World chess champion Carlsen wins longest game in World Cup history

Magnus Carlsen has significantly increased his chances of defending his title with a win in the longest game in World Cup history. After five draws before, the chess world champion from Norway won on Friday evening in Dubai against his opponent Jan Nepomnjaschtschi. The Russian gave up in the sixth game after 136 moves. Carlsen is now leading with 3.5: 2.5.

“It wasn’t an excellent game on either side”

Carlsen waited five years and nine days for this day. It had been that long since the world champion won a World Cup game with a long time to think about it. “It wasn’t an excellent game on either side,” said Nepomnyashchi. In the first time emergency he had the advantage for a short time, but even then did not always play the move that all commentators expected.

Because the Russian did not defend himself passively, Carlsen had practical chances of winning. After the last exchange of pawns on move 114, the position was theoretically a draw, according to computer databases. Carlsen also thought a draw was the most likely outcome. A few moves later the evaluation jumped to a mate in sixty moves with the best game on both sides.

It was the game with the most moves in World Cup history. The longest World Cup game to date was played in Baguio City in 1978: Viktor Korchnoi tried 124 moves to beat Anatoly Karpov before he went into a draw. At that time, however, the game was interrupted and adjourned twice. Hanging games were abolished thirty years ago. The sixth game lasted seven hours and 47 minutes. The cooling-off time in Dubai for each player is two hours for the first forty moves and one hour for the next twenty moves. After the 60th move, both get 15 minutes to think about and 30 seconds after each move.