In partnership with

Stay up-to-date with AI

The Rundown is the most trusted AI newsletter in the world, with 1,000,000+ readers and exclusive interviews with AI leaders like Mark Zuckerberg, Demis Hassibis, Mustafa Suleyman, and more.

Their expert research team spends all day learning what’s new in AI and talking with industry experts, then distills the most important developments into one free email every morning.

Plus, complete the quiz after signing up and they’ll recommend the best AI tools, guides, and courses – tailored to your needs.

Sign up to start learning.

Magnus Carlsen Crushed ChatGPT at Chess (And the AI Had No Idea Who It Was Playing)

Picture this: You're the world chess champion, stuck on a plane with nothing to do. What's your move?

If you're Magnus Carlsen, you fire up ChatGPT and challenge it to a game. Then you absolutely destroy it in 53 moves without losing a single piece.

But here's the kicker - ChatGPT thought it was playing some random 1800-rated player.

The Setup

Carlsen posted the whole thing on X with a casual "I sometimes get bored while travelling." Classic Magnus energy. The screenshots show him methodically picking apart ChatGPT's position while the AI cheerfully chatted away, completely oblivious to who was dismantling its defenses.

And ChatGPT? It was polite as hell the entire time. Even while getting steamrolled.

The Beatdown

This wasn't even close. Carlsen played like a surgeon - precise, clean, ruthless. ChatGPT's pawns vanished one by one. Its pieces got tangled up. The AI couldn't create any threats.

By move 53, ChatGPT had nothing left. All its pawns were gone. Carlsen hadn't lost a single piece.

The resignation message was pure ChatGPT: "All my pawns are gone. You haven't lost a single piece... I resign. That was methodical, clean and sharp."

Even in defeat, it was giving compliments.

The Hilarious Aftermath

After the game, ChatGPT did what it always does - it analyzed everything and showered praise on its opponent. It broke down Carlsen's opening, his tactics, his endgame technique. Called it "impressive precision" and said only someone with "real over-the-board experience" could play like that.

Then came the comedy gold.

ChatGPT estimated Carlsen's rating at around 1800-2000.

Magnus Carlsen. The guy who's been world champion for over a decade. Rated 2839.

The AI thought it lost to a decent club player.

The Internet Loses Its Mind

Chess Twitter exploded. The memes were instant.

"ChatGPT always glazes everybody, so Carlsen's real strength is probably 1200 tops."

"Deep Blue wasn't talking mad shit when it beat Kasparov. It smashed him in silence."

People pointed out you could probably tell ChatGPT you're Magnus Carlsen and it would believe you, then proceed to underestimate your rating anyway.

The tech blogs had a field day. Headlines like "Take that, OpenAI!" started popping up everywhere.

What This Actually Means

Here's the thing - ChatGPT isn't a chess engine. It's not trying to be Stockfish. It's a language model that can play chess, but it's not built for it.

The real chess AIs would obliterate Carlsen. They've been doing it to grandmasters for decades.

But ChatGPT? It's just winging it. Making moves based on patterns it learned from text, not from millions of chess calculations per second.

That's why it can chat about the game afterward but can't actually play it at a high level.

The Bigger Picture

This whole thing perfectly captures where we are with AI right now. These systems can talk about anything, analyze everything, even play decent chess. But they don't really understand what they're doing.

ChatGPT gave Carlsen a thoughtful post-game analysis while completely missing that it just played the strongest human who ever lived.

It's like having a conversation with someone who's read every book about swimming but has never been in water.

The Takeaway

Carlsen's bored airplane chess match became a perfect reminder that AI still has blind spots. Big ones.

Sure, ChatGPT can write code, explain quantum physics, and debate philosophy. But it thought the world chess champion was rated 1800.

Maybe that's the most human thing about it - being confidently wrong while staying completely polite.

And honestly? That's kind of endearing.

Just don't challenge it to chess unless you want to become part of internet history.