2017 Champions Showdown, Day 6: Carlsen Finishes off Ding Liren **UPDATED**
The match had already been clinched, but it was necessary to play today's five-minute games as well. The wins-to-losses ratio was exactly the same as yesterday: Magnus Carlsen won six games and lost one, drawing the rest; the difference is that four more games were played today, which means that instead of only one draw today's action saw five of them.
Oddly, after the first ten games (of twelve) today, Carlsen hadn't won a single one with the white pieces, while for Ding Liren the white pieces were even worse: he didn't score so much as a single draw. Finally both players' streaks came to an end in the last two games: Carlsen won game 11 with White and Ding drew game 12 in his last White game to finish off the match on a comparatively high note.
Carlsen thus won today's action 17-7 (on the day's 2-1-0 scoring) and the match by a hefty 67-25 score. His play wasn't as impressive today - it was clear that they were playing five-minute chess and not "real" chess, and with the match already decided and no rating points on the line Carlsen's motivation probably declined at least somewhat compared to the previous days. Still, it was a good performance, and he'll be back in (blitz and bullet) action on Saturday against Wesley So in the last quarterfinal match of Chess.com's Speed Chess Championship.
UPDATE: Having noted Carlsen's next event, I should also note that Ding Liren is playing in the final FIDE Grand Prix tournament, in Palma de Mallorca, on Thursday. (Unfortunately, the organizers' decision to accommodate Carlsen's schedule, starting their match two days later than the other three, leaves poor Ding all of one day - or half a day - to acclimate for a tournament seven time zones away. I'm sure Ding felt that it was a trade-off worth making, especially since he doesn't need the Grand Prix to qualify for the Candidates, he made $40k for his troubles, and received the [painful but useful] opportunity to play 30 games against the world champion. And he's probably right, but it's too bad that he had to make such a decision - especially since whatever Carlsen's other obligation was it wasn't playing in a chess tournament.)
Also, a stat I intended to mention, but forgot: there were 120 games in total played in the four matches, and in the end Black had a plus score: 38 wins, 34 losses, and 48 draws. Perhaps there have been other elite events in the past with a comparable number of total games where Black outscored White, but I doubt that there are many of them. Maybe some database jockeys out there can find some examples?
Reader Comments (1)
Carlsen's other obligation was giving a simul - which may or may not be considered a (serious/major) chess event. The Saint Louis organizers' concession to Ding Liren was to start the last day two hours earlier, apparently otherwise he would have been unable to arrive in time in Palma de Mallorca at all.
It may have made sense to also postpone the Caruana-Grischuk match, as Grischuk arrived similarly jetlagged from the European Team Championship eight time zones away (it didn't seem to affect the match result, as Grischuk collapsed only on the fourth or halfway the third day).
[DM: Well, that makes sense: Carlsen had to give a simul; that should obviously take precedence over Ding Liren playing in a world-class event. It's a good thing for Ding that Carlsen didn't have a pick-up basketball game scheduled in the morning, or he might have had to wait until today to fly out.]
On game statistics: Black outscoring white was solely due to Carlsen-Ding Liren (+13-5=12 for black), with the other matches near-even - Nakamura-Topalov and So-Dominguez +8-10=12, Caruana-Grischuk +9-9=12. Peculiarly, all four matches had precisely 12 draws [nitpicking: you added four more draws, but 4*30 games is 120, not 124].
[DM: If it was "solely" due to Carlsen-Ding Liren, then it would mean that White won every game in the other matches - in which case it would have been impossible for Black to have finished with a plus score. (Live by the nitpick, die by the nitpick.) But thanks for the correction on the number of draws - I'll fix that.]
Not an elite (at least not women elite-only) event, nor black outscoring white in the end, but something I recently noticed for the European Women rapid championship: total score +219-203=66 for white. In Swiss events, such statistics can be affected by early rounds with respect to "equal chances for black" as favorites tend to win with either color, but the pattern prevailed over the entire event - black outscoring white in rounds 5 and 11 of 11, and scoring 50% in rounds 4 and 7. In some of the decisive rounds, white still dominated on the top boards. The extremely low number of draws may be due to rapid, and to the fact that sub-2600 chess (male or female) tends to have more decisive games than at a higher Elo level.
[DM: Well, at least you didn't mention an under-5 championship played at the local McDonald's where White won every game but one.]