Frustrated Carlsen logs shocking loss
June 25, 2015
Norwegian chess champion Magnus Carlsen was clearly feeling like anything but a champion on Thursday, after losing yet another, and final, match at the Norway Chess tournament in Stavanger. He was so frustrated that he pushed away a reporter’s microphone from Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK).
The incident occurred after he lost a match to fellow Norwegian Jon Ludvig Hammer, who was the weakest player at Norway Chess and ranked number 61 in the world. He ended up beating Carlsen, which would have been unthinkable before the disastrous tournament for Carlsen began.
‘Very surprising’
“It was very surprising,” NRK’s chess commentator Torstein Bae said in regards to how poorly Carlsen played. “Hammer played impressively and made many good moves, but Magnus played terribly.”
Carlsen himself was well aware of that, telling TV2 how enormously disappointed he was in his own performance.”It’s the same frustration as in earlier matches,” Carlsen said. “I don’t see anything, I overlook tactical things the whole time. Many times I’ve made a move, and then I see at once afterwords that it was bad and would have consequences.”
It remains unclear what’s gone wrong for Carlsen the past week, since he arrived at the tournament full of confidence, smiling and with those around him saying he was at his best. Instead, he started losing matches right away, and lost lots of valuable points in the world rankings.
On Wednesday, he did manage to beat rival Levon Aronian of Armenia but chastised himself after that match as well, calling it “possibly the worst match up to now in the tournament.” It was only after Aronian made a major blunder that Carlsen prevailed.
Full article here.