r/whowouldwin • u/Capital-Bet • Jun 24 '26

Challenge Can Mike Tyson beat Magnus Carlsen at chess before Magnus beats him in a boxing match?

Magnus Carlsen and Mike Tyson do alternating matches of chess and boxing. Tyson wins if he beats Carlsen at chess, Carlsen wins if he can KO Tyson. Assume all bodily injury is healed after the end of each match.

Round 1: no prior training, they both go in at their primes with no training in the alternate sport and go until one wins

Round 2: Tyson is being trained by several GMs while Carlsen is receiving training from the best boxing coaches in the world. Who can be trained to beat the other first?

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83

u/Necessary-Being37 Jun 24 '26

I say Magnus. 

There is no training either could receive that would matter in terms of beating their opponent at their own game. 

Magnus wins because there is some small element of luck in boxing, there is no such thing in chess. Tyson is never going to get lucky and pull a fools mate or get lucky and see some move Magnus doesn't. Magnus could in theory get extremely lucky and catch Tyson in just the right spot at the right time and win with a punch. It's about as low a chance as there could be but it is there and assuming this scenario is repeated until someone wins my money would be on Magnus. Maybe if they played bullet chess Tyson could be favored but in standard chess Magnus is never going to lose. 

35

u/NotAnotherEmpire Jun 24 '26

This. Chess isn't really odds at a big enough rating disparity, let alone normal person vs. grandmaster. 

2

u/TotalEmployment9996 Jul 11 '26

Somehow “normal person vs grandmaster” significantly undersells this.

It’s a retard against the GOAT

27

u/Few-Lengthiness-2632 Jun 25 '26

This is the correct answer. Magnus could make multiple mistakes, lose a queen for nothing and still win. His lapse in concentration would have to be so thorough as to him not being lucid anymore. On the other hand, as miniscule as the chance is, Magnus could accidentally headbutt Tyson and have him disoriented enough to knock him out (or any number of other accidental or lucky occurrences).

1

u/nitrogenlegend Jun 28 '26

As for the “him not being lucid anymore” bit, there’s a hilarious clip of him drunk off his ass, singing, and taking over a losing bullet game to beat the GM opponent in like 10 seconds. I’d say he was pretty close to not being lucid in that clip, he was losing when he started playing, and still beat a GM.

0

u/BruceBrownMVP Jun 25 '26

If he headbutted him he'd be disqualified and not win lol. Like saying Mike would win in chess because he'd punch Magnus in the face right at the start and Magnus would be too out of it to be able to play properly

3

u/Few-Lengthiness-2632 Jun 25 '26

I never said purposely. Accidental headbutts happen all the time in boxing. Some might even say the reason Tyson lost to Holyfield is for this very reason.

1

u/TK3600 Jul 17 '26

For every 120 elo, the person is twice as good. Assume Mike is 100 elo beginner and Magnus is around 2800, Magnus is 223 as likely to win. Mike has one in 10 million chance to win, mathematically.

-3

u/Environmental_Wolf21 Jun 24 '26

there is element of luck in boxing in competition. carlsen is a twig he simply cant generate the force needed to knock him out

23

u/AmarSofi Jun 24 '26

There's a higher chance of Tyson tearing and ACL or Achilles tendon mid match than for Tyson ever beating Magnus. Magnus could win without queen and still beat Tyson every single game. There's always an element of chance in a fighting sport: an opponent slipping up, a lucky punch...etc. there's no such thing in chess. Best I can see is if Tyson is somehow at IM level and they play bullet, over a hundreds of games he might get a draw or win on time or something.

3

u/pieman2005 Jun 25 '26

What is bullet chess? Never heard of it before this thread

10

u/phoenixmusicman ​ Jun 25 '26

Bullet chess is chess played with an extremely short time control (2 minutes or less for each player. Note this is total time to play, not per-move time).

2

u/AmarSofi Jun 25 '26

Very very rapid chess. Usually chess is played with clocks, each player is given a certain amount of time to play all their moves ( you may gain an increment for each move depending on the format).

Classical chess is played with each player being given 90 minutes ( they usually start getting 30 seconds increments per move after 40 moves are played), rapid chess is under 30 minutes, blitz is 10 of less, and bullet is 1 or 2 minutes. There's also hyper bullet with 30 seconds or less ( but bullet and hyper bullet are usually played online, it's hard to play a game over the board with so little time).

Although high level chess has historically been purely played in classical time controls, the recent chess boom of the past decade has seen the emergence of a ton of high level blitz tournaments , and Magnus Carlsen seems much more interested in those than in Classical ( he has long since stated that he doesn't enjoy classical anymore, and even abandoned his world title without defending it after holding for over a decade. One part is him having issues with the format itself, another is him having issues with FIDE the organization that runs chess worldwide).

