Carlsen Makes Winning Debut For St. Pauli In Chess Bundesliga

"It's of course very, very nice to start off married life as a chess player with a win!” said GM Magnus Carlsen after beating GM Max Warmerdam in Hamburg, Germany, on Saturday. His first classical game in almost four months helped St. Pauli score their first win of the 2024-5 Chess Bundesliga season, while on Sunday, he drew against GM Wei Yi as the team narrowly lost to co-leaders Dusseldorf. Many stars were in action, including GM Alireza Firouzja, whose Baden-Baden slipped to defeat against GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov’s Viernheim on Saturday.

• Magnus Carlsen Makes Debut For St. Pauli
• Baden-Baden Lose, Setting Up Dusseldorf Showdown

Magnus Carlsen Makes Debut For St. Pauli

“I am pleased to be part of the coolest brand in Germany,” Carlsen said last May when it was announced that he’d play for St. Pauli's chess team. The soccer team, based in the Hamburg district which includes the Reeperbahn, is known for its passionate fans and left-wing politics. Carlsen is a fan of the club, having watched a game in the Millerntor Stadium in 2016, while his participation was made possible by financial support from Freestyle Chess founder Jan Henric Buettner and the Weissenhaus Chess Academy.

It then took until the third weekend of the season, rounds five and six, for Carlsen to line up for the team.

The eagle has landed 😀🇳🇴🇩🇪 pic.twitter.com/kAAcWBai8N

— Schachbundesliga (@SchachBL) January 11, 2025

That meant his honeymoon after marrying Ella Victoria Malone on January 4 had lasted less than a week, with Magnus telling WIM Fiona Steil Antoni, "I’ve had a very, very nice last week and today is kind of back to work."

Since the football team was playing Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday (a 0-1 loss), no venue in the stadium was available, with the chess instead taking place in the nearby Brahms Kontor office building. St. Pauli press officer Alexandra Leib told the German Chess Federation that they'd been able to sell only 15 tickets a day for the small venue while there was demand for 1,500.

Both the St. Pauli teams are newly promoted to their top divisions, and both have been struggling. The chess St. Pauli had lost three matches and drawn one as they began their seven-month campaign, but Carlsen would make an immediate impact.

He said of St. Pauli's fortunes: "The team obviously didn’t have the best start to the season, so I think at this point we’re just trying to climb up the table slowly, and of course I was happy to help today!"

He helped with a win over Dutch GM Warmerdam as he played his first classical game since the 45th FIDE Chess Olympiad in September.

Magnus Carlsen makes his debut for FC St. Pauli in the German Chess Bundesliga. And in case you were wondering: he's wearing jeans. pic.twitter.com/Ue2OggO8xC

— Florian Pütz (@FloPuetz) January 11, 2025

The game was noteworthy for Carlsen taking a long think over how to respond to his opponent's 1.c4. He explained afterward:

I really wanted to play a proper game, not for this to be some kind of short draw, and 1.c4 was a very nice surprise to have because then it’s usually not that easy to completely flatten out the game. It showed that he had some ambition as well, so I was considering different options. 

In the end, the English turned into a King's Indian Defense, with the next key moment coming when Carlsen went for 9...e4!?. The commentating GM Hikaru Nakamura quickly labeled the move "a bluff" and felt it could end badly.

Nakamura thinks Carlsen could get into real trouble after Ng5: "Magnus is completely bluffing with 9...e4!?"https://t.co/iU9RYai1f2 pic.twitter.com/apQr20UDIB

— chess24 (@chess24com) January 11, 2025

Carlsen later used the same word when talking to Steil-Antoni: "It was kind of a bluff—I just thought it looked interesting and I wanted to pose him some fresh problems."

It was kind of a bluff—I just thought it looked interesting and I wanted to pose him some fresh problems.

—Magnus Carlsen on his 9...e4 vs. Warmerdam

He explained how he decides to opt for such a move: "I just try to make sure that it’s not horrible, that at least there are practical chances afterwards, and that’s really all I had to go by." He added, "I've played a lot worse positions!" 

The gamble worked, as on move 11, Warmerdam went for 11.c5?! (instead of 11.Bg5!) with Nakamura announcing, "The bluff pays off completely for Magnus!"

Carlsen called the move "a very pleasant surprise," and went on to win convincingly, though he noted he couldn't stop himself from playing fast in his opponent's time trouble:

It’s very hard not to, that’s the problem! I’ve played chess for many years, but still, I was thinking about it during the game that my brain automatically still goes, 'opponent in time trouble, I should play quickly!' 

My brain automatically still goes, 'opponent in time trouble, I should play quickly!'

—Magnus Carlsen

Carlsen summed up the game: "Everything sort of went completely according to plan today—I got a nice complicated position, which was just what I was hoping for, and from there on it seemed everything was flowing quite well."

Carlsen commented on playing his first game as a married man: "It’s just one game, so the sample size is very small, but it’s of course very, very nice to start off married life as a chess player with a win!"

It's of course very, very nice to start off married life as a chess player with a win!

—Magnus Carlsen

Nakamura also recapped the game.

Saturday was a perfect day for Team Magnus in more ways than one. As well as St. Pauli winning 5.5-2.5, Carlsen's coach, GM Peter Heine Nielsen, also scored a convincing 27-move win over German IM Alexander Krastev.  

