Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Carlsen-Caruana: Carlsen retains the title

Well, that was something!

If you hadn't already heard, Magnus Carlsen annihilated Fabiano Caruana in the 4-game rapid tie-break series.

From what I could see, the first game was mostly even, although Caruana, with the black pieces, was down a pawn in a rook-and-pawns endgame around move 40 or so, and then, with neither player having more than a few seconds on their clock, Caruana made an endgame error and Carlsen pounced on it and won the game.

A decisive result!

Then something really strange happened, and Caruana just collapsed, losing the next two games in hideous ugly fashion.

Perhaps he was just completely rattled by the rapid-chess format? (He's not been known for his strength in this format, while Carlsen is just as good at rapid chess, perhaps even better at it, than he is at the full-length format.)

At any rate, it was suddenly, suddenly over.

There can be no doubt: the tie-breaks served their purpose.

And Carlsen was the worthy victor.

But Caruana played a fantastic match, and I surely hope we will see this pair contest many, many more games over the coming decades.

1 comment:

  1. Caruana must haver known it was all over when it went to tie-breaks.

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