Reigning champion Magnus Carlsen beat Ian Nepomniachtchi with a score of 7.5 to 3.5 points, winning the championship with 3 games to go.
A new mistake by the Russian candidate Ian Nepomniachtchi handed victory in the eleventh game to the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, who became world chess champion for the fifth time in a row, with a score of 7.5 to 3.5 points that puts a premature end to the Dubai match without exhausting the 14 games to which it was agreed.
Carlsen, who snatched the world title from Indian Viswanathan Anand in 2013, has already successfully defended it four times: against Anand himself in 2014, against Russian Sergey Karjakin in 2016, against American Fabiano Caruana in 2018 and now against Nepo ( named after his colleagues), the weakest opponent of the four that the champion has faced with the title at stake.
In addition to providing you with a prize of 1.2 million euros (60 percent of the total endowment of the match), his landslide victory over the Russian will extend Carlsen’s reign at least until the end of next year, when he will have to face the winner of the Candidates Tournament to be played in 2022.
With an adverse score of 6.5 to 3.5 after 10 games, Nepo needed today, at least, to escape another defeat in the eleventh game to prevent the World Cup from ending prematurely without having to exhaust the fourteen scheduled. It was also an opportunity to cling, with white, to the last ray of hope. The challenge was gigantic: win three of the four games remaining on the schedule to force a tiebreaker.
The expectation was maximum to see what recipe the Russian team had prepared on the rest day on Thursday. The Spanish opening had not produced any results for the applicant, and neither did the English opening that he tried in the ninth game, in which a clamorous failure cost him the game, had no effect.
Nepo didn’t give his arm to twist on his first move. He opened with a king’s pawn, but instead of Hispaniola he now chose the Italian opening, a quiet option with prospects that the game could come alive mid-game.
For 22 movements there was nothing new. The positional equality persisted, but once again, in a calm panorama, without risks for either side, catastrophe occurred: the Russian played 23.g3, allowing Carlsen to weaken the white king through a simple quality delivery (rook per piece minor) that gave way to an irresistible attack with queen and rook entering with lethal effects on the unguarded white kingside.
“For anyone with eyes this is a real disaster (for Nepo),” commented Dutch Grandmaster Anish Giri. “I don’t see any defense,” Viswanathan Anand observed.
It was Nepomniachtchi’s third blunder since he succumbed in the marathon sixth game, the longest in the history of the World Cups (almost eight hours and 136 movements), which fed his black legend of a fragile player who collapses after a defeat.
The outcome of the eleventh was not immediate. Carlsen lowered his guard and did not hit the best plays, but his slight imprecision only prolonged the agony of Nepo, who was debated in a rook final with a pawn less – and passed – hoping that a champion error would forgive him. life.
Archive of the game n ° 11 played between Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniatchi for the 2021 World Chess Championship.
Carlsen spared him an immediate defeat but had no mercy on his adversary, inflicting a slow death on him. Nepo gave up on move 49.
The Norwegian, who prepared this World Cup in Sancti Petri (Spain), will be able to relax now and arrive still fresh at the Rapid and Lightning World Cup that will be held in Poland the last week of this year, after the resignation of Kazakhstan due to a pandemic. (D)
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
