Magnus Carlsen suffered a rare double defeat in classical chess this week at Wijk aan Zee, the “chess Wimbledon”. On Tuesday the 32-year-old Norwegian resigned to the Netherlands No 1 and world No 5, Anish Giri, whose only previous win against the world No 1 in classical chess was 12 years ago to the day, also at Wijk.
Two days later, after Wednesday’s rest day, Carlsen lost again, beaten by the fast rising 18-year-old from Uzbekistan, Nodirbek Abdusattorov. It was the first time for more than seven years that Carlsen had lost two classical games in a row, and it took him down to 10th place out of the 13 grandmasters at Wijk.
