Nepomniachtchi fails to bounce back
After Friday’s marathon game, the two GMs Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nipomniachtchi yesterday chose balance and peace for their – practically – second game for the day. The challenger, Ian Nepomniachtchi started with 1.e4, initiating another Ruy Lopez. The world champion Magnus Carlsen, claimed nothing more than a neutral position, which slowly led to an almost empty board and the sixth draw of the championship.
Later Carlsen mentioned that despite the fact that history was created, game 6 drained his energy. “I couldn’t sleep yesterday, I was way too excited” he added, while Nepomniachtchi admitted that his levels were ‘obviously not at the highest point’, but that was ‘part of the job’.
The highlight of the Press Conference was when Nepomniachtchi was asked when he was going to attack, and he simply smiled and said ‘When the time comes.’ Does the challenger have a plan on when he is going to strike back?
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. (World Chess)