Could a Drunk Magnus Carlsen lose to Gothamchess?
How many beers would it take for you to drink for me to beat you in a classical chess game?
was a question recently posed to Magnus Carlsen, a super Grandmaster and the current world number one chess player, during an interview conducted by Levi Rozman. Levy is an International Master who is commonly known for his GothamChess YouTube Channel, where he uses his innate ability to make any chess game seem more interesting than it is. Magnus smiled and then stated, "I'd probably start with 20 and take it from there", with extra pints in place if he begins to sober up. Levy seemed taken aback and replied "Wow, okay", before the interview changed gears. While Magnus Carlsen could have been saying this in jest, my curiosity on the impact of alcohol in chess peaked, and so I decided to use his 20-drink hypophysis and test the validity of it myself by competing against my sober nephew, Willow, and seeing how I fair against him while becoming increasingly intoxicated.
Magnus Calson is no stranger to drinking, having once referred to himself as DrDrunkenstein on Lichess, because he often drank when playing on stream. However, while speaking on Wolfgang Wee's podcast in 2021, Magnus stated that he chose to be sober throughout 2019 because he had a few experiences in 2018 that got a bit out of hand, including blacking out a couple of times. Magnus Carlsen has since taken on a new persona in the form of DrNykterstein, with "nykter" being the Norwegian word for sober.
When deciding to go ahead with this drinking experiment, I was suffering a slump in form, where my elo went from 1791 to 1684 in the space of a few days (and then went up to 1800 less than a week after the experiment). I told myself that I could either finally learn an opening, or face someone worse than me in order to feel better about myself. The answer was obvious, so I asked my 21-year-old nephew, who has a current elo of 460 to compete against me sober, while I'm heavily intoxicated and he accepted these terms. Furthermore, I will also research what impact alcohol has had on other chess players of the past, as well as if there is any evidence that a player with much higher elo could be impaired enough to lose against someone who is objective lower in skill at chess.
Contents
- A Brief(ish) History of Alcohol in chess
- Player Biographies
- Game 1
- Game 2
- Game 3
- Findings and Variables
- Final Thoughts
A Brief(ish) history of Alcohol in Chess
Alcohol has had a long-standing history in the world of chess and was especially common during the 19th century. Below are some of the more famous, and infamous stories and excerpts that were recorded throughout the years.
Joseph Henry Blackburne
My opponent left a glass of whisky 'en prise' (in a position to be taken) and I took it 'en passant' (in passing)
was a cheeky statement from Joseph Henry Blackburne (1841-1924), a British Chess Champion who was ranked second in the world, under William Steinitz. Blackburne was known for drinking whiskey during over the board chess games, and while he was quoted in saying that "Whiskey and chess, when taken together, agree with very few", he believed that "whiskey is a most useful stimulus to mental activity" and that "all chess masters indulge moderately in wines or spirits. Speaking for myself, alcohol clears my brain". He also quipped that "my favourite beverage is castor oil". It should be noted that on a few occasions while drunk, Blackburne assaulted other chess players. William Steinitz once stated that Henry "pounced upon me and hammered at my face and eyes with fullest force about a dozen blows, until the bed cloth and my nightshirt were covered with blood". Furthermore, according to The World of Chess written by A. Saidy and N. Lessing N, after Steinitz trounced Blackburne, 7 to 0, "The British master, who was fond of the bottle, is said to have become so enraged at one point that he threw Steinitz out of a window".
Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941) was a Grandmaster and a World Chess Champion for a record 27 straight years. It is said that Lasker once played a game of Alcoholic Chess against fellow Grandmaster Geza Maroczy (1870-1951). The value of each piece determined the amount of alcohol that needed to be consumed (a pawn capture would equal one shot, while a queen capture would equal over 8 shots). Lasker decided to implement a unique strategy, sacrificing his queen on the third move of the game deliberately in order to make Maroczy drink the most amount of alcohol that was possible for one piece from the outset. This was in the form of a quarter litre of cognac. In those days, cognac on average contained 40% alcohol, meaning that Geza Maroczy drank 7.14 standard drinks three moves into the game. As he is recorded as weighing roughly 70kgs, his blood alcohol level would have risen to around 0.11, which is at the level where one's judgement is impaired. Maroczy's blood alcohol level continued to grow throughout the game, consuming more alcohol after each capture he made. Laskers strategy eventually paid off, defeating a debilitated Maroczy after creating several complications that Maroczy was unable to overcome in his drunken state.
