A very uneventful draw in the last game, but one that nevertheless provides some information about Carlsen’s psychology and how he sees things.

The very fact that a player like Carlsen, who values the white pieces and always tries to play for win, didn’t try to take advantage of these last white pieces in the classical part of the match, coupled with his statement at the press conference that he wanted to play a tie-break, shows that he deeply feels the trend of how things were developing in this match.

It was a difficult match for Carlsen – he didn’t win games he was expected to win, then his level dropped, then he forced matters unnecessarily and lost. He was lucky (please read here to understand what I mean by “lucky”) not to lose another one and then finally broke even. The last two games were tame affairs when neither player wanted to risk.

The flow of the match was uneven for Carlsen (less so for Karjakin, who firmly followed his pre-match strategy of playing as safely as possible at all times) and it didn’t allow for a last-game heroic win. It was against the natural flow of how things were developing in the match and we saw in Game 8 what happened when he tried to violently impose his will at all costs.

Carlsen is very good at feeling his inner state and followed his own counsel, not paying attention to the wishes of the public or the expectations of the world. He said he feels good about the rapid, soon enough we’ll see what he means and whether he’s right.

As for what to expect in the rapid, I have the impression that now perhaps Karjakin will show more venomous ideas with white. It seems that all his strategy was to draw with both white and black and he was completely toothless with white – if not now, when is he going to show his great preparation (which he undoubtedly had, but saw no reason to use the way the match was going). As for Carlsen, he will also show more daring ideas, especially with white (with black I expect both to stay solid) and if these predictions come true, we will witness a great fighting 4-game rapid match on Wednesday.

Until then, Game 12 for a good night sleep (in Europe at least):

Karjakin again chose the line with a3 and Nc3 as in Game 2, but this time Carlsen varied and chose a line that was frequently played by Svidler in 2013. Carlsen’s choice was similar to his previous choices when he was black (games 6 and 9 in particular) – he goes for heavily analysed and forced lines in order to achieve a draw. An approach not characteristic of Carlsen when he plays in tournaments, but matches are different and in this match he was much better prepared in the openings than Karjakin, contrary to popular belief that it would be the other way round.

In view of Karjakin’s timid play (but perhaps the position is too dry for white to try for more anyway) Carlsen didn’t face problems. And then the notable moments started. On move 18 Carlsen started pushing forward. It was more of a psychological push, the position remained equal, but he wanted to make it clear that it was him who was pushing and trying, not Karjakin. He could have made a draw by simple means, but no, his 19th and 24th move were the same, he tried to impose his will, it was vintage Carlsen, from an equal position he tried to press. Press he did, only the position was too drawish for anything substantial to happen and Karjakin was careful. But these 3 moves showed that Carlsen is back to his confident self and he said it himself in the press conference when he said that the match “is trending in a good direction” for him and I am sure what he had in mind were these 3 moments when he showed superior will.

With the last game of the match remaining and Carlsen having white, he will undoubtedly try to make it count. Karjakin has mostly been an immovable object so another gruelling duel is expected.

Here’s Game 11 with analysis.

Carlsen got very little out of the opening, but there was a small detail that introduced some irrational elements in the position – black had a stranded knight on h3. I’m really curious to know if this was all prepared beforehand – not the exact line, but the possibility that this knight would appear on the board and that this would be unsettling for a classical player like Karjakin. This knight offerred black some tactical chances, but it also risked being offside. And then the players started to miscalculate things. Carlsen’s 19 Be6 allowed black a chance to either draw or force white into a very unclear position. Karjakin’s choices in this match were always inclined towards safety, so he passed this opportunity. Yet Carlsen allowed him another, an even better one, two moves later with 21 Qh5. Instead of the simple and solid 21 f3 with a good advantage, finally blunting the tactical chances around the knight on h3, he allowed black to force a draw. And Karjakin didn’t see it, he missed the quiet move 22…Qf7 after 21…Nf2 22 Kg2. From then on it was as if we were transported back to the beginning of the match – Carlsen was pressing from a very advantageous position, Karjakin was defending well. But this time Karjakin faltered and allowed the decisive breakthrough on move 56.

I noticed a very curious thing in this match, starting from Game 5. It appears that Carlsen makes a mistake, it often looks like a losing mistake. But once you start to analyse (or calculate, in Karjakin’s case) you realise that the pit is bottomless. The first appearance is deceiving, it is not losing and the variations turn out to be very difficult to calculate and evaluate. This is a very frustrating feeling for Karjakin, who must be upset that he cannot finish off his opponent, who makes such obvious mistakes! And this takes away energy, mental stability, inner calm, patience. Does this mean Carlsen is just lucky while Karjakin is unlucky? Or he just plays moves that take him to the edge of the precipice but still manages to hold his balance, mostly thanks to his intuition? Undoubtedly he sees a lot, but in this match we’ve seen that he also miscalculates, so it cannot be that he had seen everything, he must have relied on his feeling that even though these moves were dangerous, they shouldn’t be losing. That’s intuition in chess and things are perfectly in order with Carlsen’s. Should Karjakin feel unlucky? That depends on him, on his strength of character, whether he prefers to blame Fate or take things into his own hands and break the unfavourable trend by never giving up. Two more games to play.

