The game ended on time, and the interviews that followed were enough to see Manchester United - Chelsea from kick-off.
Then Magnus Carlsen and Jan Nepomnjaschtschi found out that they still have an extra appointment to do in front of the television.
"Hopefully the doping test won't ruin everything," said Carlsen of his intentions for the rest of the evening.
This also included Real Madrid - Sevilla FC and NBA basketball.
“A good plan, which I will partly agree to,” agreed Nepomynashchi.
If they weren't in Dubai as opponents, they'd probably look together.
After the excitement on Saturday, when Carlsen screwed up an opening advantage (see diagram) and then Nepomnyashchi made nothing of a large material plus, their third match was calm and balanced.
As in the opening game on Friday, the challenger opened with Spanish, again avoiding the Marshall gambit, which had been analyzed in many variations to a draw, but switched to a recipe with which Garry Kasparov had been extremely successful at the 1993 World Cup.
Share point
Carlsen, however, maneuvered more skillfully than the challenger at the time, Nigel Short. The black pawn formation looked shakier than the white one, but Nepomnjaschtschi saw nothing more than a more symbolic advantage in a final that resulted in a draw. Because the rules prohibit a draw agreement before move 40, they routinely heaved each other up to move 41 before officially sharing the point.
Afterwards, an employee of the Lichess Internet platform informed them that they had played the most correct world championship game in chess history.
This was not measured by the correspondence with the best move according to the computer, but according to "Centipawn Loss", ie by adding up the evaluation losses in the few places where one of them did not choose the best move according to the computer.
Carlsen took the message with a grin: "I'm proud of that, but unfortunately I only get half a point."
Long time to think about it
It has now been five years and four days since he last won a World Cup game with a long cooling-off period, namely on November 24, 2016 against Sergei Karjakin.
At the 2018 World Cup against Fabiano Caruana, all long games ended in a draw.
Carlsen defended his title in the jump-off with a shorter time to think about it.
At the end of the press conference, a fan asked: What will you remember in fifty years when you hear the name Magnus Carlsen?
"Now is not the right time to talk about my fame," he began and then found the curve: "Hopefully someone who won a World Cup game after 2016." His next attempt on Tuesday falls on his 31st . Date of birth.