the show and the game, where it says that “Carlsen had to admit that he had to break one of his own principles, namely not to use cheap tricks to win.” The world champion was obviously referring to the move 7...Ne5, which wasn't correct but did bring him a very quick checkmate.
In the TV show Carlsen also spoke about teaching Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg chess, a week before. The Norwegian felt that “[Zuckerberg] was much better after an hour.” To the question whether he's friends with Zuckerberg on Facebook, Carlsen replied: “No, I do not accept everyone on Facebook!”
Skavlan is a Norwegian-Swedish television talk show hosted by Norwegian journalist Fredrik SkavlanPrevious guests in the show include Michael Palin, Sinead O'Connor, Wyclef Jean, Judit Polgar, Bruno Mars, Ruby Wax, Robbie Williams, Jon Bon Jovi, Richard Dawkins, Kevin Costner, Will Smith and David Guetta. Carlsen had been a guest in the show more than once before.
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms. Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools. Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013. As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
Peter's first book The Chess Revolution is out now!
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