Checkmate: Who will walk away with the spoils in World Chess Championship?

Two giants clash at the World Chess Championship over and over again, but indecisive yet

The opening press conference at The College, Holborn, made it obvious that this was not going to be a conventional World Chess Championship match. Chess grandmasters are rarely, if ever, quizzed about their personal relationships with women and “female support”. If they are, they are unlikely to respond with a deadpan, “Women hate me, I repel them”, as Magnus Carlsen (who has modelled with, and supposedly dated, Liv Tyler) said. Nor would they state ironically that “some of my best friends are women and my mother supports me” as Fabiano Caruana did.

In many other ways, this match breaks the mould. Both players are young — their combined age of 53 (Carlsen is a year older at 27) is the lowest in the 132 years of the World Championship. Both are products of the West. Defending Champion Carlsen is Norwegian, while Caruana is Italian-American.

Both are from the post-computer generation, which means they have essentially taught themselves. There is practically no difference between their ratings and they are number 1 and 2 on the ratings list. Both see chess essentially as a sport and view themselves as sportsmen rather than artists.

Both are frighteningly fit and focused on staying that way. They are also personable and articulate and well-informed about the world. Both became grandmasters in their early teens and have been marked down as potential champions since they were 15. Both are active on social media, often posting funny pictures or making snarky comments.

In other respects, they are like chalk and cheese. Carlsen has an outgoing personality or at the least, he has the ability to appear outgoing, sometimes to the point of being brash. He’s had sponsorship since he was in his teens; he’s modelled for fashion brands, endorsed all sorts of products, had high-profile relationships and launched a very popular app, Play Magnus. As only the second Norwegian to achieve grandmaster status and as reigning world champion (his first coach Simen Agdestein was the first Norwegian GM), he has cult status in the Nordic nation.

“Don Fabiano” is a much more reticent personality. He’s quiet, slightly buttoned-down, with a wry sense of humour and is unfailingly polite in private conversations. 

Even their sporting pursuits are different. Carlsen plays basketball and football. He came to the board in Game Nine and Game 10, sporting a black eye after suffering a collision playing basketball on a rest day. Caruana’s sports of choice are more individualistic: he swims and plays table tennis.

Caruana grew up in New York’s Brooklyn borough, a short walk away from the family home of the only other American world champion, the late Bobby Fischer. New York has a strong chess culture so he was less obviously remarkable and singled out less often, despite his huge talent.

His family returned to Italy when he was a teenager (his mother is Italian, and he has dual citizenship) and lived there for several years. Caruana has represented Italy in Olympiads (he has also reportedly been mocked by teammates for speaking Italian with an American accent).

Sponsorship came to Caruana relatively late and was probably responsible for his return to the US.

A few years ago, billionaire Rex Sinquefield more or less singlehandedly jumpstarted a programme designed to make America a great chess power. Apart from sponsoring programmes for young talent and financing big tournaments, Sinquefield also wanted Olympiad medals, and Caruana was an obvious choice, with his citizenship already in place. Sinquefield is based in St Louis, Missouri, and a generous offer from him persuaded Caruana to come back and play for the US. Caruana is now based in St Louis, which has become pretty much the epicentre of American chess.  

Not surprisingly, Sinquefield has also opened his cheque book to ensure that the American GM doesn’t lack the resources to win the biggest title of them all. That includes high-end computers as well as a team of seconds led by the Uzbek GM, Rustam Kasimdzhanov. Carlsen also has super computing power at his disposal and a big team led by Danish GM Peter Heine Nielsen. Interestingly, both Nielsen and Kasimdzhanov have seconded Viswanathan Anand in world title matches.

The match itself was always touted as too close to call. Carlsen is universally acknowledged as the most error-free player in history as well as the one who’s achieved the highest-ever ratings. He’s also one of the very few to have won the official world title at all-time controls: classical, rapid and blitz. He has played three world title matches already, so the match experience is also in his favour.

But Caruana is also, by and large, an error-free player and has a “super-gear” when he hits form. He has sometimes managed long streaks of successive wins against top GMs. Caruana is, however, much less highly rated in rapid and blitz chess.

Carlsen admitted prior to the match that he considered Caruana a very dangerous opponent who could beat him. At the same time, he said that Caruana took a fair number of risks and that meant he could be beaten. “I know that if I continue to play in the same vein that I have recently, I will probably not win. So I need to step it up. But I have great confidence in my power to do that.”

Caruana said outright that he considered Carlsen to be the stronger player but he added a caveat, pointing out that he could outperform Carlsen on his day: “I don’t think Magnus has any clear weaknesses but that being said, he still makes mistakes, we all do. The only challenge is to take advantage of them when they come”.

Carlsen’s sister, Ellen (who is a doctor as well as a chess player) added some spice to the pre-match predictions when she said her brother might actually be happier if he ceased to be the world champion. English GM and former challenger, Nigel Short, and former world champion Vladimir Kramnik both said that Caruana might win simply because he’s more hungry. Well, we’ve gone 10 games without a single decisive result. That’s a new record in world title matches (the old record was seven games in the Anand-Garry Kasparov match of 1993).  This is despite every game being fought bitterly to the finish.

Carlsen had clear winning chances in Game 1 but he failed to convert. Caruana had an incredibly difficult winning shot in Game 6 Former champion Garry Kasparov said he would have suspected Caruana of cheating if he had found the winning moves. Caruana was also better in Game 10 and Carlsen in Game 9. But neither player has been able to follow through to take the full point. This is partly because both are also incredibly good defenders.

There are just two games to go in normal time. If there’s no breakthrough on the weekend, the match will go into rapid mode, with two games being played at 25 minutes plus 10 seconds/move. That would be followed by two five-minute blitz games. If it’s still a tie, up to four more mini-matches will be played at blitz controls, followed by an Armageddon.

Whatever happens, this match has already broken new ground. Both players admitted that they grew up thinking chess was the coolest thing there is. One can only hope their attitudes rub off on a new generation of fans.