Featured image credit: Niki Riga
The Calm Before The Storm?
Regular readers of this blog know I have been a fervent defender of the draws between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana in their 2018 World Chess Championship Match. After their fantastic battle in game 10, I even went to an extreme and wrote a highly sarcastic introduction in my report.
Of course, as usually happens, in game 11 players did their best to refute my claims and make me look like a fool. Because game 11 was the driest and most „boring“ games of them all.
But alas, as they say: Mr. Murpyh likes challenges.
(For the uninitiated – Murphy’s law states everything that can go wrong WILL go wrong)
The game essentially ended even before it started. By move 20, a dead equal opposite coloured bishop endgame has arisen. Even though the players decided to satisfy the formalities and play for another 30 moves, the evaluation never budged. After less than 3 hours of play, a draw was agreed.
Round 11 report follows.
Game Course
For the first time since game 6, Carlsen opted for 1 e4. As expected, Caruana answered with his beloved Petroff. Instead of the „silly“ 4 Nd3!?, Carlsen went for the popular mainline with 4 Nf3 and 5 Nc3. Caruana was once again the better prepared player and managed to surprise his opponent.
On move 12 Magnus decided to avoid the most critical 12 Bg5!? and chose the meek 12 Kb1!?. After Caruana’s 12… Qa5, queen exchange became inevitable. Carlsen tried to pose some problems with the knight maneouvre to g6, but Caruana’s Ng4-Ne5 idea neutralized that idea. By move 20, an opposite coloured bishop endgame was reached. Magnus managed to win a pawn, but Black was never in danger and the game soon ended in a draw, much to the disappointment of broad chess public.
And Norwegian superstar supporters.
Game Analysis
The Aftermath?
Although this result is not a catastrophe for Magnus, he is playing with fire here, since he will have Black tomorrow. With only one game remaining, matters are pretty clear – we will get another Sicilian and it will be a huge fight.
I don’t believe Carlsen will risk employing 1 … e5 for the first time in the match and check Caruana’s preparation. I also don’t believe Caruana will shy away from confrontation; despite his confidence, we all know he is not favourite in the tiebreaks.
In any case, I have no doubt tomorrow’s game will be much more interesting. I hope for a true spectacle and a worthy pinnacle to this extremely tough and close match.
Video Analysis Of The Game
Chess needs to be revitalized. The present way of giving points is destructive. I mean you get 1/2 point for draw and 1 point for a win regardless. I propose GLADIATOR CHESS. You get zero points for draw. If you mate your opponent in N moves you get exp(-kN) points and the loser -exp(-kN) so that the game is always a zero sum game. The parameter k can be determined so that you get 0.10 points if you mate in 100 moves. This way there will no more draws, and people won’t resign lost positions, they will try to persevere as long as possible. Also, people will prefer mating attacks to working on small positional advantages.