With a tense pull that lasted four hours and 45 moves, Magnus Carlsen on Friday began the final defense of his World Chess championship title. The Norwegian Grandmaster has been number 1 in the world for a decade and has held the top title of sport since 2013. His challenges, Russian Grandmaster and world number 5 Ian Nepomnyachchi, won the right to challenge the title by winning the elite candidates tournament in April.
The match is equal to 0.5-0.5 in a race to 7.5 points. The best-of-14 game contest could stretch into the next three weeks.
The two players met on a glowing, glass-encased stage in Dubai, which struck at least one reporter as visually reminiscent of the VIP area in “Squid Game” – though no blood was drawn here yet. Nepomniachtchi marshaled the white pieces – determined by a procedure at an opening gala with confetti-filled balloons – and the two began in the main line of the Ruy Lopez opening, well-trodden territory named for a 16th-century Spanish priest.
The mind games had started days earlier. Last week, on the Norwegian-language Løperekka podcast, Carlsen called Nepomniachtchi a “very capricious player” and a “wild card,” according to a translation on Chess24. He also suggested that Nepomniachtchi may not be able to handle the pressures of a world championship and that other players would have made stronger challenges. Carlsen also said he will try to strike early.
The two grandmasters quickly figured out the first dozen or so moves of the game, but it soon became subtle and intricate, emblematic of modern chess, where computer engines mined the game for each final edge and grandmasters internalized the lessons as gospel. Even after 17 moves, and the universe of possibility that the moves could contain, both players appeared to be comfortable in the scope of their primate preparation.
At this point, the position in Dubai has never before appeared in the vast databases of accumulated human chess history.
Carlsen tried to strike, and had previously sacrificed a pawn to ignite a nascent attack, led by his pair of bishops. Nepomnyachchi, constantly sipping from his attack, himself listens to his small material advantage, while Carlsen nurses his positional advantage, trying to break through.
“Ideas come more naturally from black’s side,” said Robert Hess, a grandmaster commentator for Chess.com.
“It’s much harder to make progress with white,” said Viswanathan Anand, a former world champion who works the official game Live Stream.
Carlsen even removed his blazer.
But Nepomnyachchi, already away from Blazer, handled the pressure just fine, and the Norwegian attack never quite ignited. A flurry of midgame trades saw both of Carlsen’s bishops exit the scene, leaving each side with two rooks and a knight to maneuver between a ticket of pawns as they enter an intricate end game. Even after, it seemed brief that Carlsen had earned the sort of small advantage that he was famous for chasing to the bitter end.
Again, this is what disappeared. The players agreed to a draw in the position below, as White’s Knight and Black’s Slide were caught in a endless, repetitive dance.
The post-game press conference was something of a draw, with both players deflecting questions about their winning chances and their feelings about the outcome.
“I would not say that I am never optimistic in terms of winning the game,” Carlsen said.
“A draw is also something of a result,” Nepomniachtchi said. “I do not feel anything specific.”
Here’s how things went through move in Game 1, according to the evaluations of the superhuman chess engine stockfish. (We will update the chart below over the match.)
Game 2 begins on Saturday at 7:30 East. We will cover the entire match here and on Twitter, hoping to feel many specific things.
For even more writing about chess and other games, check out Roeder’s new book, “Seven Games: A Man’s Story,“Available in January.
