M2M Day 335: Attempting to defeat world champion Magnus Carlsen at a game of chess
This post is part of Month to Master, a 12-month accelerated learning project. For October, my goal is to defeat world champion Magnus Carlsen at a game of chess.
Today, I begin the final month and challenge of my M2M project: Can I defeat world champion Magnus Carlsen at a game of chess?
How am I going to do this?
The most immediate question is “How will you actually be able to play Magnus Carlsen, #1-rated chess player in the world, at a game of chess?”
Well, Magnus and his team have released an app called Play Magnus, which features a chess computer that is meant to simulate Magnus as an opponent. In fact, Magnus and team have digitally reconstructed Magnus’s playing style at every age from Age 5 until Age 26 (Magnus’s current age) by using records of his past games.
I will use the Play Magnus app to train, with the goal of defeating Magnus at his current age of 26. Specifically, I hope to do this while playing with the white pieces (which means I get to move first).
My starting point
My dad taught me the rules of chess when I was a kid, and we probably played a game or two per year when I was growing up.
Three years ago, during my senior year at Brown, I first downloaded the Play Magnus app and occasionally played against the computer with limited success.
In the past year, I’ve played a handful of casual games with equally-amateurish friends.
In other words, I’ve played chess before, but I’m definitely not a competitive player, nor do I have any idea what my chess rating would be (chess players are given numeric ratings based on their performance against other players).
This morning, I played five games against the Play Magnus app, winning against Magnus Age 7, winning and losing against Magnus Age 7.5, and winning and losing against Magnus Age 8.
Then, tonight, I filmed a few more games, winning against Magnus 7, Magnus 7.5, and Magnus 8 in a row, and then losing to Magnus 9. (There’s no 8.5 level).
It seems that my current level is somewhere around Magnus Age 8 or Age 9, which is clearly quite far from Magnus 26.
As reference, Magnus became a grandmaster at Age 13.
An extra week
While every challenge of my M2M project has lasted for exactly a month, this challenge is going to be slightly different — although not by much. Rather than ending on October 31, I will be ending this challenge on November 9 (Updated to November 17).
I’d prefer to keep this challenge strictly contained within the month of October, but I think it’s going to be worth bending the format slightly.
Later in the month, I’ll explain why I’ve decided to adjust the format. For now, I can’t say much more.
If anything, I can use the extra training time, especially since this challenge is likely my most ambitious.
Anyway, tomorrow, I’ll start trying to figure out how I’m going to pull this off.
Read the next post. Read the previous post.
