Magnus Carlson Wins Against the World in the G-Star RAW World Chess Challenge.

 

G-Star RAW held the RAW World Chess Challenge on the rooftop of the Cooper Square Hotel Friday, September 10th where the world's number one ranked chess player and youngest grandmaster, Magnus Carlson played against the world.

There was a stunning view of the rooftops of the Lower East Side of Manhattan as press and VIPs sipped G-Star branded champagne and mingled around a glass enclosure surrounded by large iMacs. The enclosure housed Magnus, who sat in front of a large chessboard, and three grandmasters, Maxine Vachier-Lagrave of France, Hikaru Nakamura of the US and Judit Polgar of Hungary, who each sat in front of a computer station to offer advice to the world. The iMacs showed a virtual chess board, a live video feed of Magnus and three voting boxes to view what play from which grandmaster got the most votes from the world. Also in the enclosure, providing a play by play of the match, were Maurice Ashley, the only African-American chess grandmaster, and Garry Kasparov, who can arguably be called the most famous chess player in the world.

Ashley and Kasparov were engaging in their commentary, keeping the language simple enough for us non-chess players to follow, with Ashley providing some particularly humorous comments from time to time. Phrases and descriptions like "bullet chess" to describe the speed of Nakamura and "[We're seeing] funky, inconsistent chess from the world" to illustrate the world's voting patterns, were common in the Sportcenter-style dialogue. A particularly funny comment from Ashley was "the world is suffering" which had many of us chuckling out loud as Magnus began to take the advantage over the world. G-Star couldn't have picked two better individuals to commentate as they added a level of excitement that made viewing a game of chess feel like watching American Football.

In the end, the world proved no match for the world's number one as Magnus won in 44 moves in 2 1/2 hours. G-Star's current face, Liv Tyler was on hand to present her fellow campaign model with the trophy.