Good evening to all the readers! I am going to commentate on the Round 5 of the FIDE World Chess Championship 2018 which again ended in a draw! It is now 5 draws in 5 games although all of them have been thoroughly exciting! I predicted that Caruana should go for the 3. Nc3 move order while he again stuck to the Rossolimo and did not get much out of the opening today as well! I checked Caruana's games against the 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6. I found that Caruana himself played the Sveshnikov Siccilian with Black(!) from 2003-2005 and played in some very important games in 2010. This time however his decision to avoid it is understandable given the amount of preparation Magnus would have against it. Also worthy to note is that Caruana has played 3. Nc3 quiet some times also in the past although 3. Bb5 remains his most frequently played move( played twice or thrice last year in the Tbilisi World Cup also). Caruana has also played the Open Siccilian (3.d4). However, I understand that Caruana believes in the objective value of 3. Bb5 yet am thinking that he is doing a La Karjakin 2016 - Karjakin was struggling to do anything in the Ruy Lopez with White and should probably have stuck to something else like the Italian or 1. d4 more consistently as Magnus was excellently prepared to face Ruy Lopez. Trusting your most played line over the course of your career however is understandable also as Karjakin could almost have secured the title in a win in Game 9 with the Ruy Lopez itself! I think Caruana should stick to 3. Nc3 more now to get an idea about Carlsen's preparations there.
Is experience with the Black pieces what Carlsen is using most of all to neutralising Caruana's White's? It does pretty much seem so! Credits: Niki Riga
Carlsen said that the 'opening was a success' and got to a good position out of the opening. The game was drifting towards initiative for Carlsen towards the early middlegame but accurate play by Caruana forced a draw. Caruana played strong chess and understood when his initiative had dissipated and agreed to a draw. This was quiet a good round yet one in which Caruana could not get anything substantial after the opening. A large opening struggle has been explained in detail in this excellent article by Grandmaster David Smerdon who once famously came a whisker close to defeating Magnus in the 2016 Baku Olympiad! https://www.chess.com/blog/smurfo/world-championship-game-5-deja-vu.
Fabiano seems to be unhappy here, yet can he turn the tide in his next White games? Credits: Niki Riga
Quiet some commentators( like Alex Colovic and Aryan Tari) saw that Magnus is not allowing much central control to Fabiano which he had admitted much earlier in an interview before the match to be one of Caruana's main strengths. He had said that Caruana focuses on the center and that is one of his strengths. Carlsen's choice of 5...e5 hence may have been not as expected by Caruana as would be 5... Nf6( which also happens to be the main line). If Carlsen was doing this on purpose, this however could be quiet an interesting match strategy!
Another interesting fact is that both the Champion and the Challenger were engaged in physical sport yesterday as it was a rest day( Carlsen is known to play Football on rest day for a lot of time now!). Caruana also engaged in some physical exercises. This shows the importance of how physically draining a sport like Chess can actually be. Both players have talked about the importance of physical fitness; Caruana very recently in this interview: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/14/sport/fabiano-caruana-magnus-carlsen-chess-world-championships-london-spt-intl/index.html Physical sport helps chess players to improve their chess and to help them maintain a sustained amount of peak focusing for long hours. It is extremely important and a virtue which nearly all top players of the world follow. Many of them even have professional trainers to assist them with training.
Now it was the opposite- Basketball for Caruana while Football for Carlsen! Credits: Mike Klein
Stay tuned for the predictions coming up in what am feeling would be an extremely important day for the whole World Chess Championship!
Is experience with the Black pieces what Carlsen is using most of all to neutralising Caruana's White's? It does pretty much seem so! Credits: Niki Riga
The game continued with the Rossolimo and Caruana came up with 6.b4!? an interesting principled move for which however, Carlsen was quiet nicely armed with. Carlsen had faced it quiet early in his childhood and played out his preparation to a considerable extent. At the post-game press conference, Magnus insisted that the move 6. b4 was not new to him. Caruana said that it could get very interesting if Black does not know how to properly meet it. You can find the exciting and incredibly witty press conference here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gHDHS2AjdA. There is more to the 6.b4!? idea however. However. International Arbiter Nana Alexandria had played it against Borisenko V. at the USSR Women's Championship,1969 and the game was followed for 10 moves! She told that she had been taught the idea by her later trainer GM B Gurgenidze. The 'Lady Ivanchuk' mentioned in the previous article is Mrs. Alexandria!
Carlsen said that the 'opening was a success' and got to a good position out of the opening. The game was drifting towards initiative for Carlsen towards the early middlegame but accurate play by Caruana forced a draw. Caruana played strong chess and understood when his initiative had dissipated and agreed to a draw. This was quiet a good round yet one in which Caruana could not get anything substantial after the opening. A large opening struggle has been explained in detail in this excellent article by Grandmaster David Smerdon who once famously came a whisker close to defeating Magnus in the 2016 Baku Olympiad! https://www.chess.com/blog/smurfo/world-championship-game-5-deja-vu.
Fabiano seems to be unhappy here, yet can he turn the tide in his next White games? Credits: Niki Riga
Quiet some commentators( like Alex Colovic and Aryan Tari) saw that Magnus is not allowing much central control to Fabiano which he had admitted much earlier in an interview before the match to be one of Caruana's main strengths. He had said that Caruana focuses on the center and that is one of his strengths. Carlsen's choice of 5...e5 hence may have been not as expected by Caruana as would be 5... Nf6( which also happens to be the main line). If Carlsen was doing this on purpose, this however could be quiet an interesting match strategy!
Another interesting fact is that both the Champion and the Challenger were engaged in physical sport yesterday as it was a rest day( Carlsen is known to play Football on rest day for a lot of time now!). Caruana also engaged in some physical exercises. This shows the importance of how physically draining a sport like Chess can actually be. Both players have talked about the importance of physical fitness; Caruana very recently in this interview: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/14/sport/fabiano-caruana-magnus-carlsen-chess-world-championships-london-spt-intl/index.html Physical sport helps chess players to improve their chess and to help them maintain a sustained amount of peak focusing for long hours. It is extremely important and a virtue which nearly all top players of the world follow. Many of them even have professional trainers to assist them with training.
Now it was the opposite- Basketball for Caruana while Football for Carlsen! Credits: Mike Klein
Stay tuned for the predictions coming up in what am feeling would be an extremely important day for the whole World Chess Championship!
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