On September 22, I got to live out a dream. I had the opportunity to play the world chess champion, the number one ranked player in the world, and my chess idol, grandmaster Magnus Carlsen.
I’ll be writing about my full experience soon, including a New York movie premiere of Disney’s Queen of Katwe and a cocktail party with Norwegian dignitaries. Until then, I’ve included notation from my game below, with personal commentary so you can see what I was thinking as I played each move.
For those unfamiliar, columns from left to right are “a” through “h,” and rows bottom to top are “1” to “8.” The bottom left square is a1 and the top right square is h8.
As you can tell, I opted for a closed Ruy Lopez opening. Feel free to reach out with any questions or advice on the game!
UPDATE: Here’s my full write-up of the Play Magnus Live Challenge!
