World Championship, Game 10: Carlsen Becomes World Champion After A Long Draw
Friday, November 22, 2013 at 11:28AM Magnus Carlsen is the new world chess champion, achieving this final landmark eight days shy of his 23rd birthday. With a 6-3 lead coming into game 10 he only needed a draw to win the best-of-12 match against (now former world champion) Viswanathan Anand, and he succeeded.
Some thought Anand would be amenable to a short draw, but to his credit he played a full game. He tried to liven things up with a Sicilian (no Berlin, to the relief of many spectators), but Carlsen kept the position quiet and controlled, and at one moment had good winning chances. Anand's 28...Qg5 was a serious error, but after 29.e5 Ne8 Carlsen let him off the hook with 30.exd6; instead, something like 30.Nc3 Rc6 31.f4 Qd8 32.Na4 would have left Anand with an absolutely miserable position and probably still another loss.
After the exchange of errors Carlsen maintained a slight pull, but used it to swap almost everything off and reach a drawn knight ending. It turned into a queen ending that was drawn as well, and when (almost) all the pieces came off after 65 moves the players finally called it a day. (The game, with my brief comments, can be replayed here.)
Carlsen has now reached the summit, becoming the second-youngest world champion in history (Garry Kasparov was a younger 22-year-old when he won the title; third-oldest if one counts Ruslan Ponomariov's FIDE knockout championship win in 2002 when he was 18 years old). He is already the highest-rated player of all time, so what's left? Hopefully he can remain motivated to keep improving, and for that matter hopefully the chase pack will close on him to help force him to keep getting better.
For the almost 44-year-old Anand, it remains to be seen if he will put in the time and energy it will take to successfully fight in the next Candidates tournament this coming March. Will he start to fade, becoming just one of the super-GMs, or does he have the ambition to regain his title? We'll get a first glimpse of his form and ambition next month, as he is among the participants in the next edition of the London Chess Classic.
In the meantime, congratulations to Magnus Carlsen!
Reader Comments (8)
I don't see Anand coming back from this match. He is a wounded tiger that has fought too many hard battles. Can he regain his form in 3 months time to win the Candidates? The young pack will smell blood,
Beyond the candidates Father Time is against him and Carlsen is not retiring any time soon.
[DM: You are right about the young pack. In addition to Carlsen and the other 1990 stars like Karjakin, Vachier-Lagrave, Andreikin and Nepomniachtchi, the even younger Caruana and Giri are coming up fast too. The clock may even be ticking for Kramnik and even Aronian as well.]
Regardless of what anyone may think of Carlsen (I like him, personally, but Kramnik is my favorite of the current top players), his courage and energy at the board has to be admired. Passing up a draw, and entering that scary looking knight endgame...I'd be surprised, except for the fact that he does that sort of thing consistently. Cheers to Magnus, nice to see the world title in the hands of the best player.
I hope, if nothing else, vishy will feel the pressure is often and just come out swinging his claws
Kramnik's loss of the title to Anand prompted him to change his style somewhat (and prompted some "Kramnik 2.0" comments). At any rate, Kramnik certainly hasn't faded. I'm hopeful that Anand might similarly revitalize his chess.
Here's hoping that Anand will have the kind of 1-2 years that Gelfand is having!
Thanks for the excellent commentary, as always. Will we anytime soon see a critical summary of the match from you ? Where did Anand go wrong ? Was Carlsen really as dominant as the score suggests ?
In my view, Carlsen played the match in the only way he knows how to. Equal or slightly better opening, cold boring middlegame play and pushing a drawn endgame and bouncing on any inaccuracies. If anything, the match showed Anand's horrid form more so than Carlsen's dominance. 2008 Anand would have drawn games 5 and 6 in the sleep. Thoughts ?
[DM: It's easy to chalk up many of Carlsen's victories to his opponents blowing drawn endings, except that it happens so often it might behoove us to reconsider! Very few players in chess history have been able to create and maintain the tension in a position throughout a game the way he does. I would add that it's not the only way he knows how to play, but it is something he does well and that was especially well-suited for a match with Anand. If one has the ability to play to one's opponent's weakness without playing to one's own weaknesses as well, then that's the way to go. Anand didn't play his best chess, but to some degree it's because Carlsen didn't let him. So my view is that Anand should have played more aggressively in general - as in game 9 - and should have pushed when he had the chance (rather than taking a draw in a better position in game 1, for instance).]
Here is an excerpt from Chessbase newsletter accompanying Fritz 14
"What have we seen? Have we seen Carlsen crunching Anand in a tactical dogfight? No! We have seen Carlsen pressing, pressing and then pressing some more until Anand cracks. Even in the games that Carlsen won, Carlsen won them because Anand slipped up under momentous pressure. That’s not to say that Carlsen didn’t win them – but the Championship has so far been a battle of wills, rather than one of “who is outright better than who”."
[DM: Until human chess doesn't involve wills, winning such a battle is one way in which player A can be "outright better" than player B. One might as well say that player A isn't "really" better at blitz than player B, he just thinks faster. Well, yes, but that's how it works!]
"so what's left?"
ICCF worldchampionship. A difficult task. It might be a bit early for Carlsen to pursue it though. So maybe it's more something for Anand.