The Russian grandmaster desperately needed a win. After losses in an all-time classic Game 6 and a howler in Game 8, in which he blundered away a pawn, Ian Nepomniachtchi began Tuesday’s world championship game down 2 points to Norway’s Magnus Carlsen, the defending world champion and the best chess player in the world. The […]
We didn’t see much of Ian Nepomniachtchi on Sunday, though the Russian grandmaster is nominally competing for the World Chess Championship in Dubai. He spent much of the day in a private room, hidden away from spectators and cameras, while the chess world watched his position deteriorate on the board. Magnus Carlsen of Norway, the […]
A peaceful draw was widely predicted for Saturday in the World Chess Championship — a respite just hours after Game 6, the longest game in the history of the championship and the first decisive result in the event in over five years. And the two players delivered: Magnus Carlsen, the defending world chess champion, maintained […]
Ian Nepomniachtchi took off his blazer on the third move, a record-fast time, and he played with a captured chess piece like it was a fidget spinner. Across the table from him in a glass box in Dubai sat Magnus Carlsen, the world No. 1. The two, locked in the middle of a weeks-long battle […]
Your diligent chess correspondent spent the morning watching some chess. Magnus Carlsen of Norway and Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia (not pictured) are in fact in Dubai battling for the 2021 World Chess Championship. The grandmasters — the world Nos. 1 and 5, respectively — had both stepped away from the board and into their private […]