Estonian gets once-in-a-lifetime chance to play Magnus Carlsen

Estonian chess enthusiast Oskar Taimla got the chance of a lifetime in facing off against five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen, even "beating" him in the process – the game was against the clock, and the Norwegian ran out of time after 30 moves.
The encounter took place at a gaming trade fair in Barcelona, Taimla told "Ringvaade."
"Recently, the ICE gaming fair took place in Barcelona, and my business partner has a very good relationship with a company called BetBy, whose advertising face is the international chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen. One day, Carlsen himself was present at the fair and played two exhibition games, six times over."
"At first, my business partner was offered the chance to play against him, but since he is not a strong chess player himself, he signed me up in his stead," Taimla explained.
"I had heard that the CEO of Bolt had also played chess against Carlsen and was able to last about 20 moves. I set myself the goal that if I could last 20 moves too, I would be very satisfied with myself."
He sought advice from his classmate, a very high-level chess player, as part of his preparation; one piece of advice was, if the opportunity arose, to exchange queens with Carlsen, which is a very unlikely situation, but one definitely worth going for.
In fact, that did happen on the day, though in part because Carlsen was being lenient on his opponents.
"Carlsen surprised me by accepting my queen exchange. This was because it simply took Carlsen a few more moves to checkmate once he didn't have his strongest piece on the board."
Furthermore, the grandmaster was playing two matches at the same time.
"Carlsen played on two boards simultaneously, with white pieces on one and black pieces on the other. The small 'but' was that while Magnus had two minutes to make his moves, his opponents had four minutes. The match ended with Magnus running out of time, and that's how I got my so-called victory," Taimla went on.
He had made 32 moves by the time Carlsen ran out of time, and modestly noted that it was for him a case of saved by the bell, or by the clock.
"If he had had two or three more seconds, I would have made two more moves, and then Carlsen would have definitely checkmated me," Taimla conceded.
The other player Carlsen was simultaneously battling with, being a strong chess player, also helped.
"I think my key to victory wasn't even about what I did or what Magnus Carlsen did, but rather that at the adjacent board, there was a man with an Elo rating over 2000, so Carlsen focused on the man who actually knew how to play chess."
"The main reason Magnus ran out of time in the end was exactly that," Taimla chuckled.
Still, a win is a win...
"While people usually say that things can only get better, well, in this case, if you have defeated Magnus Carlsen, then things can only go downhill from hereon in," Taimla joked.
Magnus Carlsen, 34, has topped the FIDE world chess rankings since 2011 and is second only to Garry Kasparov in terms of time spent as highest-rated player worldwide.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Annika Remmel
Source: "Ringvaade", interviewer Grete Lõbu.