Max Euwe vs Alexander Alekhine
Efim Bogoljubow
Efim Bogoljubow (1899-1952) was a Grandmaster and the first ever FIDE Chess Champion. He is known for inventing a chess opening named the Bogo-Indian Defence, as well as for his drinking habits, particularly vodka. Paul Hoffman wrote in his novel King’s Gambit that Bogoljubow "was a chubby, bombastic drunkard known for his delusional thinking that he was invincible". Bogoljubow once stated that "When I am white, I win because I am white. When I am black, I win because I am Bogoljubow". On one occasion, he was carrying a mug of beer while a photographer was present. The photographer was unaware that Bogoljubow was a distinguished guest at the chess club and ended up cutting him out of every photo as he looked out of place.
Mikhail Tal
Hikaru Nakamura
Biographies
Andrew
Chess.com username: JustGettingThisOffMyChess
I (1986-present) began playing chess because of my dad. I remember sitting in the loungeroom playing on his small, somewhat broken chessboard that he had owned since he was a child. I continued to play because I was bullied in primary school, and the chess club was a safe place the bullies never entered. I went on to be the chess captain in high school, winning against the school we competed against, before stepping away from chess for nearly 20 years. I became a primary school teacher in 2021 and, remembering that chess was my safe place, I began running a chess club for students. This meant that I began playing online and have since climbed up to 1800 for ten-minute games. Recently, I had experienced a drought, losing over 100 elo in a few days, so I thought what better way to boost my confidence than to challenge someone nearly 1300 elo under me.
With alcohol, my friends would say that I am non-alcoholic. When I was 12, my dad said, "Don't drink", so I just listened. It wasn't until I was 30 (2017) that I really drank alcohol, and I wasn't a massive fan. In 2021, I went camping with my family, which included Willow. There was a lot of alcohol there, and Willow and I decided to see how much green apple vodka we could drink. We finished the bottle.
Willow
Chess.com username: SwagMuhammad
Game One
The Mystery of the Bishop Shot Glass
When opening the box containing the shot chess set, a few shot glasses fell to the ground. After setting the pieces up, one black bishop shot glass remained missing. Willow searched frantically in my loungeroom for it and found what looked like a broken shot glass. We accepted that this must have been it, as I rarely drink and thus wouldn't randomly have broken shot glasses lying around. I went into my kitchen in an attempt to use another shot glass, however, these were too large. I was unaware before we began this experiment the chess shot glasses were half shots (150ml). We ended up improvising, replacing it with a normal black bishop.
Shot Chess
In game one, we played using a Shot Chess board, where the pieces were half-shot glasses. Our rules were that every shot glass piece I take, I need to drink. This meant that my goal was to take all of his pieces in order to become more intoxicated for the experiment. Willow suggested that as he wasn't drinking, the shot glasses he would be taking could be filled with hot sauce. We then filled the shot glasses I would be taking with different coloured alcohol, mostly for aesthetics. This was in the form of:
Pawns - Bailey's (17% alcohol)
Rooks - Black Sambuca (30% alcohol)
Knights - Green apple vodka (30% alcohol)
Bishops - Green apple vodka with bitters (30% alcohol)
Queen - Green apple vodka with Grenadine syrup (30% alcohol)
King - Green apple vodka with curacao bleu (30% alcohol)
We filled the shot glasses he would be taking with a variety of hot sauces:
Pawns - 13 Angry Scorpions' hot sauce (109,000 scovilles)
Rooks and Knights - Fire Water hot sauce (112,000 scovilles)
Bishops - Blair's Original Death Sauce (35,000 scovilles)
Queen and King - Da bomb (135,600 scovilles)
When filling up the queen and king, Willow had placed only a little bit of Da Bomb hot sauce in it because of his fear of having too much of it. I then suggested that he should fill it all the way up for the photo above and assured him that "You won't take my queen, don't worry about it". I lied.
The Game
Game 1: Willow played with the white pieces while I played with the black pieces
During the game, the pieces became very slippery and would slide off of the square. Willow commented that "it's slipping and sliding", to which I maturely responded with "That's what she said". The pieces were also hard to differentiate, other than that one normal black bishop. During the game, I stated that "It's very hard to tell what piece is what". Luckily, we entered our moves into chess.com as well to record the game (with time limits extended, while still playing in the style of a rapid game), and this was a godsend in helping to see the game clearly. During the game, I ended up trading queens with him in front of his king, forcing him to take back and drink Da Bomb in the process. Afterwards, Willow asked "do you have milk?". I, in fact, had no milk.
I did somewhat understand his pain, as when alcohol went onto my fingers, I licked it off, not realising that my fingers had touched his hot sauce. I responded with "I'm getting the alcohol and the Burny burny". Also, contrary to what it may seem, drinking alcohol isn't my forte, and the green apple vodka that had haunted Willow and I was hard for me to consume. After one, I said, "I didn't enjoy that one", to which Willow quipped back "You think you've got it bad!". In the end, I was able to accomplish the goal of taking all of his pieces and winning very comfortably.
By The Numbers
My game one accuracy was 93.1% compared with Willow's 81.4%. The engine showed that I played at a 1750 elo. I made no misses or blunders and the only mistake I made didn't lose my advantage. I was especially happy with my tactics from moves 17 to 20, where I placed my bishop on h3, in a position to be captured by both his knight and rook, but not without him losing at least one piece of his own.
In total, I had consumed 3 full shots of green apple vodka, 1 full shot of black Sambuca and 4 full shots of Bailey's, which placed my blood alcohol limit at 0.06 (just over the 0.05 legal limit in Australia to drive), having consumed 4.45 standard drinks. Being in what would be considered a tipsy state, it only had me feeling relaxed and confident. This gave me the indication that it would take significantly more alcohol for the next game to be competitive, and for the alcohol intake to negatively affect my performance in chess. We decided to push the shot chess aside and instead play the next games online only, with a substantial amount of alcohol to be consumed by me before the next game, and no hot sauce for Willow so that he has full focus on the game.
Game Two
The Game
Game 2: Willow again played with the white pieces while I played with the black pieces
By the Numbers
My game accuracy was 88.3% (down 4.8% from game one) compared with Willows 82% (up 0.6% from game one). This was a great measure of the impact alcohol made, as while Willow remained consistent, my accuracy declined. The engine showed that I played at a 1700 elo, down 50 points from game one. This feels inflated because of how uncomplicated the game was. Willow, a 460 elo player, was given a 1650 elo for this game, highlighting this point. I made no blunders, two mistakes and one miss. Near the end of the game, Willow suggested that I promote my pawn to a knight. I took his advice. You could say I was under the influence and under his influence.
My blood alcohol limit had risen to 0.24 after consuming 11.94 more standard drinks. This brought my total to 16.39 standard drinks. It also caused my speech to slur, my judgement to be impaired and my coordination to clearly be impacted. These hindrances meant that game two was significantly closer, and because the game itself was quite dry and uneventful, this could have resulted in a loss for me or a draw. This may not necessarily be based solely on my decline in skill but because of my overconfidence (brought on by the alcohol), where I forced an end game in a worse position only because I felt confident that I could take over. I wouldn't have played this way sober. This echoes Grandmaster and the 14th World Chess Champion, Vladimir Kramnik's (1975-present) views that "Playing drunk makes you lose adaptability to sudden changes that might appear during the course of the game. Drunk players are usually straightforward and too confident". After this game, I was less than four standard drinks away from the 20 standard drinks Magnus Carlsen had hypothesised. The goal of finding out just how accurate Magnus's statement might actually be only a few shots away.
Game Three
Alcohol Intake
I decided to have my last intake of alcohol for the night (and perhaps the year) for Willow and my final game by consuming ten more Bailey's shots and bringing my grand total to 40 shots. This was over double the amount I had ever consumed in one night, and I achieved this in 73 minutes. My hope was that drinking this would make me reach 20 standard drinks, but I knew that once I had my 40th shot, I wouldn't be having anymore regardless. In the end, the goal was to participate in a fun experiment, and I by no means wanted to end up in a Dark Side of Chess story (however, after you finish this blog, you are welcome to go read my Dark Side of Chess blogs 😉).
