How an all-night drinking session cost Magnus Carlsen the London Chess Classic in 2012

How an all-night drinking session cost Magnus Carlsen the London Chess Classic in 2012

Magnus Carlsen has reasons to cherish the London Chess Classic triumph in 2012. He achieved one of the finest tournament results of his storied career, accumulating 18 points to finish ahead of Vladimir Kramnik, besides breaking Garry Kasparov’s rating record of 2851. But he recounts to his friend Odin Blikra Vea in a podcast, about a drunken night at a London bar that almost cost him the tournament.

He was dueling British Grandmaster Luke McShane on his 22nd birthday, but the night before the game Carlsen, his second Ian Nepomniachtchi and friends went out bowling. But it did not stop there. “We were supposed to just go out bowling and have a nice dinner to celebrate my birthday — then it turned into something else,” Carlsen recollects on Norwegian chess podcast ‘Sjakksnakk’.

By : Logendra2711