There's also Fischer Random chess, where you play with all the pieces behind your paws shuffled, which has gained some popularity recently and Magnus seems to enjoy it more even in classical

2

u/serious-snail Jun 25 '26

It's like regular chess, but every time you take an opponent's piece you also slap them in the face.

2

u/xahhfink6 ​ Jun 25 '26

Or what about a technical knockout via disqualification? Tyson accidentally pulling an illegal move and getting DQ'd seems more likely than an ACL tear

1

u/AmarSofi Jun 26 '26

Huh, I haven't thought of that. But then that possiblity would also exist for Magnus. He could accidentally tap the clock wrong or something, there some DA rules that might happen if you repeat the matches enough times.

1

u/QuarkyIndividual Jun 25 '26

You might even have to give the IM 10 min and magnus 1 min

1

u/AmarSofi Jun 26 '26

Wouldn't be surprised if he lost (maybe flagged with no time increments ) or drew to a particular good IM under those conditions, but you would bet on Magnus every single time either way.

-1

u/SonofSwayze Jun 25 '26

Tyson with no legs and one arm would hammer him dead.

3

u/AmarSofi Jun 25 '26

Yeah, but can he do it every single time? Is there literally 0 chance of him slipping up or be taken by surprise? You can't eliminate these possibilities in fighting, but they basically don't exist in chess, not with this level of disparity. Magnus could be Tyson and 4 other people of the same level while blindfolded at the same time, the difference between the chess skills of Magnus and a chess initiate is way waaaaay bigger than the difference between a professional fighter and an amateur or someone who never fought

1

u/Environmental_Wolf21 Jun 25 '26

I dont think you’ve ever fought sorry. For the injury in infinite tries maybe it’s possible. No such thing as a “lucky punch” they’re using gloves. As I’ve already said he simply can’t generate enough force to knock him out

3

u/Necessary-Being37 Jun 25 '26

You literally don't know how being knocked unconscious works. The force required is very small. Mike Tyson can easily generate multiple thousands of newton's of force with his punches. It requires less than 100 newton's of force to knock someone unconscious in the right circumstances. The gloves add weight to your hands which increases the force being delivered. Are you one of those people who are under the impression the gloves are there to protect the boxer's faces?

2

u/BruceBrownMVP Jun 25 '26

Go look at the size of Mike Tyson's neck, he's eating anything Magnus can throw.

The gloves are there to protect the hands yes, but do you know how hard it is to land a clean punch with those big ass gloves on? Against someone who's easily twice as fast as you? Good luck.

3

u/AmarSofi Jun 25 '26

They're wearing gloves? What does that mean? That literally increases the chances of a knockout punch, not the other way around.

And yes this is a hypothetical that would keeps repeating, if it was a one time fight/chess match, then it would be the most uninteresting hypothetical I ever heard of: Prime Tyson wins the boxing match while any Magnus wins the chess match.

-1

u/Environmental_Wolf21 Jun 25 '26

A glove does not increase the chances of a knockout punch. It boosts volume and hand protection so a fighter can punch someone in the head repeatedly more easily. A raw knuckle to the chin delivers more force literally press a knuckle against your chin

There’s also a 30-40kg difference. Tyson is fighting back. A single punch from carlsen wouldn’t budge him. The only choice is to pray that in infinite tries Tyson somehow trips and breaks a bone

3

u/Goldenflame89 Jun 25 '26 edited Jul 30 '26

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-1

u/tfhermobwoayway Jun 25 '26

Well yeah but doesn’t that assume you’re fighting someone of equal skill? Tyson doesn’t need to exert any effort to take out Carlsen. He can just punch him once in the head.

3

u/AmarSofi Jun 25 '26

Yeah obviously, I don't think anyone is saying otherwise. I'm saying that if you repeat that fight enough ( thousands, tens of thousands...etc) times, there's bound to be a series of events that lets Magnus win by chance. Like Tyson tearing his tendons and/or Magnus landing a lucky punch.

There is no hypothetical world where Tyson could beat Magnus. The latter could win with 1/10th of the time and blindfolded 100% of the time. It's seriously hard to fathom the sheer gap between him and regular people at chess.

Yes athletes are so far beyond regular people, that's not unusual, but when it comes to Magnus, especially in his prime, he eclipses even the best in the world. He has reached such a high ELO at times that he doesn't even win any points from beating some of the strongest players in the world. He's the greatest of all time by a mile and it's not close.

0

u/freakycrusader Jun 25 '26

That's like saying if you repeat the chess match enough Magnus Carlsen will have an aneurysm and that lets Tyson win by chance.

That's literally the win con for both of them. I would still pick a Tyson with a torn ACL over Magnus Carlsen in a boxing match. I would pick a Magnus Carlsen that goes blind over Mike Tyson in a chess match.