Business as usual, is what Svidler said when describing Kramnik’s behaviour when he was losing to Leko in their World Championship match in 2004. Kramnik was doing things normally until the penultimate game, when he essayed the Benoni with black – he nearly won that game, before actually winning the last game of the match to level the score and keep his title. Carlsen won’t immediately keep his title if he levels the score, the regulations have changed and the match will go into tie-break, but that one win seems very big for him right now.

Carlsen chose the Neo-Arkhangelsk (one of the possible names for the line they played) variation in the Spanish, varying from his usual choice of 5…Be7 from the previous games. My impression is that he wanted a repeat of Game 6 – get his preparation in and make a quick and easy draw without much effort. The line is susceptible for such a thing to happen, it is sharp and as usual nowadays with sharp lines, full of dead-ends leading to a draw. But things didn’t exactly go to plan…

They followed Nakamura-Kasimdzhanov from the Tromso Olympiad and Carlsen demonstrated the obvious improvement on Kasimdzhanov’s play. But then I think he forgot what he was supposed to play (after Game 4 he said that he quickly forgot what he should play in the opening, hence my conclusion that the same happened here) and spent half an hour trying to remember and calculate – never a good combination (you either remember exactly or calculate without trying to remember). This led to an imprecision but not a very big one as the game continued to be balanced. The next imprecision was a bigger one, on move 33 Carlsen had a straight-forward way to solve all his problems, but he didn’t and his problems only grew from there onwards.

The critical moment was just before the time control. A very curious situation, Carlsen played a strategically desireable move, but one that looked horribly suspicious tactically. But I guess I can say he was lucky here – the move wasn’t losing. The variations after the sacrifices on f7 were very complex and difficult to see, so either he saw them all (Karjakin for example missed some things) or his intuition served him perfectly (he played the move 38…Ne7 trusting his intuition that it wasn’t losing, in spite of all the dangerous looking lines he undoubtedly saw).

And looking from the other side of the board you can say that Karjakin was unlucky. Such a wonderful opportunity and yet it’s not winning! Sometimes chess turns out like this. Karjakin did take on f7 and the game transposed to a drawn endgame that Carlsen didn’t have trouble holding.

What next? Even though he didn’t make it quick, Carlsen got the draw he desired from this game. Two whites in the last three games is an advantage, but winning opportunities have been scarce for him lately. Another problem is his imprecise play, also witnessed in this game. The only realistic chance for him is if he manages to lift his spirits after this difficult save and start playing at his usual (or even better) level. Then he can come back. Game 10 should give answers to some of these questions.

In the meantime 3 games were played in New York. Brace yourself for a monster post and analysis of all three!

Game 6 was the first of the two whites in a row Karjakin got in the middle of the match (such are the regulations, the idea being that both players get to be white after a rest day, in this case Carlsen in the first part of the match and with this switch Karjakin in the second half. This was introduced after Kasparov complained of being too tired to try to win with white after playing (and usually suffering) with black the previous day in his match with Kramnik in 2000). Even though Karjakin missed a good chance to win in the previous game, he seemed unfazed and continued with his strategy of not avoiding draws (this time let’s put it like this). He repeated the opening from Game 4, but now Carlsen went for the theoretically best move 9…d5. Carlsen went on to demonstrate the depth of his preparation and practically made a draw without breaking a sweat. He continued to dominate the openings and was probably happy to get one black game out of the way.

For Game 7 Karjakin decided to switch to 1 d4. It implied that he wanted to fight, because he couldn’t possibly foresee which defence Carlsen had prepared. And sure enough, Carlsen’s choice of the Chebanenko Slav surprised him. As usual in such cases, he immediately went for an innocuous line (5 Bd3) aimed at simplifications. Even in this relatively rare line Carlsen had an improvement ready and after Karjakin’s dubious 11th move he could have started to play for more. But he didn’t and this was surprising! Realising that he can draw easily, it seems that Carlsen was content – he didn’t try to press with black like he did in Game 4, which he could have easily: on move 15 he had a wonderful opportunity to force a favourable position with no risk involved and one that he could play for ages trying to win. This slackness showed again one move later – on move 16 he blundered a pawn! Luckily for him, this meant massive simplifications and a transposition to an endgame with opposite-coloured bishops that was a relatively easy draw. Karjakin didn’t even try to play on. I got the impression that Carlsen was happy to draw both his black games so that he could concentrate on his remaining 3 whites, hence his careless play once he got out with a safe position out of the opening. But careless play is omnipresent – if you’re careless in one game, it tends to permeate to your other games as well. Generally speaking, Carlsen’s play lacked his usual precision in this match, starting from the missed opportunities early in the match (Games 3 and 4), his loss of control in Game 5 and now the failure to get the maximum out of the position, coupled with his blunder.

