NRR: 2016 World Chess Championship begins in two weeks. Carlsen v. Karjakin

Endgame Analyst wrote: (typo)

(Carlsen gave some Kg7 lines, and he might well draw those too, but it's very much messier)

The point in the line I gave, is that Black can blockade with something like Nf5/Kf7/Pg6 until White pushes pawn to h5 to dislodge g6 defender of f5, and then after exchanging pawns he can blockade in multiple ways the doublers on the f-file. The real question is whether you'd assess this as a draw (or at least your best bet) from afar, particularly in the given pressure situation.

Carlsen again blew off Norwegian TV. They also had the doping control after the press conference. (In Moscow Candidates, the lab was not certified, so they skipped it)

I think Carlsen saw all the key lines to reach a draw, though he might not have known it was drawn in all variations.

Nobody asked about the opening choice by Carlsen, where only White could win, and Carlsen taking 30 minutes in a position that was still in Svidler's video on the line.

It wasn't just the engines that hated Carlsen's position; most of the strongest players, including Svidler and Carlsen himself, thought that Carlsen would have been in big trouble after 39. Qb3. In the line that you gave as "the clearest line" with 40 ... Qxf7, Carlsen's assessment was that his position would have been "very unpleasant" two pawns down in the rook-and-minor-piece endgame, despite white's doubled f-pawns. I don't know whether Karjakin had a winning position with best play after 39. Qb3, but the world champion clearly thought that he was in serious trouble.

Anyway, on to game ten.

It's clear that the whole thing is fixed. Carlsen wants to lose the championship, and get on with his life. Either subconsciously or more. Too much burden right now. He skipped most of the Grand Chess Tour, and would rather just play fun blitz and rapid games (kind of like Vishy Anand). He even tried to come up with a crazy plan to change how the Championship works so it wouldn't be so obvious when he lost it. Fortunately he got a real challenger like Karjakin, even though he's Russian.

I don't think most nonchess players realize what an amazing feat it is to win the World Chess Championship. Yesterday they played for 5 1/2 hours straight. pushing themselves to the absolute limit of their mental and really physical capacity. Any let up in mental concentration could result in a blunder that would cost the game. It was the 9th game in a series of at minimum 12? games.

As a past casual chess player I was very interested in finding out about the current great coverage of these games. I was following it on chess24. They not only would give you a computer generated rating of who is ahead but they also give you recommended lines for the next move.

The BEST part of the coverage is that you can make the your own moves that you think would be good and the computers lets you see how that line could develop. You have the capacity to switch back from your hypothetical lines to the actual games easily at any point.

You can really be an active participant watching the games. (Its like getting to call the plays in a football game while you are watching and seeing how they would work out).

Game 10 is off! Made it over in person for this one. Feeling good for Magnus at the opener right now!

Bxe6!? and it looks like White has to allow a draw (else a lot worse). Karjakin thought for a lot in the opening and was behind by a lot of time, but Carlsen didn't exactly go for the guttural.

If he'd made Karjakin say "ach machter grafften gruber" it would have been all over

I guess maybe he did say it

Very strange, will have to wait for the postgame chatter, but Karjakin seemed to just not take the draw at move 20 when offered. Carlsen was fumbling his pieces and looked very unhappy, so maybe Karjakin thought he could play for more?

The rest of the game was pretty much scripted, Karjakin tries to hold a difficult position, and this time he failed in the sixth hour.

Game Ten: Magnus wins!

A brutal game. Karjakin seemed to have a straightforward draw after 19. Bxe6 fxe6 20. Nd2 Nxf2+, but he instead chose 20. ... d4, and the draw started getting trickier. Nothing was clearly winning for Magnus, though, until move 56, when Sergei got careless and allowed Magnus to crash through on the queenside. After some inaccuracies by both players, Magnus finally arrived at an easy rook-and-pawn ending, and Sergei resigned. But a tough, tough game, especially for Karjakin, who is probably going to need the rest day tomorrow.

XxXxYyZzOoXx wrote:

Very strange, will have to wait for the postgame chatter, but Karjakin seemed to just not take the draw at move 20 when offered. Carlsen was fumbling his pieces and looked very unhappy, so maybe Karjakin thought he could play for more?

The rest of the game was pretty much scripted, Karjakin tries to hold a difficult position, and this time he failed in the sixth hour.

I'd be surprised if Magnus intended to "offer" a draw at move 20; I think that he simply misanalyzed the position after 19. Bxe6, where either Bc2 or Ra3 seemed sufficient to keep the game alive for quite a while. I'd also be surprised if Sergei intended to eschew the draw on move 20 and (much less obviously) move 21; I think that he just didn't see it, since he's not the kind of player who would be expected to pass up the draw in such a situation. Sergei quickly found himself in an unpleasant rook-and-minor-piece ending, defended very well for a long time, and finally missed the purpose behind Magnus's apparently harmless shuffling of rooks from above move 52 to move 56. A painful loss for Sergei, and the momentum and odds suddenly shift back to Magnus.

