Carlsen retains his world champion title after another blunder by Nepo

A new mistake by the Russian aspirant

handed victory in the eleventh game to the Norwegian

, who retained his crown of world chess champion for the fourth time, with a score of 7.5 to 3.5 points that puts a premature end to the meeting in Dubai without exhausting the 14 games to which it was agreed.

Carlsen, who snatched the world title from Indian

in 2013, has already defended it successfully four times: against Anand himself in 2014, against Russian

in 2016, against American

in 2018 and now against Nepo, the weakest rival of the four that the champion has faced with the title at stake.

In addition to providing him with a prize of 1.2 million euros (60 percent of the total endowment of the match), his landslide victory over the Russian will extend Carlsen's reign until at least 2023, when he will have to face the winner of the Tournament. of Candidates for next March.

The attack

With an adverse score of 6.5 to 3.5 after 10 games, Nepo needed this Friday, at least, to escape another defeat in the eleventh game to prevent the World Cup from ending prematurely without having to exhaust the fourteen scheduled.

It was also an opportunity to cling, with white, to the last ray of hope.

The challenge was gigantic: to win three of the four games that were left in the program to force a tiebreaker.

The expectation was maximum to see what recipe the Russian team had prepared on the rest day on Thursday.

The Spanish opening had not produced any results for the applicant, and neither did the English opening that he tried in the ninth game, in which a clamorous failure cost him the game, had no effect.

Nepo didn't give his arm to twist on his first move.

He opened with a king's pawn, but instead of Hispaniola he now chose the Italian opening, a quiet option with prospects that the game could come alive mid-game.

For 22 movements there was nothing new.

The positional equality persisted, but once again, in a calm panorama, without risks for either side, the catastrophe occurred: the Russian played 23.g3, allowing Carlsen to disarm the white king through a simple quality delivery (rook per piece minor) that gave way to an irresistible attack with queen and rook entering with lethal effects on the unguarded white kingside.

"For anyone with eyes this is a real disaster (for Nepo)," commented Dutch Grandmaster

.

"I don't see any defense," Viswanathan Anand observed.

It was Nepomniachti's third blunder since he succumbed in the marathon sixth game, the longest in World Cup history (nearly eight hours and 136 moves), which fueled his black legend as a fragile player who collapses after a defeat.

Agony

The outcome of the eleventh was not immediate.

Carlsen lowered his guard and did not hit the best plays, but his slight imprecision only prolonged the agony of Nepo, who was debated in a rook final with a pawn less - and passed - hoping that a champion error would forgive him. life.

Carlsen spared him an immediate defeat but had no mercy on his adversary, inflicting a slow death on him.

Nepo gave up on move 49.

The Norwegian, who prepared this World Cup in Sancti Petri (Spain), will be able to relax now and arrive still fresh at the Rapid and Lightning World Cup that will be played in Warsaw the last week of this year, after the resignation of Kazakhstan due to a pandemic.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

• Spain

• sports

The 100 days of the Rider Law: Deliveroo leaves Spain while Glovo, Just Eat and Uber begin "a great fight for their customers"

Basque Country Otegi and Junqueras press together Sánchez with the budgets, remembering that there are 18 deputies

BasketballFran Guerra, the pivot who left the ghosts and his bad reputation behind: "I was one step away from throwing in the towel"

See links of interest

• Last News

• Translator

• What

• Holidays 2021

• 2022 business calendar

• Home THE WORLD today

• Master investigative journalism

• Fenerbahçe - Eintracht Frankfurt

• Legia Warsaw - Spartak Moscow

• Lyon - Rangers

• Napoli - Leicester City

• Real Sociedad - PSV