About 50 people burst into applause as a lasso from world champion Gukesh almost lands on the neck of a wooden bull that he’s supposed to rein in. Someone informs Ju Wenjun, the women’s world champion and his partner in the challenge, that so far Gukesh has come the closest to throwing the lasso around the neck of the wooden bull.
“That’s good, but do we get any points?” the Chinese grand master wants to know.
Welcome to the Norway Chess Games, an annual rite that happens every year on the first rest day of the tournament. It’s an occasion for players to let their hair down while still competing with each other in unique challenges. Or, in this case, wear their cowboy hats, sport Texas-style leather boots and giddy up for little side quests while forgetting the tension of chess just for a few hours.
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The idea of the event has been to take the players out of their 64-squared comfort zones. In past editions of Norway Chess, players like five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand have had to milk cows, cook halibut with hollandaise sauce, and drive tractors. Other contests have included fencing, archery, playing football while being in a zorb ball, making designs for sweaters.
In past editions of Norway Chess, players like five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand have had to milk cows, cook halibut with hollandaise sauce, and drive tractors.
After missing the event last year, this year’s Norway Chess Games takes the contests to another level by incorporating multiple tasks.
Barring Sara Khadem, who was under the weather, all the players competing in the tournament gathered at Westernbyen, a cowboy ranch of sorts in Algard on Friday. Carlsen competes with his wife Ella since Khadem has dropped out. Gukesh is paired with Wenjun, Arjun Erigaisi and Koneru Humpy join hands in an all-India team while Vaishali is partnered with Fabiano Caruana. The Carlsens win the event, finishing just ahead of Hikaru Nakamura and Anna Muzychuk. The highlight of the day is the Carlsen couple casually roasting each other while also egging each other on in events like lasso throwing.
Each team of two had to go around the facility competing in various tasks which earned them points: there is rifle shooting, axe throwing, lasso throwing, horseshoe pitching and quiz questions. And to top it all off, there’s also a challenge called “posing aesthetically with a pony”, which requires players to get on top of the horse to gain bonus points. A few adventurous ones do this, like Ella, Arjun and Humpy. Gukesh and Wenjun excuse themselves after the Chinese almost pulls a muscle while trying to mount the horse the first time.
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Humpy is among the best at rifle shooting, hitting one in the 10 ring and then proudly taking the target home as a keepsake. “I wish my daughter was here. She would have really enjoyed this,” she says with a grin. At the other end, Wei Yi, who is partnered with compatriot Lei Tingjie, nails a horseshoe pitch.
Tractors, cows, archery
Past editions of the Norway Chess games have led to some hilarious tales that will go down in chess folklore. There was the time when Dutch GM Anish Giri tried to warm up for an event by running laps around an athletics track. But by the time he finished his warm up laps, he was so out of breath that he could not compete.
But the most famous tale at the event is when former world champion Ding Liren joined hands with Anand to compete in the cooking contest and win, despite having a fractured hip. The story goes that Ding had gone cycling on the rest day in the morning and had crashed, leading to a hip injury. But he thought he could walk it off, so despite being in severe pain, he had shown up for the cooking contest to partner Anand. He spent the whole contest in a chair, unable to stand up, but ended up chopping veggies for Anand. Recently in an event organised by Norway Chess in Mumbai, Anand had called winning that cooking contest as his favourite memory from the event.
“Ding couldn’t even move. He could not get out of the chair. He could just cut the vegetables. He cut them so accurately, slicing them in perfect cubes. We were given halibut and we were supposed to prepare it with hollandaise sauce,” Anand recently recollected.
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Anand recalled that one of the reasons he loved that win was because other competitors like Levon Aronian and Maxime Vachier Lagrave had spent time talking up their cooking abilities. Levon bragged in great detail about how he had learnt cooking from his great grandmother. He said he had amazing recipes for Thai dishes. Maxime, meanwhile, just said that he was French so he was a great hand at cooking. Anand admits to making one blunder at the event: he put the fish into the oven and pressed a button. He thought the oven was on, but realised five minutes later it wasn’t.
“I lost some time there. But my hollandaise sauce was apparently perfect,” Anand said before pointing out that his wife had tasted it and given it her seal of approval.
“But I suffered when I had to milk a cow one year. I won the cooking show but the cow milking did not work out well,” Anand had recently admitted on the Norway Chess broadcast where Gukesh spoke about his experience in 2023 when players were asked to design a sweater pattern and then knit it. He was then asked if he was ready to compete at whatever the organisers had in store for him on Friday. When asked if he would like dancing, he said he would do okay with that.
“As long as there is no cooking and there is some sport I should do okay,” he grinned.
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(The writer is in Stavanger at the invitation of Norway Chess)
