Magnus Carlsen also preserves his title of world champion of chess

After a balanced start of match, the Russian Challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi has completely cracked and conceded four defeats in Norwegian.

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Of the five World Chess Championships that Magnus Carlsen has played since 2013, it has been the most scathing, the bloodiest. Friday, December 10 in Dubai, Norwegian retained his world crown by winning the e part of his match (planned in 14 games) against his Russian Challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi. With four wins in his meter and no defeat, Magnus Carlsen led 7.5-3.5 and could not be joined to the score.

However, the beginning of the match had not allowed to augur such brutality. Visibly well prepared, rather comfortable while the world number one seemed a tense tense, Ian Nepomniachtchi, 5 e global player, held the high dragee to an opponent he knows well: all the Two born in 1990, these players compete since the young categories. The first five parties resulted in a null and we saw the spectrum of the previous world championship, played in 2018, where neither Magnus Carlsen nor his opponent of the time, the Italian Fabiano Caruana, were not managed to win the slightest meeting. Twelve on twelve on twelve, a boring reflection of chess game at the highest level, where the differences between the great masters are minimal … Everything had then decided in the games of fast pace, domain where the Norwegian has for So to say no rival.

almost eight hours in front of the chessboard

It was nothing this time. The turn of the Dubai match took place in the e party. Everything seemed to hold, with the black pieces, for Ian NepoMniachtchi, which had several occasions to simplify the position and get a sixth zero. But – excess optimism or want to move things – the Russian decided to unbalance the game by forcing his opponent to exchange his lady against two towers.

A long series of maneuvers followed and the Norwegian, who does not like anything as long as mixing the position, pressing it from all odds to extract the last drop of juice, has managed to find the right arrangement of His pieces then inexorably advance his two remaining pieces towards the last row, the one where the pawn, simple infantry, can become general, that is to say lady. Noting that the party could not be saved, Ian NepoMniachtchi abandoned to 136 e with almost eight hours before the chessboard, which makes this meeting the longest of the whole history of the championships of the world. She dethroned a game played in 1978 between the Russians Anatoli Karpov and Viktor Kortchnoi, a zero that had lasted 124 strokes.

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/Media reports.