Anichess Opens Its 'Road to Magnus' Bracket to All Players

Anichess opened its "Road to Magnus" event to all players on June 5, giving any qualifier a path to a seat against five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen. Anichess, a Web3 chess game built on Base and surfaced in the Abstract ecosystem through Abstract Global Wallet, ran the qualification online over the following two weeks before the matches moved to a live stage in Hong Kong.

On June 8, Anichess said the event would let four players compete against Carlsen on June 16. The top two finishers on the Standard leaderboard would take direct seats; everyone else would have to win their way through an open arena.

The open path went up a day later. On June 9, Anichess announced an open qualification tournament for June 13, where strong finishers could earn a place in the bracket.

More than 1,000 players entered a GreenPawns qualifier, Anichess posted, with a single competitor advancing into the top 16 and a match set for the following week.

The knockout went live on June 14: 16 players in a single bracket competing for four seats against Carlsen, streamed on the Anichess YouTube channel and OpenSea. Anichess' partner Chess.com described the same ladder — a Round of 16 and quarterfinals on Sunday 14 June, after which "the top 4 become Magnus Challengers" who "play Magnus Carlsen on stage in Hong Kong."

Anichess is a free-to-play chess game that Animoca Brands built with Chess.com and Carlsen, layering magic-spell mechanics onto standard chess rules, per its launch announcement.

On June 18, Anichess posted that it had organized a live simul with Carlsen at the FIDE World Team Championships in Hong Kong, putting the bracket's qualifiers and an AI opponent across the board from the world number one. The on-stage matches landed two days after the June 16 date Anichess had first announced for the face-off.

The competitive ladder runs on $CHECK (Base-native), which Anichess' documentation calls "the Strategy Token for the Checkmate Ecosystem" — used to enter tournaments, stake for non-transferable Mate Points, and vote on governance proposals.

Anichess closed the run with a full day around Carlsen in Hong Kong on June 23 — a simul, an appearance at the FIDE World Team Championships, and a livestream on OpenSea. The leg paired with a fireside chat Anichess billed as "Checkmate the Future of Strategy," timed to the FIDE World Team Rapid and Blitz Championships running June 17–21, according to Crypto Briefing.

Our read tracks Anichess as Building, on a run of eight tracked events in 30 days against none the month before, held at medium confidence.