If chess hopes to count as sport, Magnus Carlsen is doing his best to make it happen. The new world champion, who is a Real Madrid supporter, was invited by the club to perform a ceremonial kick-off at last weekend's 4-0 win against Real Valladolid, and was photographed with Gareth Bale who scored a hat-trick.

Carlsen is in London on Saturday when the annual Classic, the UK's strongest chess event, gets under way at Olympia. Alas, he is not competing this year and his presence is owing to a photoshoot for his new male model campaign with G-Star Raw.

He returns to competitive action next month at the six-grandmaster Zurich elite tournament, which has a novel format. There are five rounds of classical chess, then a one-day rapidplay with colours reversed.

Scoring will be win two points, draw one point in classical and half that in rapid, with the overall best scorer declared the tournament winner.

Carlsen's five rivals include the world No2, Levon Aronian, and the American Hikaru Nakamura, who is disputing the No3 spot with Russia's Vlad Kramnik. Last week Nakamura beat Kramnik at the world team championship in the US v Russia match. The Americans won 3-1, so repeating their 2.5-1.5 victory in the 2012 Olympiad.

Such results were unthinkable in the Soviet era. Long ago in 1945 the USSR beat the US 15.5-4.5 by radio in their first-ever meeting, an iconic occasion which marked the switch of power from the Americans, who had won four successive Olympiads in the 1930s, to the golden Soviets who, apart from the brief Bobby Fischer years, dominated global chess until the 1990s.

The Russian team have suffered several recent setbacks, though they made a strong recovery in the final rounds to win the 2013 world title.

The most interesting game in last week's match was a rare top level test for the wild Marshall Gambit 1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 c6 4 e4 dxe4 5 Nxe4 Bb4+ 6 Bd2!?. Carlsen had a chance to play it in game five of the world title series, but in keeping with his strategy of avoiding Vishy Anand's prepared lines, he opted out at move six by Nc3.

Carlsen's decision to avoid the Marshall's manic complications was probably right, as both GMs in the team game made serious blunders. Ray Robson, at 19 America's youngest GM, swung a novelty at move 22(!), erred two moves later when 24 … Ne3! draws, but won when Nikita Vitiugov failed to realise that 25 h6! with h7 is decisive. At the end White gets mated by Ng4+.

Nikita Vitiugov v Ray Robson

1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 c6 4 e4 dxe4 5 Nxe4 Bb4+ 6 Bd2 Qxd4 7 Bxb4 Qxe4+ 8 Ne2 Na6 9 Bf8 Ne7 10 Bxg7 Nb4 11 Qd6 Nc2+ 12 Kd2 Nxa1 13 Bxh8 Qc2+ 14 Ke1 e5 15 f3 Be6 16 Bf6 Ng6 17 h4 Qf5 18 Bg5 h6 19 Bxh6 Rd8 20 Qc5 Qb1+ 21 Kf2 Nc2 22 h5 Nf4! 23 Bxf4 exf4 24 Qa5 Qd1? 25 Nxf4? Rd2+ 26 Kg1 Ne3 27 Qg5 Qxf1+ 28 Kh2 Qxf3 0-1

3335 1 Qxg6! hxg6 2 Rh4 and 3 Rh8 mate.