Carlsen’s epochal world title triumph proves an antidote to perfection | Bryan Armen Graham

The game of chess itself was the ultimate winner as Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi provided a human drama in the age of supercomputers

The agate type will show that Magnus Carlsen retained the world championship he’s held for eight years by defeating Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi for a fourth time in six games on Friday, closing out their best-of-14 encounter by a score of 7½-3½ and bolstering his claim as the greatest player of this or any other era.

But the Norwegian’s fifth world title match victory – one short of the suddenly imperilled all-time record of six – was freighted with additional meaning by striking a decisive win for a sport that has been dogged by existential questions over its own relevance in an age of supercomputers said to have made the world’s top grandmasters too good to fail.