Duda Breaks the Streak

Magnus Carlsen went into round five of the 2020 Altibox Norway Chess tournament unbeaten in classical chess for two years, two months and ten days, a run of 125 games that had become one of the most talked about records in the sport. Jan Krzysztof Duda, then 22 and rated well over a hundred points below Carlsen, ended it here with the white pieces.

The opening was a Caro Kann, and Duda chose the sharper plan of castling queenside rather than mirroring Carlsen's structure. Carlsen sacrificed the exchange on move 19 for activity, a typically ambitious try, but Duda kept finding accurate moves through the ensuing complications and eventually converted his extra material into a mating attack on Carlsen's exposed king around move 63.

The result made headlines well beyond the chess world. It was also a rematch in miniature: Duda beat Carlsen again the following year at the FIDE World Cup, on his way to winning that event outright, and the two remain one of the more genuinely competitive rivalries at the top of the game.