The Game
Game 3: We decided to continue to have Willow playing with the white pieces, while I played with the black pieces
By the time we began game three, I was lying on the floor, forcing myself up to make moves. I remember thinking to myself that I played really well this game. I actually stated after the game that I believed it was my best game of the night. Spoiler alert: it was not my best game of the night. During the game, right after moving my knight back on move 14, I realised that I could have taken Willow's F2 pawn with my knight, as it would be protected with my B3 bishop. I had this opportunity for two turns. Upon analysing the game, I saw other key mistakes, especially Willow hanging his knight on move five. My gameplay was reckless, so I was quite lucky that this was Willow's worst game of the night too.
I am a Bad Winner
While checkmating Willow at the end of game three, I yelled "I'm so good at chess", followed by "I think the lesson is, no matter how many shots, I win, and also don't drink so much". The latter probably being the most sense I had made all night. After celebrating a little more, I picked up my phone and recorded myself saying "Note that I was a bad winner, and I called him a loser. I should have been kinder. You tried so hard, and you still lost". I feel bad about making fun of him. Willow had stated before agreeing to this match that, while he is up for this challenge, he felt like it was a lose-lose situation for him because he either beats a drunk person or loses to a drunk person, which he believed would be embarrassing. These concerns are a big reason Willow mostly faces bots, and a reason he hasn't reached his full potential, because he definitely showed moments throughout these games where he played well above his 460 rating, which is commendable.
By the Numbers
During this game, my blood alcohol limit raised to 0.30, after consuming 4.04 more standard drinks. This brought me to a grand total of 20.43 standard drinks, meaning that I fortunately reached Magnus Carlsen's 20-pint hypothesis and thus am able to give a more accurate answer to whether I believe Magnus would lose to Levy Rozman in this drunken state. My accuracy was 68.5% (down 19.3% from game two and down 24.1% from game one). The engine showed that I played at an elo of 1000, down 750 from game one, and while I still made no blunders, I made four misses and three mistakes. I was quite surprised at how significant my decline was from game two to three, after only consuming slightly more than four standing drinks extra. However, when researching afterwards, I learnt that reaching a blood alcohol limit of 0.25 or greater severely impacts mental, physical and sensory functions, and I had gone from 0.24 to 0.30. This change was evident during game three, as I began to feel sick, I couldn't really stand, and not long after game three, I was so intoxicated and inebriated that I regurgitated what looked like my last two days of food I had eaten.
Findings and Variables
When the interview between Magnus Carlen and Levy Rozman was taking place, Magnus's elo was 2830 while Levy's elo was 2322. That is an elo difference of 508. According to Dr. Arpad Elo's (the inventor of the Elo system) Percentage Expectancy Table in his book The Rating of Chess Player's, Past and Present (Arco Publishimg, 1978), it gives Levy Rozman a 4% chance of winning (one in 25). With my elo being 1684 and Willow's 460 at the time (a difference of 1224), the table gives Willow no probability of winning (claiming that no one with an elo over 735 above their opponent should lose a single game). Unfortunately, Dr. Arpad Elo didn't create a differentiated table that involved the higher rated player consuming a plethora of alcohol. While Willow and my games this may seem like an unfair comparison compared with a potential Magnus vs Levy match, one could argue that the difference in skill between an IM (2300-2400) and a Super GM (2700 and over) is actually greater than the difference between a beginner (400-800) and an intermediate (1400-1800).
Another variable is that each game between Willow and I took around 20 minutes, whereas the game between Magnus Carlsen and Levy Rozman would most likely have gone for a few hours. This would give Magnus more time to calculate his and his opponents moves in order to combat against any changing dynamics of the game, with studies highlighting that excessive drinking encourages a more tangential thinking style, making the game play more impulsive and erratic, however, also more unpredictable. This was confirmed when I analysed my first two games and found that they were objectively easier to play against. My tactics were more solid, which meant that Willow's options were more natural and easier to find, benefitting his own game play for the majority of the games. Whereas my third game was more aggressive. I fixated on my own moves, and it ultimately paid off because the options became more complicated for Willow. However, this play style could have easily backfired. I undeniably played significantly worse in my third game. I missed out on capitalising on my opponents blunders and if Willow had played more solidly, I believe he could have won or drawn the game. However, it turned into a bar fight, and the drunk will always have more experience there.
