Geoguessr World Championship in Berlin: A cheeky Guess

A girl, about 15, blonde, with braces, cheers into the camera. Tears stream down her cheeks and she staggers back and forth ecstatically. Around them a roaring crowd. Is a boy band playing at the Tempodrom? No, it's the “Geoguessr” World Championship in Berlin – and your favorite has just won the title.

Geoguessr is an e-sport in which participants have to determine where in the world they are based on a randomly selected Google Street View image. Over the years it has developed from an online game into an international competition with professional geoguessers. A World Cup has been held annually since 2023. At the beginning of September, the best 24 players will compete against each other in Berlin.

Radu C is the reigning world champion. In 2025, the American was able to prevail against the Hungarian Debre after a close final. This year Radu C was eliminated in the round of 16 and is watching the remaining games from the stands. He is disappointed about his defeat. "I would have liked to play another day. I love being on stage," he tells taz.

A round from his last game, in which his opponent and 2023 world champion, Consus from the Netherlands, was closer, particularly annoyed him. It was about a place in India. He didn't see a sign that had information in Hindi that could have helped him at least determine the right area. And of course: “All the people who play here can read Hindi.”

Guessing, i.e. just guessing, hardly applies to what is happening here. The players are extremely well prepared. They learn to read all scripts from Kanji to Cyrillic, they can assess vegetation and architecture geographically, they know how German and Colombian street signs differ and what peculiarities the Google car has: for example a long antenna in Russia or a snorkel on the front of the car in Kenya. Whether telephone area codes in Brazil or administrative districts in Indonesia - they learn all of this by heart.

So it's no wonder that the almost 2,000 fans here go crazy when players like Blinky, Malfunction or Bulgariaenjoyer achieve a so-called 5K: find the exact street, only a few meters away from the actual location and get the maximum 5,000 points.

A group of guys brought with them a 3D printed miniature model of a very specific trash can that is only found in Newfoundland. They collect autographs on it. Others have a German street bollard with them for this purpose. Both objects help to determine the location if they are visible in the image.

The matches look like this: There are two desks with computers on the stage, the images of which are broadcast on large screens for the audience. A match always takes place as a duel and consists of up to five games. Whoever wins three also wins the match. In each game, participants start with a health bar of 5,000. There are then as many rounds (i.e. locations) until one of the health bars is at 0. The players have 60 seconds to make a guess.

Games one and three are always in “moving” mode. Players can drive along the streets, look around, zoom. The Frenchman Blinky is the best at this: he manages to get useful information such as street signs or highway numbers particularly quickly and almost always dominates in this mode.

Games two and four, on the other hand, are “No Move”: You are tied to one spot and can only look around (Pan) and zoom in on things (Zoom). If the match is not yet decided, the infamous game five comes: NMPZ – No Move, Pan or Zoom. Here the players only get a single picture and have to make their guess based on that.

Both semi-finals were 3-0. In the final, the Frenchman Blinky, 2024 world champion, will face the Hungarian Debre, who was in the final last time but lost to Radu C. "Debre will win 3-2. He deserves it," Radu C told taz before the final.

Pretty quickly Blinky is 2-0 ahead. “It would be cringey to lose two finals in a row,” said Debre shortly beforehand, calling Blinky the best player of all time. He knows he is the underdog. Round 3, moving again, begins and loud chants of “Debre” go around the arena. Debre now has to defeat Blinky at his best.

Blinky finds the locations quickly, logs in his pin so that Debre only has 15 seconds left to guess. He often finds the right place at the last second. In a round of Romania, Blinky is surprisingly 200 km away, while Debre is in the right city: he gets round 3.

He also suddenly dominates the next game, No Move, and wins - the match is now even. The audience is beside themselves and Blinky appears unsettled. Then what everyone has been waiting for begins: the supreme discipline, NMPZ.

Debre is confident, the momentum is his. He proves this with a cheeky guess: at a location where a rural street can be seen, he sets his pin in Belarus - a country that doesn't have Google Street View.

This is called a “hedge”: He knows it is Eastern Europe, but is unsure whether north or south, so he guesses in the middle. That pays off. Blinky chooses Ukraine, but the location is in northwest Russia, which is closer to Debre. He flicks his tongue lasciviously towards his fan corner.

The next round begins: a dirt road, wide, dry landscape, mountains in the background, bushes on the side of the road, nothing else. Debre logs in Northern Namibia after a few seconds. Now Blinky has 15 seconds to guess. He sets his pin in South Africa but doesn't log in. Suddenly he zooms out wide, time is almost running out, then he changes his mind and places his pin in Argentina.

It is now clear: the two are so far apart that this round will decide the match. Everyone stands up and looks expectantly at the screen. The map becomes visible, the correct location is displayed: Namibia. Smoke cannons shoot out large clouds in front of the stage, confetti falls from the ceiling and everyone jumps up from their seats cheering.

Blinky seems resigned after the game. Understandable after being 2-0 up. “I am extremely disappointed and frustrated,” he tells the taz. The NMPZ round was particularly difficult for him. “I was completely off track,” he says of his last-second Argentina guess.

He stands in front of the stage in a crowd with other players, they give autographs and take selfies. Debre can be celebrated. There is also the blonde girl in the front row who was seen crying in close-up when Debre won with his Namibia Guess. The Hungarian flags on her cheeks are already somewhat smeared from tears.

Whether she came specifically from Hungary, is friends with Debre or is she related? “No, I’m a fan.” Debre finally got the victory he deserved. When she was 12, she was already at the first World Championships in Stockholm. “I thought it was great back then because… oh, you saw it yourself.”