4 min readNew DelhiMay 5, 2026 09:27 PM IST
It was pitch black. Jorden van Foreest woke up in total panic, unaware of his whereabouts. The alarm was deafening and he had no idea what was going on. A fire alarm and just 45 minutes of sleep. That was the chaotic beginning to the Dutch Grandmaster’s day at the Elite Plaza Hotel in the Swedish town of Malmö, the venue of the TePe Sigeman Chess tournament. van Foreest, along with the rest of the players and guests, was evacuated from the hotel, only to learn later that it was a false alarm. He later told Chess.com, “I had no idea where the hell I am and it was completely pitch black in my room and the sound was so incredibly loud.”
The man who woke up in complete “panic and disorientiation” wasn’t aware then, but the day was about to deliver the biggest win of his chess career as he took down Norwegian maestro and World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen just a few hours later.
A wild fourth round tie between van Foreest and Carlsen carried the same sense of panic, with the evaluation bar forced to dance with each move in the endgame.
Beating Carlsen is one thing. Outplaying him in classical chess, that too in the endgame, remains the ultimate goal for most players. The five time world champion had made this almost a certainty that classical endgames against him end in only two ways, either a hard fought draw or the Norwegian walking away with full points.
Wielding the white pieces, van Foreest and Carlsen ventured into the Sicilian Najdorf. Carlsen took an early eight minute think on just the sixth move. By the eighth move, he allowed an exchange of queens, then sank into another deep thought, this time burning 25 minutes on a single move. Half his clock was already gone.
Slowly, the white pieces began enjoying more space on the board. Carlsen’s black pieces, meanwhile, suddenly lacked the right squares. Then came the moment. Van Foreest’s 21st move, knight to c6, brought his piece dangerously close to Carlsen’s king. Chess.com deemed it a brilliancy.
Carlsen faced a brutal choice. He could capture the knight, but that would mean losing his cornered rook. With no better moves available, he was forced to take the knight anyway. Van Foreest was now a pawn up.
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The game had entered rare territory. Carlsen sat in an inferior position with less than two minutes left on his clock. Van Foreest still had over 13 minutes. What followed was Carlsen’s signature long grind, the kind where he usually churns water into wine. But this time, the Dutch kept grinding too.
The game ebbed and flowed for the next 60 moves, seemingly heading toward another shared spoil. Carlsen was turning out to be the slippery customer he always is. But then came a final mistake on the 86th move. This time, there was no comeback for the Norwegian.
Carlsen had an amusing look on his face. Confused, rather, a bit frustrated with himself as well, but there was no slam on the table this time around, unlike the last time he had lost a classical match when Gukesh had beaten him in his backyard at the 2025 Norway Chess. Carlsen simply leaned back and engaged in a long discussion with his former second, a player against whom he had an overwhelmingly favoured head to head record.
In a career full of impossible escapes and last minute magic, Carlsen had finally run out of miracles and for van Foreest, the fire alarm was false but the upset was not.
