[Photo:  By Adam Jones Adam63 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7594048]

Norway's Magnus Carlsen began defense of his World Chess Championship title on Friday, against challenger Sergey Karjakin of Russia. Carlsen is a clear favorite, and with the white pieces, he tried something a little different - and might have made an inside joke about the recent US presidential election.

Playing in a soundproof chamber in lower Manhattan, with the world's chess elite looking on around the globe, Carlsen opened with d4 (the ceremonial first move was made by actor Woody Harrelson), a so-called Queen's Pawn game. Karjakin countered as black with by advancing his king side knight to f6, setting up what looked to be an Indian Defense.

But then Carslen did something stunning: he played his dark-squared bishop to g5 — an opening known as the Trompowsky Attack, named for Olivier Trompowsky, a Brazilian player who devised the opening in the mid-20th century.

I've never seen the "Tromp" played at this high a level, not in the last two World Championships or dozens of tournaments involving the game's finest players. At the event and around the internet, fans speculated that Carlsen might have been making a sort of inside-chess joke about Donald Trump's election win - Carlsen essayed the "Trump"-owsky! Get it? Hilarious!