Home Championships Game 6 – Caruana plays like Carlsen almost beating him, game ends in a draw

Game 6 – Caruana plays like Carlsen almost beating him, game ends in a draw

by Tendai Mubayiwa
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Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana. CREDIT – Kimberly Doo McVay

Game 6 at the World Chess Championship was a dramatic affair in London. While a number of people had expected the game to end in a quick draw after the early exchange of queens in the Petrof, it turned out to be a long, drawn out game where Fabiano Caruana missed a winning line, the kind of continuations that only computers can see.

Game 6 about to start

In the end it was a draw that left Carlsen and his fans relieved. Caruana will take some comfort from the game because he generally played very well apart from the winning opportunity he could not but have missed. But it was a line that was probably missed by many grandmasters as well. So complicated was the the line that even grandmasters struggled to demonstrate the win.

Finally it’s e4 from Magnus Carlsen

Magnus Carlsen was playing with the white pieces but did not get anything out of the opening. This has been the trend in this Championship so far. Black has been equalising easily in the games. Carlsen tried an offbeat variation as white, most likely to steer the game away from the main theory as soon as possible.

Caruana showed incredible composure, where he countered Carlsen’s plans on the king side by making a push in the centre and on the queen side. He gained the initiative and patiently outplayed Carlsen in a game which went past 6 hours.

A winning opportunity presented itself on move 68, but it was a fleeting moment that only lasted a move and after that Carlsen would set up a fortress (showing that he learnt a thing or two in his match against the defense maestro, GM Sergey Karjakin), which was impossible to break.

Just to show how difficult the win was, see chess legend Garry Kasparov’s response, when asked if he would have spotted it in a game at his peak.

Here is a quick video of the game.

Here is an analysis of the game by Grandmaster Ian Rogers. The analysis has been sourced from lichess.

Here is the press conference following Game 6.

https://youtu.be/fa3UPsoDoko

Here is a schedule of the World Chess Championship.

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