Peter Heine Nielsen follows in the footsteps of his boss and scores a 2nd win for St. Pauli after White resigned with crushing tactics in the air! https://t.co/euarYMuNid pic.twitter.com/2nrSS4tYXW

— chess24 (@chess24com) January 11, 2025

"I talk about being half-retired, but Peter is properly retired!" said Carlsen, and Nielsen himself explained he hadn't played in 4.5 years, or 5.5 if you discount a game in the Danish League. He told Steil-Antoni that playing again was "a bit of a shocking experience," adding that it was the first time his kids had watched him play online, "so I was a bit nervous for a number of reasons, but that was one of them!"

Nielsen noted he had played in the same team as Carlsen before but that it was very nice to get to play with the current Danish number-one, GM Jonas Buhl Bjerre, for the first time. Bjerre beat a fellow Dane, GM Mads Andersen, with Nielsen later revealing that the two players had shared a hotel room to save money during the World Rapid & Blitz Championships in New York. He commented, "Really have to respect that they play a game instead of making a draw!"

Really have to respect that they play a game instead of making a draw!

—Peter Heine Nielsen on Danish friends Bjerre and Andersen

The only player to lose for St. Pauli on the first day was GM David Howell, who was punished by GM Erwin l'Ami after rejecting the chance to make an early draw by repetition. Sunday's 10 a.m. match wouldn't go as smoothly for St. Pauli, however, as they faced the powerful Dusseldorf team sponsored by Wadim Rosenstein.

There had been much intrigue about the top-board pairing since Dusseldorf's line-up includes World Champion GM Gukesh Dommaraju and world number-four GM Arjun Erigaisi, who are both playing in Wijk aan Zee in a few days' time and would have surprised no one if they'd shown up for the game.

Gukesh, however, turned out to be back in his native Chennai, India, where he was having breakfast... and dancing at the home of GM Viswanathan Anand! 

Impromptu dance ft. @vishy64theking @DGukesh @rpraggnachess @viditchess @sagarchess1 @ChessbaseIndia and others! pic.twitter.com/ZIzwKaqRMd

— Chess.com - India (@chesscom_in) January 12, 2025

Dusseldorf's GM Wei Yi wasn't a bad replacement, however, with the Chinese GM moving up to world number-eight after holding Carlsen to a draw in a sharp Sicilian battle.

The world number-one's appearance for St. Pauli drew extensive coverage in Germany, including on the Tagesschau TV show. 

The match was notable for Carlsen seconds, good friends, and Chicken Chess Club founders Nielsen and GM Jan Gustafsson facing off against each other. It went roughly as expected!

No @chicken_chess members were harmed in the making of this game! https://t.co/1lleDgnrZc pic.twitter.com/odQkWop0J8

— chess24 (@chess24com) January 12, 2025

Elsewhere, however, there was drama. GM Jorden van Foreest struck for Dusseldorf with a game that had already been spectacular before the Dutchman managed to transport his knight from b3 to f5 via the seemingly unavailable d4-square!  

GM Bartosz Socko hit back with a big win for St. Pauli when he found a nice trick and then watched GM Raunak Sadhwani collapse in what should have been a close-to-equal position.

That made it 2/2 for the weekend for Socko, but the match was clinched by 19-year-old GM Javokhir Sindarov, who made it 5/5 in the Bundesliga this season by grinding out a tricky endgame win against GM Johan-Sebastian Christiansen. 

That took Sindarov above 2700 on the live rating list, while the player Sindarov lost to in the final of the Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Play-In, GM Vladimir Fedoseev, also had a great weekend, scoring 2/2 for Bayern Munich and moving up to world number-24. 

Baden-Baden Lose, Setting Up Dusseldorf Showdown

The win for Dusseldorf means they have a perfect 5/5 match wins, for 10 points, though they're currently edged out of first place by perennial Bundesliga champions Baden-Baden.

The big asterisk, however, is that Baden-Baden have played one more match, and after four wins, they lost to Viernheim, who had been underperforming this year so far but have a formidable team (with reinforcements, such as Nakamura, available).

It all came down to a rook endgame win for GM David Anton against GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov, but there could have been decisive games elsewhere, most notably in GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac's clash with GM Anton Korobov. Deac had a winning position but blundered with 80.g6?, which ran into a nice stalemate trick. 

Kasimdzhanov, meanwhile, would redeem himself, since in the next match he scored the only win as Baden-Baden surprisingly only scraped a 4.5-3.5 win against bottom-placed Heimbach-Weis. Everyone else on the team drew both games over the weekend, dropping a couple of rating points each.

Viernheim kept their title hopes alive by following a win over Baden-Baden by an equally narrow win over Deizisau, with the heroes GMs Aravindh Chithambaram (the Indian GM has now edged up to world number-22, above GM Anish Giri) and Parham Maghsoodloo, who scored a swashbuckling win that was very much in his style. 

Maghsoodloo is showing his dramatic win over Gledura! https://t.co/kdLhBaUuJz pic.twitter.com/KYFTlUFFZ6

— chess24 (@chess24com) January 12, 2025

The big event on the horizon is the meeting of Baden-Baden and Dusseldorf in round seven on February 1 (the last weekend of Tata Steel Chess), when Baden-Baden is in close to a must-win situation given they've played one match more. 

The German Bundesliga 2024-2025 is a 16-team (one dropped out) league played over seven weekends in various venues around Germany that runs from September 2024 to April 2025. There are 15 rounds, with all the teams coming together for the final three rounds in Deggendorf. Each team fields eight players for each round, with two match points for a team win and one for a draw. The time control is classical: 100 minutes for 40 moves + 50 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment from move one.