In an incredibly rare moment in chess, world No 1 Magnus Carlsen found himself getting checkmated by a ‘National Master’ with a rating below 2200 after committing a blunder with a bishop and later falling for a bait in the form of a queen sacrifice.
It’s rare for Magnus Carlsen to lose a game of chess, much less get checkmated, and even rarer for the world No 1 to get checkmated by a player who happens to be a National Master with a rating below 2200. After all, leading names such as world No 2 Hikaru Nakamura and world champion D Gukesh struggle when they come face to face with the 35-year-old Norwegian Grandmaster, widely regarded as one of the greatest of all time if not the best.
And yet that is exactly what happened when world No 1 Carlsen was up against NM Jacorey Bynum at the recent Titled Tuesday, Chess.com’s weekly online Blitz tournament that features titled players which includes some of the biggest names from across the world.
And in this instance, 19-year-old Bynum – who has a Classical rating of 2175 – caught the five-time world champion by surprise with a queen sacrifice, and would earn an applause from the icon by checkmating him right after.
Watch:
NM Jacorey Bynum sacs the queen to checkmate Magnus Carlsen ‼ pic.twitter.com/O17BrzWNks
— Take Take Take (@TakeTakeTakeApp) January 27, 2026
Both Carlsen, playing as black, and Bynum had their queens on the board along with a rook each and an even distribution of pawns after 30 moves. While Carlsen also had a knight on the board, Bynum had both of his bishops intact.
How a queen sacrifice led to Carlsen getting checkmated
The game began developing along the right side of the board (from Bynum’s perspective) where Carlsen’s king was being protected by his queen and a knight with his rook close by. Bynum offered his queen up for a sacrifice by capturing a pawn (35. Qxh5+) that was standing guard right on front of the black king.
Carlsen, might not have sensed any danger at the time considering neither of his opponent’s bishops had a direct line of sight with his king. What he failed to realise, however, was that Bynum’s rook was positioned perfectly at b7 to box his king into a checkmate, if he had indeed fallen for the trap.
Realistically speaking though, there was little Carlsen could have done once he committed a major blunder by nudging his bishop by a square to d4 instead of further blocking the queen’s path by moving the ‘G’ pawn forward, thereby opening up more space for the king.
Once the queen moved right in front of the king, with Bynum’s rook lurking closeby, Carlsen might as well have raised the white flag of surrender. His reaction certainly suggested that he had realised his grave mistake a little too late. Instead, he went the full distance and gave the American teenager a huge confidence booster as well as bragging rights for the future in the form of a checkmate.
End of Article
