Fantasy Premier League: World chess champion Magnus Carlsen in top three
- Published
Carlsen's previous best finish in FPL was 2,397th in 2017-18
He's already the best chess player in the world. Now Magnus Carlsen is using his mental fortitude to succeed in another game of strategy - fantasy football.
Norway's world chess champion moved top of the leaderboard in Fantasy Premier League on Saturday - the Premier League's official fantasy football game played by more than seven million people.
Carlsen, 29, stormed to the top with a squad including Liverpool's Sadio Mane, Leicester striker Jamie Vardy and, of course, everyone's favourite bargain, Sheffield United's John Lundstram - the top scoring defender in the game.
Carlsen - who has been world champion since 2013 - moved into the top 100 at the end of October and has been in the top 10 for the past three weeks. He then made Mohamed Salah captain and the Liverpool star rewarded him with a two-goal display against Watford that sent him top.
One of the Norwegian's main rivals for top spot also has sporting pedigree - former Liverpool defender Nick Tanner has not been out of the top three since 5 October and he regained the number one ranking following Crystal Palace's 1-1 draw with Brighton on Monday night, leaving Carlsen in third place.
Carlsen is obviously enjoying his success, updating his Twitter bio to read: "World Chess Champion. The highest ranked chess player in the world. Current (live) #1 Fantasy Premier League player".
He also addressed his fantasy football performance on social media, citing analytics company Opta as one of the factors behind his success.
"Since a lot of people are asking about my FPL strategy, mine is the not so groundbreaking one of part stats and part gut feeling," the Norwegian tweeted.
"Part Opta-mist and part optimist."
