FIDE World Championship Dubai 2021: Back to the grind
A quick look back Yesterday history was made, with the longest game ever in the world championship ending in a 136-move victory for defending champion Magnus Carlsen. The marathon game lasted nearly eight hours and broke the deadlock of five preceding draws. Although the result could be easily ascribed to the champion’s legendary ability to squeeze slow wins from nano-advantages, the dramatic game raises more complex talking points, examining it the morning after. It takes two Even though several key in-game choices, and both players, indicated that this record tussle flared up thanks to mutual efforts, in the second-hand excitement and adrenaline, it was easy to overlook challenger Ian ‘Nepo’ Nepomniachtchi’s role in the epic struggle. Despite playing with the statistical disadvantage of the black pieces, Ian was clearly feeling confident enough with his form and position to try to create winning chances once he had neutralised Carlsen’s first move initiative. Perhaps emboldened by Magnus’ massive deficit on the clock, Nepo chose to further sharpen play with his 25th move, which he said was ‘unnecessary’ but created complications and chaos without great risk. Carlsen was taking minor chances of his own trying to keep the position alive and was slightly surprised to see his opponent doing the same: “I felt like we were both risking a bit, but I thought maybe Black was risking a bit more. And it meant that we would get a serious struggle that I was happy with.” The champion eventually emerged the winner after an immense technical grind, with both players left with minimal time for the last 75 moves of the game. The players traded blows, missed opportunities, and fierce ambition. The result aside, the game revealed that despite very conservative appearances in his early white games, the challenger is lacking neither confidence nor ambition. He has repeatedly created chances to rock the champion – but has yet to convert an edge. Wolf in sheep’s clothing A discussion point that will probably only be resolved with hindsight is whether Nepomniachtchi started the match with a strategy to frustrate Carlsen, which his predecessor, and assistant here, Sergey Karjakin, seemed to employ in his New York 2016 title match. Experts have debated whether Ian’s slightly hesitant approach when playing white might be due to an ill-fitting match plan and that he may be itching to let loose his more aggressive style. It is too early to draw conclusions, but his attitude at the board and demeanour off suggest that we may soon see a more ‘typical’ Nepomniachtchi, especially since he now has no choice but to crank up the chaos factor to fight back – the only question being when. Looking ahead There are now eight games left. Plenty of time to mount a comeback for Nepomniachtchi, but he needs to find a tricky balance of timing and risk assessment to defeat the champion without falling further behind. An indicator of how tough this can be is Carlsen’s world record of 125 consecutive games without defeat at the elite level, set over a period of 26 months. What makes this match special is that Nepomniachtchi has one of the best one-on-one records against Carlsen, even if his edge was set when they were battling pre-teen prodigies. Game seven Both players emerged promptly to their call to arms today, and the ceremonial first move is executed by Andrey Guryev, the CEO of PhosAgro, a major FIDE partner and sponsor. He is accompanied onstage by Denis Manturov, the Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation. Guryev’s hesitant but correct guess of 1.e4 is allowed to remain on the board, Ian only adjusts it slightly, and they are off. Ringside view One trend that cannot be disputed is the Carlsen suit. So far, Magnus appears to be alternating apparel in sync with his colours in the game – wearing a dark suit and white shirt when playing black and a light suit with a black shirt when playing white. Magnus also has a regular cycle of body language for the start of the game. As he plays and writes down the first few moves, he props his head up lazily on his left hand. A little later, his left elbow lifts off the table, and the subsequent flurry of moves is executed with his left hand screening his eyes. Once it is time to have a