Magnus Carlsen narrowly avoided a devastating upset on Friday in the sixth game of his world championship match with Fabiano Caruana in London, scratching back from the brink to save a miraculous draw after 80 moves.
The reigning world champion, playing with the white pieces for the first of two consecutive games, was outplayed in the middlegame by the American challenger and forced to rely on accurate defense with no margin for error over the last two hours to secure a peaceful result and preserve a 3-all deadlock at the halfway point of the the best-of-12-games showdown.
Caruana, who missed a complex win in the late stages of the six-and-a-half-hour epic at the College at Holborn, came agonizingly close to a decisive upset that would have not only drawn first blood in the €1m ($1.14m) world title match, but would have propelled him to No 1 in the live world ratings, knocking Carlsen from the position he’s held since July 2011.
Quick guide
World Chess Championship 2018
Norway’s Magnus Carlsen is defending the world chess championship against Fabiano Caruana of the United States. The best-of-12-games match is taking place at the College in Holborn between 9 and 28 November, with the winner earning a 60% share of the €1m ($1.14m) prize fund if the match ends in regulation (or 55% if it’s decided by tie-break games).
Carlsen, 27, has been ranked No 1 for eight straight years and was considered the world’s best player even before he defeated Viswanathan Anand for the title in 2013. Caruana, 26, is ranked No 2, having earned his place at the table by winning the candidates tournament in March. No American-born player has won or even competed for the world title since Bobby Fischer in 1972.
It marks the first title match between the world’s top two players since 1990, when Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov faced off for a fifth and final time.
The match will consist of 12 classical games with each player awarded one point for a win and a half-point for a draw. Whoever reaches six and a half points first will be declared the champion.
The time control for each game is 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, 50 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game plus an additional 30 seconds per move starting from move 1. Players cannot agree to a draw before Black’s 30th move.
If the match is tied after 12 games, tie-breaks will be played on the final day in the following order:
• Best of four rapid games with 25 minutes for each player with an increment of 10 seconds after each move.
• If still tied, they will play up to five mini-matches of two blitz games (five minutes for each player with a three-second increment).
• If all five mini-matches are drawn, one sudden-death ‘Armegeddon’ match will be played where White receives five minutes and Black receives four minutes. Both players will receive a three-second increment after the 60th move. In the case of a draw, Black will be declared the winner.
Thu 8 Nov – Opening ceremony
Fri 9 Nov – Game 1
Sat 10 Nov – Game 2
Sun 11 Nov – Rest day
Mon 12 Nov – Game 3
Tue 13 Nov – Game 4
Wed 14 Nov – Rest day
Thu 15 Nov – Game 5
Fri 16 Nov – Game 6
Sat 17 Nov – Rest day
Sun 18 Nov – Game 7
Mon 19 Nov – Game 8
Tue 20 Nov – Rest day
Wed 21 Nov – Game 9
Thu 22 Nov – Game 10
Fri 23 Nov – Rest day
Sat 24 Nov – Game 11
Sun 25 Nov – Rest day
Mon 26 Nov – Game 12
Tue 27 Nov – Rest day
Wed 28 Nov – Tie-break games/Awards and closing
The games commence each day at 3pm in London.
It also would have represented the first win by an American in an undisputed world championship match in 16,878 days and it so nearly came to pass as he managed to outplay Carlsen from a neutral position for the first time in six games.
“It’s maybe easier to be a bit careless with white as you always feel like you have more room for error,” Carlsen said afterward. “Today I guess probably I was a bit influenced by the fact that I had the white pieces. With black I probably would have played more carefully early and in the middlegame.”
A series of conservative and mostly straightforward draws had come to define the match in the week since it opened with a tense 115-move marathon over seven punishing hours. Friday’s sixth installment didn’t quite push those outer limits, but was marked with an extreme psychological intensity none of the previous games have been able to consistently match.
Carlsen opened with a Petroff (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6), playing directly to Caruana’s strength by opting for the the challenger’s opening of choice, then delivered an early surprise by bursting into the formation with (4. Nd3!?). The queens came out immediately after (5. Qe2 Qe7) and were off the board by the eighth move (6. Nf4 Nc6 7. Nd5 Nd4 8. Nxe7 Nxe2).
Fifteen of the first 20 moves involved the knights after 9. Nd5 Nd4 10. Na3 Ne6 as both moved quickly, but the crisp pace slowed after 18. Kf2 and the formation of a symmetrical position with no apparent weaknesses on either side. Whatever advantage Carlsen had leveraged early was erased by 21. g3, when the computer assessed the position as dead even.
“Just a few moves later I was fighting for equality,” Carlsen said afterward. “Then I got a bit unsettled.”
From there Carlsen sought to simplify a position that was looking drawish with a rook exchange (31. Rxc8 Rxc8), but the sequence of moves only tipped the balance in Caruana’s direction. The margin for the American mounted with 7. … Bd7 38. f5 Bc6 39. Bd1 and he soon found himself with a winning position.
As the world No 2 continued to press the action, a clearly frustrated Carlsen refused to crack. He wrought a stroke of brilliance with a five-move flurry (43. … Nd2 44. Bxd5 Bxe3 45. Bxc6 Bxf4 46. Bxb7 Bd6 47. Bxa6 Ne4 48. g4) that expended only 40 seconds on his clock, sacrificing a piece in exchange for three pawns with the goal of steering the position toward a draw. “It’s not the type of thing you go for if you have decent alternatives,” Carlsen said. “I don’t know what else I could have done anyway. I didn’t feel great about it.”
The engines still favored Caruana even after Carlsen achieved his goal of simplification with 48. … Ba3 49. Bc4 Kf8 50. g5 Nc3 51. b4 Bxb4 52. Kf3.
The next stretch (53. … Nc5 54. a4 f6 55. Kg4 Ne4 56. Kh5 Be1) showed the American in unmistakable pursuit of the win, but the Norwegian champion, who famously claimed he doesn’t “believe in fortresses” during his world title defense against Sergey Karjakin two years ago in New York, was content to take refuge in a defensive structure.
“It’s a good thing they exist, right?” Carlsen quipped.
Bryan Armen Graham (@BryanAGraham)
Magnus doesn’t like what he sees after 60. … Bd8. pic.twitter.com/mHaSPMVTOx
The world No 1 moved deftly and with precision throughout the tense endgame as the match entered its seventh hour, even as the Stockfish evaluation engine found a forced mate in 30 moves for black after 67. Kg6.
Caruana kept probing with 67. … Bg5 and Carlsen answered with 68. Bc4!!. After the challenger’s 68. … Nf3, the engine indicated his position was no longer winning, a realization made within minutes by the players as they consented to another peaceful result.
Both Caruana and Carlsen will be grateful for Saturday’s rest day after Friday’s taxing affair before the match, the first world championship clash between the sport’s top two players in 28 years, resumes on Sunday with the champion playing as white in Game 7.