My game against Magnus

Last Sunday I played against play Magnus Carlsen. It wasn´t a simultaneous game, it was not online blitz, it was not any kind of exhibition. It was a proper, official, standard time chess game. How can a 2130 ELO amateur play against the World Champion?

The story starts several months ago, when Carlsen decided to create his own chess team in Oslo, Offerspill. I am not going to talk abouth his reasons, they have been discussed in many places (for example here) and I am not inside his head and do not know what he really thinks. The reality is that he created a chess club, and then assembled a strong lineup. I guess his intention is to win the Norwegian Championship, but new clubs cannot start inmediately in Eliteserien (the top division in Norwegian team chess, and the only one that covers the whole country). But, given how strong the team was, they were allowed to start in the Eastern Norway First Division, just one step down from Eliteserien. It is a championship for strong but still amateur players where the mean ELO is 2052 and the strongest player you usually find is a 2300 IM. 

In fact Offerspill is so strong that they do not need Carlsen at all to win. He played in the first two rounds and then did not play again, and his team won match after match. Before playing the last round Offerspill was already the champion, which grants them a place in the play-off to get to Eliteserien. In this last round they were facing Stjernen, my team, which was in a quite respectful fourth position. Nobody expected Carlsen to play this last game, but he did. I have no idea about his reasons, I just know that I arrived to the playing hall and one of my teammates came to me smiling and said: "You have a tough game today". 

And just like this, I played against Magnus Carlsen. And with black. I was a bit nervous in the first moves, I did not want to make a horrible blunder in the opening and waste this opportunity. After a few moves I managed to relax and tried to play my game, just looking for the best move and playing it. But of course I was wiped out from the board. I made a mistake and he easily found the best and most direct way to punish it. This is the game:

It seems like white won extremely easy. I am not sure if I played worse than I usally do, or it is just that Carlsen made it seem very simple. Anyway, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I am happy of just having this chance.