The highest rated chess player of all time, Magnus Carlsen, played one of the worst possible opening moves dubbed the Bongcloud Attack in a recent tournament against fellow grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura.

When Nakamura saw the stupid move, he couldn’t stop laughing and matched Carlsen’s stupid play beat for beat. The two chess champions laughed themselves silly while the commentators stammered in shock: Both men had deployed the Bongcloud Attack, one of chess’ worst possible opening moves.

It’s called the Blongcloud Attack because it’s a move so stupid only somebody high off their mind would actually come up with it.

As a meme opening, the Bongcloud Attack goes against basic principles of chess strategy. White blocks the diagonals for the bishop and queen and loses the ability to castle, putting the king in danger. Other openings in which either player makes an unorthodox king move within the first three moves have also been dubbed the Bongcloud.

Both of them had already qualified for the next round so they were just messing around, but it’s fun to see super high level people goofing like this. And by “goofing like this” I mean deploying my own personal chess strategies which have netted me a negative Elo rating. Didn’t know negative Elo ratings were even possible? I don’t like to brag, but they weren’t until I came around.

Keep going for the video clip of the two grandmasters cracking up.

Source: Geekologie – Chess world champion Magnus Carlsen plays ‘Bongcloud Attack’ meme opening in tournament