While writing 'A Brief(ish) History of Chess' I noticed that the three players that relied the most on alcohol (Tal, Blackburne and Bogoljubow) were also the most aggressive in their gameplay. This is in stark contrast to the subdued style of Magnus Carlsen, meaning that alcohol may change the way in which he tactically plays. Another interesting finding was that, if the infamous Alcoholic chess match between Lasker and Maroczy are believed to be true, with several sources stating that it was, it suggests that if two players who are arguably at similar strengths compete with alcohol involved, the disadvantage of consuming more alcohol far outweighs the disadvantage of being down a full queen. Moreover, Maroczy's alcohol intake would have still equaled to a little less than the 20 standard drinks we tested, and Lasker also consumed a considerable amount of alcohol, albeit less than his opponent. This demonstrates that alcohol evidently affects a player more than a significant piece handicap.
Last year, I played against Willow in chess where I purposely lost my queen near the beginning of the game. I ended up comfortably winning. Contrastingly, if I played any Titled player (or a player several hundred points above me), where they were down a queen early on, I believe I also would be soundly beaten. Yet the games I played against Willow while I was highly intoxicated were drastically more competitive than when I was down a queen against him, particularly game two where he had winning chances, and game three where I missed capitalising on blatant blunders that I normally wouldn't miss.
The most conclusive finding was the finding of the missing bishop shot glass, found on my loungeroom floor the next morning after a few seconds of me searching. This should have been obvious because the one Willow had found was made out of plastic, whereas the chess shot glasses were glass.
Final Thoughts
It is almost impossible to fathom a world where any amount of alcohol could bring Magnus Carlsen to a level lower than a Grandmaster, let alone 2322. Magnus Carlsen has never lost to an International Master in a classical chess game for well over 16 years. However, we learnt that alcohol also affects concentration and Magnus's worst loss since 2008 was to Alisher Suleymanov in 2023, where after the game, Magnus claimed that he lost concentration when he noticed that Alisher was wearing a watch (which FIDE prohibits under their law 11.3.2). This was a player with an elo of 2512, 327 points lower than Magnus at the time (however, still nearly 200 points higher than Levy Rozman's).
I wish it were as easy as working out that the elo for my third game (1000) was 57.14% of the elo of my first game (1750), then suggesting that this is a universal percentage for when a player is heavily drunk, translate that 57.14% over to Magnus Carlsen's 2830 elo, and come to the conclusion that it means he would be playing at an elo of 1617, much lower than Levy's. However, it's ludicrous to believe that Magnus would ever play lower than at a 2500 elo rating, going by his last two decades of dominance, regardless how intoxicated he would be. The question then becomes, Can Levy play at a Grandmaster level (above 2500) in a classical game? (as Magnus's worst loss since 2008 was to a player rated 2512) The answer is... complicated. Objectively, he can when there is less pressure and when he is confident (as Levy has stated many times that a lack of confidence has been an underlying issue for him in competitive chess). So, the question then evolves into, Would Levy feel less pressured against a drunk Magnus Carlsen, or would this add to the pressure, making him overthink the embarrassment he would place on himself if he lost? (The way Willow had). Historically, it is more likely to be the latter.
One could say Levy's aggressive play style compares to that of a drunk Grandmaster of old, so it could be argued that a little bit of alcohol might actually help Levy against Magnus. In fact, Levy posted a YouTube video in 2021 titled "Do I Play CHESS Better Drunk?" where he stated that he was drunk off of red wine, playing blitz games against the Grandmaster José Gascón del Nogal (1995-present), and winning almost every game that they played (many in spectacular fashion). In some ways, alcohol might actually help assist Levy with his confidence, within reason.
To conclude, I believe that the 20 pints Magnus Carlsen suggested he would need to drink for Levy Rozman to win in a classical game against him was a fair statement. Anything less should bring his blood alcohol limit to under 0.25, which would affect him, but not enough to have him lose against someone rated over 500 elo points below him. And anything more than the alcohol suggested would be too dangerous and irresponsible to attempt. However, after considering the information provided throughout this blog, while there are enough variables listed above to highlight that Levy would have realistic chances if he played to his capabilities, my stance is that Magnus Carlsen would still be more likely to win, or draw at the very least in a classical match against Levy Rozman while drunk.
Thank you for reading my blog. Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below.
