Gerard Pique, former Barcelona and Spain defender, sat in the audience at the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam in Las Vegas, utterly baffled. Magnus Carlsen had just let go of his queen in a seemingly reckless move against Levon Aronian. Yet, the world’s number one still win.
Carlsen, playing with the black pieces, faced Aronian in the second round of the group stage on July 16. By move 26, tension peaked. Aronian’s white rook on f1 launched an attack on the black queen stationed at f8. But Carlsen, calm as ever, ignored the threat and instead captured the bishop on d3 with his e4 pawn.
That moment of sacrifice stunned the crowd, and especially Pique.
“I was really surprised,” Pique said after the match. “I didn’t understand why Carlsen gave up his queen like that. For a second, I thought he had messed up. But then I saw he did it on purpose to gain a better position. It was fascinating.”
Pique, 38, was invited to the Wynn Las Vegas Hotel to witness the tournament and meet some of the sport’s biggest stars. On July 16, he shook hands with Carlsen before the group stage began. Pique also caught up with Hikaru Nakamura, who greeted him with a warm smile and brief chat. Carlsen, on the other hand, offered only a handshake, perhaps because he’s a fan of Real Madrid, archrivals to Pique’s beloved Barcelona.
Though Pique admitted he doesn’t understand many chess moves, he said watching Carlsen play was a thrill. “He’s a legend,” Pique added. “Even if I don’t always follow what’s going on, I enjoy seeing how top players think and play.”
In reality, Carlsen’s so-called “blunder” was a calculated queen sacrifice, the only move that preserved his winning advantage. It took him just over 30 seconds to spot it, showing once again his uncanny sense for dynamic positions.
Here’s what happened: after 26.Rf1, when the white rook chased the black queen, Carlsen refused to flee. Instead, he captured the bishop on d3. That sequence set off a powerful chain of threats. Black’s e4-pawn was now eyeing e2, and his dark-squared bishop aimed at the knight on d2. With both threats looming, the black rook was ready to swing to f1 for a deadly checkmate.
Aronian tried to stem the bleeding by maneuvering his knight to f3, shielding the f-file and defending the e2-pawn with his queen. But Magnus Carlsen wasn’t finished. He offered a pawn sacrifice on d2, daring White to take. Accepting would lead to the loss of the knight, or worse, checkmate. Declining it wasn’t any better, as Carlsen’s rook would then join the fray via d8, supporting the advancing pawn.
Cornered, Aronian captured the d2 pawn and lost his knight. Carlsen, now armed with a rook and two bishops, overwhelmed the white queen with relentless pressure. Aronian fought on but was forced to resign by move 35.
While Carlsen’s win over Aronian was a masterpiece, it didn’t secure his path forward. In the group stage play-offs, Carlsen faced Aronian again. This time, the result flipped. Aronian won both matches, knocking Carlsen out of title contention and into the lower bracket.
Still, Carlsen wasn’t ready to pack his bags. On the second day of competition, July 17, he rebounded by winning two games in the lower bracket against India’s Vidit Santosh Gujrathi, staving off elimination.
Meanwhile, the upper bracket produced another shock. Hikaru Nakamura, one of the tournament favorites, fell to Aronian 1.5–2.5. That win pushed Aronian into the semi-finals, where he will meet Fabiano Caruana, the American grandmaster who overcame Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu in the quarter-finals.
The other semi-final will see a showdown between Hans Niemann and Arjun Erigaisi. Niemann beat Uzbekistan’s Javokhir Sindarov in a tense 4–2 match, while Erigaisi dispatched Nodirbek Abdusattorov with a clean 1.5–0.5 scoreline.
Pique, who learned chess from a coach at Barcelona and often played both chess and poker afterward, may not grasp all the intricacies of the game, but in Las Vegas, he witnessed firsthand how even a queen’s fall doesn’t spell defeat in Carlsen’s world.
Gerard Pique is the founder and president of Kosmos Holding, a company that invests in sports and media. One of Kosmos’s biggest projects was a 25-year, $3 billion deal with the International Tennis Federation (ITF) to change and improve the Davis Cup. The goal was to make the tournament more exciting and bring in more money to help tennis grow worldwide.
Pique also owns the Spanish football club FC Andorra, which he bought in December 2018 through Kosmos. On May 21, 2022, the team made history by moving up to Spain’s second division (Segunda División) for the first time after beating UCAM Murcia 1–0. In July 2019, Pique also took control of another Spanish football club, Gimnàstic Manresa, again using Kosmos.
Pique is also the president and owner of the Kings League, a new football league based in Barcelona. This league is different. Its teams are owned by popular content creators from Twitch, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.
I’m Xuan Binh, the founder of Attacking Chess, and the Deputy Head of Communications at the Vietnam Chess Federation (VCF). My chess.com and lichess rating is above 2300, in both blitz and bullet.