team-india-magnus-carlsen-sportstiger

Chess is a game that has existed for years and is played by millions of people across the globe. With the game requiring a certain amount of intelligence, not everyone can play it but still, it is popular among everyone. While Chess has been played for a long time, it is gaining popularity in India after the country recently hosted World’s biggest chess tournament, the Chess Olympiad. 

It’s not that India has not had great chess players. Vishwanathan Anand has been a name synonymous with chess in India. However, more players are emerging now. And as it’s the case in India, if any sport starts getting bigger and more popular, it is compared with cricket, the most popular sport in the country. The same happened with chess when a Twitter account called Chess as the “new cricket”. 

This tweet attracted some interesting reactions as people shared their perspectives. But the best reaction came from World Champion Magnus Carlsen. The Norwegian listed four reasons while explaining why chess is not cricket. 

4 reasons why chess isn’t cricket:

Cricket is played on a field with humans, chess is played on a board with wooden pieces.

Cricket has a bat and a ball, chess usually doesn’t.

There are 22 players needed for a cricket match, while chess is only two.

I can’t play cricket,” wrote Carlsen quoting the above-mentioned tweet. 

R Praggnanandhaa defeats Magnus Carlsen 

This debate about chess came on the day when Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa defeated World Champion Magnus Carlsen for the third time in six months. The 17-year-old outwitted Magnus Carlsen 4-2 in the final round of the FTX Crypto Cup on Monday. 

Magnus then congratulated Praggnanandhaa in a quirky little tweet in which he said, “Fully deserved, after a performance that showed great resilience, determination, and quality. As for me, I am happy to (barely) be younger than the second and third place finishers combined.”