--- title: "World Chess Champion Loses $30,000 Prize By Clicking Wrong Square" description: "One of the world's foremost chess grandmasters apparently made a fat finger error for the ages when he accidentally clicked the wrong square and lost a tie." date: "2023-04-07" modified: "2023-04-07" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/chess-champion-mouse-slip" categories: - "Future Society" tags: - "chess" - "esports" - "sports" - "the digest" --- # World Chess Champion Loses $30,000 Prize By Clicking Wrong Square ![One of the world's foremost chess grandmasters apparently made a fat finger error for the ages when he accidentally clicked the wrong square and lost a tie.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* ## Master Class The world's top chess grandmaster apparently made a fat finger error for the ages when he accidentally lost a game by dropping his queen on the wrong square — and it apparently wasn't the first time, either. As the [*Wall Street Journal* reports](), Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen lost a tie-breaking online game (and a shot at [$30,000 in prize money]()) against his rival, American player Hikaru Nakamura, when his mouse apparently slipped while he was about to take his nemesis' final pawn. The game was in its final seconds when Carlsen placed his queen on the wrong square when trying to take one of Nakamura's pawns, which effectively gave his rival his queen and lost him the game. As the *WSJ* notes, Carlsen's mouse slip was particularly dramatic because it was his last official game as reigning world chess champion, a title he held for nearly a decade until he decided last year not to defend his crown. "What’s happened there?” David Howell, a British grandmaster who served as a commentator on [Chess.com's live stream of the game](), hollered. "Magnus has mouse-slipped!" ## End Times American grandmaster and commentator Robert Hess went on to shout that it was "unbelievable" that Carlsen would make such an error, but as the *WSJ* notes, this actually wasn't his first time losing in such spectacular fashion. Indeed, last year at a tournament in Oslo, the Norwegian grandmaster who had a [record-breaking winning streak]() back in 2020 [*did the exact same thing*]() in a game against Vietnamese champion Quang Liem Le. To be fair, Carlsen and Nakamura's tiebreaking game that ended in a mouse slip was played under "Armageddon" or "sudden death" rules. As the [*Dominate Chess* blog notes](), Armageddon chess is played to break ties after several draws. Whichever player is assigned white by a coin toss gets more time on the clock (usually 5 minutes to black's 4), but black has draw odds, which means that if that player draws, they win outright. During that final dramatic game, Carlsen was playing white. As anticlimactic as the loss was, it almost feels like an allegory for the ways in which chess, an absurdly high-stakes and emotional game, has gone digital — and how, when it comes to the thinking man's sport, we [most certainly aren't in Kansas anymore](). **More on chess:** [*Chess Grandmaster Kasparov: I've Made "Peace" With Robot That Beat My Ass*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()