Avocado's Number wrote:

[quote]XxXxYyZzOoXx wrote:

above move 52 to move 56.

"about"

Sorry.

The game epitomizes everything about chess. The announcers spin their wheels as each player thinks for 30 minutes on a single move in the opening. Then they suddenly get really excited, as Carlsen allows an immediate drawing chance, and then they are completely befuddled when Karjakin doesn't play it. Cue talking about everything under the moon for 3 or so hours, and then they indicate that Karjakin got his defensive setup wrong and now b5 works, so White wins. Of course, the commentators never have to "be careful" in their analysis, which indeed is what the players spend most of their time on (here Black more than White, who was probably also looking of ways to infuse tricks).

I don't know if it's ever fair to the players to guess their thoughts. Karjakin seemed to indicate that he was sure Carlsen wasn't going to the draw line, and would play on in an unbalanced two knights versus rook imbalanced middlegame. Even though your computer might say Black is better, it's not that obvious (and he might have missed a key point), particularly recalling his time trouble looming. The same way, when Carlsen was shuffling his rooks, Karjakin's rooks were really the important ones, and he twice put them both on the 7th rank, thinking he had to keep the h-file covered. Instead, the rooks interfere and e6 falls. Maybe Carlsen already could play b5 the first time around, but Black didn't even have to allow that.

I think it's fair to guess their thoughts -- that's a big part of the game as a spectator sport -- but it's unreasonable to assume that one's guesses are right. That's why I find myself using words like "seemed" and "apparently" so often on a thread like this. I haven't heard the players' post-game comments yet; I'll be interested to hear or read them later. I did wonder if Carlsen would choose the two knights vs. rook and two pawns middlegame to avoid draw by repetition, but the optics didn't look very good for white (black's pawn structure suddenly looked great, with the e-pawns undoubled and the kingside pawns looking very mobile) and Svidler seemed pretty dismissive of the idea, so I didn't bother to analyze it any further, and I have no idea what any engines were saying about it. Perhaps we'll find out what Carlsen had in mind.

Regarding the shuffling of rooks before b5, the only differences between the position after black's 54th and 56th moves were white rooks on b3 and d2 (after black's 54th) and white rooks on b1 and d3 (after black's 56th), but the engines suddenly went bonkers after black's 56th, when b5 immediately appeared to be winning. It seems likely that the difference between a rook on d2 and a rook on d3 was critical, and some of the later play tended to confirm that, but I doubt that many people could have seen that without engines. (I was barely paying attention during the rook-shuffling, and Svidler and Gustafsson were off the air, so I don't know what anyone was thinking about it.)

Regarding the use of engines by spectators and commentators during the game: I prefer that the commentators not use them; I'd rather see and hear their own analysis and evaluations. For spectators, engines can be instructive, but they also make people lazy. Perhaps more importantly, spectators with engines start to see these games as contests in which the object is to find the best moves as determined by engines rather than as battles of great creativity and skill between exceptional players. And I hate seeing "BLUNDER!" on chess chat lines whenever a red move appears in an engine evaluation.

The point on the rook shuffling is that after Rd3 when the b-rook moves the other rook is still there to stop Ne3, after which b5 is deadly rather than just annoying (changing the game phase). The Rb3-b1 retreat was simply time-wasting, to see if Karjakin would repeat his Rhh7 miscue.All in all, I think a 1-1 tie so far is about right, given how each has played.What Karjakin said he missed (or comparatively misevaluated) earlier was Nxf2+, Kg1 Nh3+, Kg2 and then Nf4+ twice. Neither preceding king move is exactly the best option for White in theory.GM Hess says the position leads to

... a complex battle. Two knights for a rook and two pawns [and one pawn is likely given back soon] is a bit better for the side with the heavy piece, but the position is incredibly unbalanced. Carlsen's king is exposed, for now, but if Black is not quick, the minors maintain a longterm advantage over a rook. Karjakin has shown all match that he wishes to avoid such unclear positions, and perhaps with a one-game lead this was the right choice. The engines slightly prefer Black, but that edge is reliant on dynamism. A few innocuous moves and all of a sudden, the tides turn. Hindsight is 20/20, but it is not clear to me that Karjakin would have been able to sustain the advantage against Carlsen, who has long shown a knack for understanding where his pieces belong in difficult positions.

Carlsen CHEATED by touching his pawn before moving a rook! BHut of course the rules are different for him.