real thing, he bends forward and grasps his head between both hands. Ian flits around early, often preferring to disappear backstage if there is the least hesitation in his opponent’s reply. Carlsen sank into thought over his 12th move, and this signalled a change of pace as more profound decisions began to arise. Ian remained offstage for five minutes while his time was running, but when he returned, he stayed. Afterwards, he would tell the press that when offstage, he is sitting on a sofa, analysing the position onscreen, a familiar feeling after long months of playing online chess on a computer. Post-marathon After the immense exertions of game six, there is a sense of caution and fatigue today. The battleground is familiar from all of Nepomniachtchi’s white games in Dubai, and Carlsen aims for safety, playing to neutralise the first move and reach very solid equality. The pace is slow, with fear of error seemingly foremost in their minds. The challenger’s long think on move 20 created the possibility of wholesale material exchanges, which commentator Judit Polgar, the strongest woman player in history, called a silent draw offer. In the following moves, the board was emptied, and a draw was the inevitable result, with the players going through the motions to reach move 40 when peace can be agreed without a repetition of moves. Immediately after the game, Carlsen admitted that energy levels were a factor after yesterday’s marathon. “I couldn’t sleep yesterday; I was way too excited,” Carlsen said before saying he assumed it was probably even worse for his opponent. He also said he expected care from Nepomniachtchi
FIDE Chessable camp: Time to say goodbye
The FIDE Chessable Camp held between November 28 and December 3 in Dubai as a part of the FIDE Chessable Academy program has come to an end. Twelve youngsters from India, Malaysia, UAE, Belgium, Azerbaijan, Germany, Sweden, and Argentina visited Dubai for a unique opportunity to be trained by ex-World Champion Viswanathan Anand and 2021 FIDE World Cup winner Jan-Krzysztof Duda. The students also enjoyed a behind-the-scenes visit to the FIDE World Championship Match between the World Champion Magnus Carlsen and the Challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi. On December 3, the students of the camp had a day of intense training at the World Championship match venue. TRG Chairman and Russia National Junior Coach Mikhail Kobalia started the morning session with a review of the match and analysis of the games played. Then Viswanathan Anand and his Q&A session followed. On the last day of the camp, students met 2021 FIDE World Cup winner Jan-Krzysztof Duda who explained some key games from his career and played blitz with each and everyone. At the end of the camp, children received their certificates of participation signed by the lecturers of the project. “Most probably you will forget some nuances you’ve learnt here, but I do hope that what will remain is a lot of positive emotions, strong impressions and this very special feeling of being close to chess elite and understanding how the road behind the scenes of the world championship match is organized. I hope this will leave you with a strong level of motivation; it will boost your energy and serve as a battery for the following years to work hard,” said FIDE Managing Director Dana Reizniece-Ozola. “I enjoyed seeing all of you interact with the coaches. When we partnered with FIDE, we felt really excited by the possibility of working together and creating new opportunities for talented kids like you. Thank you so much for being a part of our first-ever FIDE Chessable academy camp here in Dubai, and I hope to see you back in the Chessable classroom in the future!” added the Chief Executive Officer of Chessable Geert van der Velde. The Dubai camp is over, but studies of the FIDE Chessable Academy, a three-year junior educational program, will continue. The most talented and promising young players aged from 8 to 16, representing 100 national federations, will be having two hours of training every weekend in English, Spanish, and Russian. Among the FIDE Chessable Academy students are young talents in the top five rankings in their age group and winners at the World Youth and Cadets Championships.
FIDE World Championship 2021: Are we there yet?
The unique 14-game format of the 2021 FIDE World Championship means that there is no easy spot to stop and play the game of drawing halfway mark conclusions. After game 7, we’ll have had a lopsided half, with challenger Ian ‘Nepo’ Nepomniachtchi enjoying an extra game with the white pieces and advantage of the first move, and we would be comparing the action to the coming mirror version. If we want to balance colours out, then we need to choose game 6 or 8. Since we have so many pundits assembled, we can expect retrospective assessments … constantly. Game 8 is probably the best time to get a symmetric look back, as it will mark a full set of three blocks of play, 3-2-3. Since the match is two games longer than normal, rest days have been trimmed down to keep the event the same length, so we need to wait until after game 8 to have seen each player try this new segment with an extra white out of the trio of games. More equal Besides the halfway mark, any rest day is a natural opportunity to dissect the preceding action. We may have had five draws, but there are plenty of ways to extract fuzzy information from what we’ve seen, to support gut feelings that, even if the score is winless and deadlocked, one of the players is ‘ahead’. Although it’s too early to investigate all the nuances, the word on the street, or in the Dubai Exhibition Centre, is that Team Nepomniachtchi and their supporters are feeling like the challenger has an abstract lead after five games, and it isn’t hard to find discussions in print or online that agree. The two previous games have reversed the early sense that champion Magnus Carlsen has been the better prepared of the two, and in the fifth game Nepo achieved the holy grail of deeper preparation, an advantage on the clock, and a safe but dangerous superiority on the board. War of nerves Weighing up these not entirely tangible victories, there is also the tricky equation of game 2, where Carlsen clearly detonated a dangerous surprise weapon, but his childhood nemesis of an opponent managed to turn the tables and was the only one who had serious winning chances. The games have been tense and hard-fought, if peaceful in the end. At the last post-game press conference, the champion was visibly weary but happy, and the challenger appeared distracted and disappointed. The trickiest part of tallying up these mostly psychological points, is assessing their impact. Is having a few more shots on goal uplifting, or is keeping a clean sheet? Magnus has a clear track record of becoming hugely frustrated when starved of wins, Ian is widely reckoned to be a moody player. Before the match, Carlsen said his opponent’s biggest flaw was probably losing form when disappointed, whether by a loss, or missed opportunities. So – are they both annoyed so far? Perhaps new Chessable CEO Geert van der Velde found the key metric, suggesting: ‘who is getting in the other’s head?’. This makes it feel like the real duel boils down to stamina; how many frustrating draws can Magnus take, and can Ian shrug off any sort of disappointment and continue to follow a match strategy that might be rubbing him the wrong way? Only hindsight knows. Game six Today’s game featured the usual rituals but with twists. Carlsen, who has been chronically late to appear after the daily starting summons from Master of Ceremonies Maurice Ashley, took his seat on stage a few minutes before the start of play, which caused a bit of confusion. Ashley launched into the introduction of the players at once since one was already visible. Today’s trio for the ceremonial making of the first move was FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich, Natalya Komarova, Governor of the autonomous region Khanty-Mansi, and the Mayor of Moscow, Sergey Sobyanin, who actually played the move. The players returned to the Catalan Opening, which produced the most dramatic clash of the match so far, in game two. Phase one Carlsen was again the first to vary, and once more offered to sacrifice a pawn in return for the more active pieces. Nepo began thinking very early, but his decisions in the opening phase of the game indicated that he might have been surprised but was solving the problems posed confidently at the board. First, the challenger declined the offered pawn, and after a longer pause on move 10, appeared to work out a long-term plan. From here, the roles were reversed, with Carlsen grim-faced and immersed in his calculations, burning clock time. Expert commentators were impressed by the challenger’s handling of the position and felt his combination of care and accuracy had given him a very pleasant position. “I think we can say Ian did comfortably well in the opening, mostly through good play,” said previous world title challenger, US grandmaster (GM) Fabiano Caruana, implying that the challenger had been out of his preparation early. On his 17th move Nepomniachtchi rejected the exchange of queens, hinting that he not only felt comfortable in the position, but was interested in a more complicated game. Experts assessed the chances as equal, but the position was not necessarily dull. Further reflection As many of the star-studded commentary teams, both in Dubai and online, used the players’ long thinking time to do their own deeper dives, the mood began to shift, with a new consensus that Carlsen was generating the kind of micro-advantages that became his trademark strength, an ability to convert nearly invisible pressure into smooth victories. Although computer ‘commentators’ continued to assess the position as in total balance, human authorities began to scent excitement. The challenger found a bold continuation, offering a material imbalance to stay active, and the champion found himself seriously short of time for the first time in the match, with under 10 minutes to work out his last 11 moves, or forfeit the game. The human factors