World Chess Championship Game 4: A Drawish day, but it’s OK
The fourth game day of the World Chess Championship, which is taking place in Dubai, ended in a draw after 33 moves. During the after-match press conference, Carlsen described the result as ok. After four games, the score is 2 — 2. This is the 18th draw in a row in the World Chess Championship matches, the last decisive game was back in 2016 in New York in the Carlsen-Karjakin match.
The Challenger decided to start the game with the Petroff, a solid opening which he used at the Candidates Tournament against GM Wang Hao, and eventually, it won him the tournament. The – also called – Russian Defence was also 2018 Challenger’s choice. GM Fabiano Caruana has used this opening as one of his most reliable ways to draw against the World Champion.
Before the beginning of the Championship, Carlsen had openly stated that he would push through the first games, but as we can see this didn’t work out quite accurately. What the World Champion had in mind was some ‘Insanely complicated’ positions that could have resulted from his new idea on move 18, but Nepo’s choices prevented them. “That’s the state of modern chess,” Carlsen said on this matter.
Generally, we are all witnessing an extremely high level of preparation and accuracy, with Magnus not being able to take the lead, and Nepo pushing safely to the tiebreaks, where he is even more comfortable.
Chess enthusiasts couldn’t hide their frustration nor for the Opening, which was listed in the chess manuscripts of the late 1500s, nor for the fourth consecutive and almost indifferent draw.
The match is best-of-14 games with a prize fund of 2 million euros, with 60 percent for the winner. Each win is worth a point and each draw is half a point. The first player to reach 7.5 points will be the winner. (If the match should be tied after 14 games, the players will proceed to a series of tie-breaker games.) It’s two more games than in the 2018 World Championship Match.
The venue for the event is located in downtown Dubai at the Dubai Expo.
The match’s sponsors include Algorand, a leading blockchain company; Kaspersky, the official cyber security partner; and PhosAgro, a giant international fertilizer group.
Games start at 12:30 UTC. You can follow the games live on World Chess.
