"Crazy Game": How Nepomniachtchi failed to convert his advantage with Black and drew Carlsen for the second time

In the second game of the match for the chess crown, Ian Nepomniachtchi received black pieces, which often brought him luck in fights with Magnus Carlsen. He won his two out of four victories over the Norwegian just when he answered his first move. Also, the Russian has drawn such games five times. All this made it possible to hope that, at the end of their next battle in Abu Dhabi, the challenger would at least not be inferior in the score.

Carlsen did not start the game with the most popular move to e4, but moved his pawn to d4. At the pace of the blitz, the opponents played the Catalan opening. The Norwegian's idea was quite tricky - besides the fact that he himself is well versed in this opening, for Nepomniachtchi, playing with black pieces, it was a serious challenge. He played only four such fights at a high level, and in each he was content with a draw. At the end of the opening, the Russian gained an advantage by one pawn, but this hardly gave him any advantage.

Carlsen's next knight move to e5 caused bewilderment among Nepomniachtchi.

He was the first to take a long pause for thought and moved the c-pawn forward instead of a similar answer.

Only with his next move did he make the obvious move to d5.

The Russian wasted a lot of time, while Carlsen continued to walk almost instantly, despite the fact that the computer gave a clear preference to the challenger.

Nepomniachtchi opened up a wide variety of prospects for the future, and long reflections could just be associated with the pleasant pangs of choice.

As a result, he decided to lead his knight, supported by pawns, almost to the rear of the opponent, and thus gave the initiative to Carlsen.

The Norwegian was not happy about this.

Now he has already begun to burn the timer, driving himself into time trouble - he spent almost an hour of play on 14 moves.

The world champion was thrown off balance.

He began to show with all his appearance that Nepomniachtchi managed to knock him out of his comfort zone with his unexpected moves.

Perhaps it is because of this that the most interesting moment of the last two days happened.

Carlsen did not exchange knights in the center of the board, and Nepomniachtchi used this piece to create a fork for the rook and bishop, which were in their original positions, with the prospect of reaching the queen.

Carlsen decided to save the rook first, but it was already impossible to do that.

In the end, he lost his rook and bishop, and the Russian lost two knights.

Taking into account the fact that Nepomniachtchi still had an extra pawn in the opening, his advantage in quality was quite significant.

But it turned out to be a problem to use it again.

On the 24th move, he promoted the pawn to c3, which led to a complete loss of the initiative. Carlsen grabbed this straw, cleared a place for the queen and literally took aim at all the most important pieces of Nepomniachtchi. Whatever actions the Russian has taken since then, he no longer held promising positions. Carlsen, on the other hand, controlled the opponent's movements with his remaining knight and could even think about a counterattack if his second hour had not come to an end.

But Carlsen made a mistake again.

The transfer of the queen to g4 allowed Nepomniachtchi to reverse the exchange of the rook for the knight.

Soon the queens and several pawns disappeared from the field, and a rook endgame began, which promised no benefit to anyone.

The chess players still tried to give the fans false hope for some kind of action-packed continuation, but only robbed each other of their strength before returning to the board on Sunday.

On move 58, the second game came to an end.

Nepomniachtchi stated that both chess players made mistakes that led to a draw.

According to him, it was possible to avoid this outcome, but he himself chose not to take too high a risk.

“On the whole, it is a rather complicated and rich game.

We both didn't play very well, but maybe that's why this game turned out so interesting.

The party, of course, was crazy.

Sometimes I didn't understand what was happening.

It is clear that White was pushing at first.

I still have mixed feelings about this game.

I think we both had a chance of winning.

It's good that I was able to get the initiative, then take the initiative out of my opponent.

It was possible, of course, to make a risky move and lose, but I decided to do it differently.

Of course, there is much less pressure now than before the start of the tournament.

I just enjoy playing chess, ”the Russian is quoted as saying by“ Championship ”.

Carlsen, in turn, admitted that the meeting was not the best way, and explained his dubious queen move by time trouble.

He was pleased with how the second game ended up.

“I thought I was in a good position.

But then he made a small mistake, and the victim was already a forced, but at the same time logical decision.

Although Black had to work hard to win the current position.

I didn’t feel that I had the opportunity to win, although I understood that my position was improving.

When I played g4, I was running out of time on the clock, so I decided to force the game a little.

I have not seen how the current position can be improved.

Of course, taking into account how the game was developing, it is good that in the end a position was formed without risk for me, ”said the world champion.