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Chess grandmaster loses his spot at the top of the EPL Fantasy Football

  /  autty

Chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen has lost his top spot on the Premier League Fantasy Football rankings, dropping into third place.

The Norwegian was knocked off the top spot after Monday night's 1-1 draw between Crystal Palace and Brighton and Hove Albion.

Carlsen's crown has been taken by former Liverpool and Bristol Rovers defender Nick Tanner, whose team is called 'winorloseonthebooze.'

The 29-year-old reigning world chess champion tweaked his Twitter profile to include his FPL achievement last week, saying: 'World Chess Champion. The highest ranked chess player in the world. Former (live) #1 Fantasy Premier League player.'

The FPL is played by more than seven million people.

'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,' Carlsen told his Twitter followers last week.

'Patent pending.'

Carlsen's team includes Liverpool duo Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah and John Lundstrum of Sheffield United, the game's top point-scoring defender.

Last week he wrote on Twitter: '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.

'Part Opta-mist and part optimist.'

This is his sixth successive season playing FPL. In the game, competitors pick a squad of real-life players who earn points based on their on-the-pitch performances, banking points for achievements including goals scored and clean sheets.

Carlsen's best finish to date was 2397th in the 2017 to 2018 season.

Chess journalist Tarjei Svenson, who has known Mr Carlsen since he was eight-years-old, says he excels at FPL because he has a phenomenal memory for Premier League details.

He said: 'His ability at fantasy league has been known for a couple of seasons now, but this season has been exceptional and he's had another good week.

'His rise up the charts is incredible. He had a really good year for a while last season and then he dropped a couple of hundred places at the end of the season, but he was still in the top 1,000.'

'His level of knowledge about English football is amazing, which must help him a lot.'