Twitch streamer Eric Hansen, who streams as the main host of the ‘Chessbrah’ channel, couldn’t believe his eyes after securing a victory over world chess champion Magnus Carlsen.
Magnus is one of the biggest names in the history of chess. He’s dominated the scene for years, having become world champion in 2013, and very few Grand Masters have managed to get the better of him at all in classical chess games.
Hansen is clearly an accomplished chess player himself. He was awarded GM status in 2013 and is ranked 237th on the FIDE rankings, but a win against Magnus is huge for just about anyone in the world of chess.
This is especially true for Chessbrah, with his legion of Twitch fans in support, who hasn’t quite been competing on the same high level as Carlsen and some of his other opponents in the Champions Chess Tour’s Airthings Masters.
While playing in the preliminary stage of the Airthings Masters, Hansen — who entered the tournament as the second-lowest ranked player there — came up against some chess elites, facing not only Magnus Carlsen but also his 2021 challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi.
There weren’t very high expectations set on Hansen going into the tournament, but he found himself beating Carlsen in Round 10 of the tournament, much to everyone’s surprise.
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It wasn’t exactly an outplay: Carlsen appeared to misclick and make a bad move, which opened up the board for Hansen to take the win. Aware of his blunder, Carlsen opted to resign instead of letting the game play out, giving an astonished Hansen the win.
Hansen ended up qualifying to the prelims in 5th place, with Nepomniachtchi and Carlsen 1st and 2nd respectively.
Unfortunately for him and his Twitch fans, Hansen lost to Andrey Esipenko in the quarterfinals of the knockout stage of the tournament, sending him packing.