World Chess Championship Game 6: Magnus won!
The sixth game of the World Chess Championship taking place in Dubai ended after 136 moves. It was the longest game in the history of the World Chess Championships.
Reigning World Champion Magnus Carlsen started game 6 with 1. d4, initiating the second Catalan of the match. After a fascinating game, where both players had winning chances, the two GMs found themselves in a chaotic endgame with two rooks for white against a Queen for black.
After eight hours and 136 moves, Magnus managed to dominate and write history with his exceptional endgame skills, but also his record-breaking “habit”. This game was officially the longest World Chess Championship game in history, beating the 124-move Game 5 of the 1978 Karpov-Korchnoi match!
At the after-match press conference, Ian noted that the game on both sides was not brilliant and its analysis would obviously not take long. Magnus on the other hand highlighted he was definitely happy to win but the match is far from over.
Since the game went past 12AM local time, it means that two World Chess Championship games will take place in one day — a first for the World Chess Championship matches. Despite the exhaustion, Magnus’ spirit is for sure lifted!
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.
