Magnus Carlsen has spent his career making opponents uncomfortable across the board. On Thursday, he managed to do it before the pieces were even touched.
During the early rounds of the Grenke Chess Freestyle Open in Karlsruhe, Germany, Carlsen was paired against Alua Nurman, Kazakhstan’s No. 2 Woman player and a 2024 Woman Grandmaster.
Before their Round 2 match got underway, Nurman pulled out her phone and asked the world No. 1 for a selfie. Carlsen smiled and posed with her without hesitation.
Then Carlsen got up and found a tournament arbiter. He brought the official directly to their table, where the arbiter promptly took Nurman’s phone away.
Tournament rules at competitive chess events prohibit players from keeping phones with them during matches to prevent any possibility of outside assistance, and the rule is standard. What raised eyebrows was not the enforcement itself, but the manner in which it happened.
Carlsen had just taken the selfie using the very phone he then flagged to a third party. A quiet word to Nurman would have handled it without incident. Instead, he walked to an official and let the confrontation play out directly at the board.
After the arbiter confiscated the phone, he looked over at Carlsen and gestured to confirm whether everything was now in order. Carlsen nodded. He offered Nurman a handshake, and the game began.
Carlsen won, as he tends to. The 35-year-old is a five-time World Champion and record 21-time world titleholder who went undefeated across all nine rounds at last year’s Grenke Chess Freestyle Open. Early signs in 2026 suggest he is on a similar trajectory.
For Nurman, the result on the board may ultimately be the least memorable part of the day. Getting to compete against the world’s top-ranked player is a rare opportunity for any rising competitor. Getting to compete against him after he flagged you to an official over a selfie he willingly posed for is a rather different experience altogether.
Carlsen is no stranger to off-board headlines. At Norway Chess, he drew attention after losing to Gukesh Dommaraju and reacting by slamming the table.
