Just when it looked as though you could become world chess champion by boring your opponent (and the rest of the planet!) to death, Magnus Carlsen showed more than a little class to defeat the Russian challenger, Sergey Karjakin. Following the tense, but rather uninspiring chess-wise, classical match ended 6 points apiece (10 draws!), it all came down to a four game rapid (25m+10s) match.
There are lots of excellent round-ups of the action but you could do a lot worse than listen to Mr Svidler on the subject.
Karjakin’s unambitious strategy failed to bear much (any?) fruit as Carlsen was arguably better in all games. That said, he failed to convert a great chance in game 2 so the game 3 win still left him needing a draw from the last game of the match.
With the White pieces and less than three minutes left on the clock (Karjakin less than one minute), Carlsen has this position. With the world championship and $600K up for grabs, what would you play?