Game 8 was expected with eagerness. After successfully navigating his black patch, it was expected that Carlsen will step on the gas in a forceful manner and this should finally produce a positive result for him. The opening was again a different one from all the others we saw when he was white – the Zukertort System is not a one you get to see often on this level. Even though it served as a surprise, the system isn’t particularly frightening so black got out with a fine position after the opening. Carlsen was spending more time than Karjakin (for the first time in the match!) trying to make the symmetrical position come to life. So he took risks. They worked in the beginning, since Karjakin was too much draw-oriented, as usual (for example, missing 19…Qg5) and this gave Carlsen the false security that he can take even bigger risks. While watching this I remembered that I actually correctly predicted this strategy by Karjakin in my Preview – “…[Karjakin will be] cynical in playing openly for a draw… to put pressure on Carlsen by getting the match to the latter stages when Carlsen might lose patience and try something harsh and then Karjakin would strike from the counterattack.” And Carlsen seemed hell-bent on winning the game, disturbing the equilibrium by creating weakneses in his camp that were compenstated by his greater piece activity. He even sacrificed his a-pawn to increase his piece activity, but black was solid and without weaknesses and he had enough compensation for equality at best. That wasn’t enough for him, he kept pushing and in mutual time trouble he overstepped the mark – Karjakin could have won, but he also erred so the game was back to normal and it should have ended in a draw. Yet after the time control Carlsen’s level dropped. Instead of taking the draw on several occassions, he allowed his position to become uncomfortable and missed his last (human) chance to draw on move 49 – you can see the details in the analysis below. For the first time in a World Championship match Carlsen is trailing and he only has 4 games to do something about it. Carlsen is known for playing so much stronger after a loss – it seems that a loss is sharpening his senses and motivates him to strike back. With Karjakin probably continuing with his strategy he may even opt to try and strike back immediately in Game 9, even though he will be black. Yet it is a Herculian task to beat Karjakin – he does make mistakes, but so does Carlsen – if only Carlsen managed to lift his level then he could capitalise on those mistakes, but so far he has been unable to do that. Plenty to think of during the rest day and I cannot wait to see what does he come up with, not only for Game 9, but also for the remaining of the match – he must change something, otherwise Karjakin’s cynical strategy will prevail and even though I must admit that every strategy that gives good results has a right to exist, I have always been in favour of positive and proactive approaches. Interesting games ahead!

After only two games it is possible to see the contours of Carlsen’s strategy with white: playing unexpected openings (that was obvious with the Trompowsky, the unexpected in Game 3 was the choice of a line that is known to be very drawish) he manages to find equally unexpected but far from innocuous new ideas that pose problems. The finest point of his preparation is that the computer always shows 0.00 and these ideas are easy to miss, while playing these positions over the board is anything but easy, even though they look deceptively drawish.

Karjakin discovered this for himself in Game 3. A rare move by Carlsen (10 Re2) and he was already out of book. The ensuing endgame looked simple, but if a defender like Karjakin managed to mess it up then it probably wasn’t. Don’t look at what the computer says, it’s always 0.00, an unpleasant 0.00 doesn’t mean anything to it. But Karjakin was patient and played well up until a point where he seemed to lose the patience from Game 1. Instead of continuing to play solid moves he lashed forward in search of active counterplay and miscalculated. This was surprising, as, after seeing Game 1 and the way he played up until move 30 in Game 3, I thought that his pre-match preparation was to learn how to defend these slightly passive yet defensible positions, akin to the learning Alekhine did before his match with Capablanca. And yet he lost the patience.

After losing the pawn Karjakin started doing what he does best – put up resistance. It was a very difficult endgame to play for both sides, for two reasons. There were many lines to calculate and it was difficult to evaluate the ensuing positions. Take for example the most characteristic moment, on move 42 – having a choice between two checks, 42 Rb8 and 42 Re5, Carlsen chose the latter and the weaker one because he misjudged the position after the exchange of the d-pawns. Again, if the the world’s best players misjudge positions then it means that these positions are extremely difficult to play. And difficult to play positions produce mistakes.

There were mistakes from both sides, Karjakin missing draws, Carlsen missing wins. Even the winning lines, when white manages to take the h-pawn and remain a piece up are still tricky – remember the 4th game of the match Kramnik-Kasparov when black (Kasparov) saved a position when he was a piece and a pawn down (rook, knight and pawn for Kramnik against a sole rook for Kasparov)? Here the material was similar, Karjakin had a pawn in addition to his rook and this saved him.

A grandiose battle and I expect more of these to come. Usually the player who has saved a lost position is the one who has the psychological advantage, but these things are fickle and can change at a moment’s notice. Game 4 will show us whether and how.

Here is Game 3 with analysis.