Magnus Carlsen was the star of our fifth anniversary after winning against Peter Svidler in a match we were able to follow along with the players' comments. The event aimed to show what chess24 aspires to be: a place where the best authors teach us chess in a dynamic and fun way. The result was an incredible show!

Peter Svidler is one of our co-workers here on chess24, and hundreds of thousands have already been able to enjoy his commentary and Banter Blitz, but the World Champion Magnus Carlsen chose a very special nickname here on chess24: MagzyBogues, taken from a famous NBA basketball player from the 90s, who was only 1.60 meters tall… If you don’t know him, we highly recommend taking a moment to watch this video:

The format for the match was to play 5-minute blitz games (no increment) until either player had reached 5 points, with both players sharing their thoughts during, and even before, the games! 

The event was dominated by Magnus from start to finish, as he needed only six games to achieve a winning 5.5 - 0.5 score. You can now replay all the games in our normal broadcast system as well as in the Playzone (click on a result to open that game with computer analysis):

It's interesting that the level of Magnus was so high that our anti-cheating system flagged some of the games as potential cheating (automated bans are based on multiple games, except in really blatant cases!). Here you can see the engine data, one of a number of factors taken into account, from the first game:

The way that ended set the scene for the match:

Don't miss the players' full commentary on all of the games!

You can also now watch a version with both players' commentary combined (on different audio channels)!

And here's Jan afterwards beginning his own Banter Blitz session by analysing the games from the match: