Magnus Carlsen Pounces on Rival’s Mistake to Retain Chess Title

Magnus Carlsen of Norway retained his world championship on Friday in Dubai after his challenger, the Russian grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi, committed the last of a series of blunders that turned their once-taut match into a relatively easy victory.

Carlsen’s victory came in the 11th game of an event that had been scheduled to last 14 games. The final score was 7.5 to 3.5 points, with each victory worth one point and draws worth half a point.

The loss in the final game by Nepomniachtchi completed one of the worst collapses in a title match in chess history. After the first five games ended in draws, Nepomniachtchi lost four of the last six games. His last three defeats were mostly the result of self-inflicted wounds, as Nepomniachtchi made critical and relatively simple errors in each of them.

In the final game, the players’ chances were equal until Nepomniachtchi made a rash decision to advance the pawns in front of his king to attack one of Carlsen’s rooks, exposing him to a counterattack. Carlsen actually missed the best continuation, which would have forced Nepomniachtchi to give up his queen to avoid being checkmated, but still steered his way to a rook-and-pawn ending where he had a considerable advantage.

Carlsen eventually promoted one of his pawns to a queen and Nepomniachtchi resigned soon afterward.

The turning point in the match was Game 6, an epic struggle of 136 moves won by Carlsen that lasted 7 hours 45 minutes. It was the longest game in world championship history and clearly took a physical and psychological toll on both players, though it was harder on Nepomniachtchi.

After retaining his title, Carlsen pointed to Game 6 as the critical moment. “That sort of laid the foundation,” he said. “The final score was probably a bit more lopsided than it could have been.”

Carlsen collected $1.2 million for his victory and Nepomniachtchi took home $800,000.