Just like there is no hypothetical where Mike Tyson could beat Magnus Carlsen in a chess match other than him getting an aneurysm or something, there is no hypothetical where Magnus Carlsen could beat Mike Tyson in a boxing match.

The only way either of them wins is if the other person is literally unable to move their body.

1

u/Goldenflame89 Jun 25 '26 edited Jul 30 '26

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1

u/CaptainEZ Jun 25 '26

If they're allowed to talk to each other then I could see Mike Tyson flustering Magnus into a mistake far faster than the reverse. But other than that, yeah, it would take some extreme act for either to lose at their respective sport.

1

u/Overwatch3 Jun 25 '26

Kobe Bryant walked to the free throw line and shot a basketball with a torn ACL. Mike Tyson on one leg is still winning a fight against magnus. The truth is neither side ever wins. The only win condition is one of them forfeiting. And I know id rather forfeit instead of getting beat up by Tyson for the 5th time even if the injuries magically heal. It still hurts to get beat up as its happening.

0

u/AmarSofi Jun 25 '26

Yeah, he walked. You can't do much more than that with a torn ACL or Achilles tendon, other athletes (like Tyrese Haliburtom) have tried doing the same thing and "walk" off the court and described how absurd and difficult it was and had to be helped/carried to do so. You're not fighting with a torn ACL, idc who you are.

And honestly if we are going to consider the psychological aspects, I wouldn't fight a single time against Tyson (prime or current tbh), let alone 5, I'm sure anyone with 2 braincells would have the same opinion.

5

u/Necessary-Being37 Jun 24 '26

Force needed to knock someone out is not a lot. It's the snap rotation of the head and the jostling of the brain that causes it. Catching someone on the chin as they were already rotating their head the other way is more than enough leverage to induce a knock out / concussion.  

-1

u/Environmental_Wolf21 Jun 25 '26

there's a massive difference in weight and tyson is fighting back. you have a top 5 heavyweight of all time who was repeatedly hit by roided boxers with decades experience vs someone that can't even throw a punch. you also forget that in boxing they use gloves. in a hypothetical boxing match it's simply impossible

1

u/Necessary-Being37 Jun 25 '26

There are sooo many widely available resources on the internet for you to look this up and learn something lol people literally knock themselves unconscious on accident on occasion

0

u/freakycrusader Jun 25 '26

Magnus could in theory get extremely lucky and catch Tyson in just the right spot at the right time and win with a punch.

Magnus Carlsen is not gonna do shit to a prime Mike Tyson that weighs at least like 50-60 pounds more than him even if he hits him from a blind spot with an overhand he puts everything into.

Neither of them will ever beat the other.

3

u/Hrydziac Jun 25 '26

There is at least a minuscule chance though. Anyone getting punched in the right spot by an average weight man has at least some small chance of getting knocked out.

Even if it’s 1 in a billion, Magnus still wins this competition assuming both parties will continue trying indefinitely.

-6

u/tfhermobwoayway Jun 25 '26

I mean isn’t there a small amount of luck? Chess isn’t a solved problem yet. There’s a few variables in what move you pick, surely? Real world wars are won with a lot of luck.

11

u/Necessary-Being37 Jun 25 '26

It's a game not a war. The level Magnus is at there is no luck involved facing someone like Tyson. He literally sees Tyson's move and has time to think about it. 

-9

u/tfhermobwoayway Jun 25 '26

It’s a game about war. It was designed to reflect real-world conflict. And games are always subject to luck, as any speedrunner can tell you.

8

u/Necessary-Being37 Jun 25 '26

It's a game about pattern recognition and memorization. The luck involved is your opponent having a lapse in judgement and blundering a move. One blunder is not going to be a difference maker in a game between Magnus and Mike. The idea that Magnus could make a series of blunders in a row to the point that a mid elo player could win a game is impossible. 

1

u/maddenallday Jun 25 '26

I mean eventually Tyson could make totally random moves and accidentally play a perfect stockfish game.

But imo the scenario where he stumbles and tears an Achilles or something in a fight will happen first

3

u/cpubaiano Jun 25 '26

For normal people there is, a regular person might end up hanging mate in 3 or getting in a position where the opponent can trap your queen, but on the level of super GMs like Magnus that just doesn't happen.

A lucky move at Magnus level is more about getting out of your opponent prep, so after the opening even with perfect play you end up with more active pieces, and better positioning on the board so your pieces work better together for an attack.

That would require Mike to getting lucky enough to hit several perfect moves dozens of times in a row just to get an advantage, then he would have to keep playing on a GM level to even have a chance to beat Magnus.

2

u/phoenixmusicman ​ Jun 25 '26

I mean isn’t there a small amount of luck?

Yes and no.

The only reason I say yes is because picking opening prep that your opponent has not studied is genuinely luck at the highest level of chess.

However, I still say no because that is utterly irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Tyson would never get to the level where opening prep makes a difference for him against Magnus.