2018 Carlsen - Caruana, the Third Week

Another week in the 2018 Carlsen - Caruana World Championship match, another four games, another four draws. After twelve regulation games, twelve draws, the two players tied at 6.0 points each : the match moves to tiebreak.

Continuing with the same mainstream media source seen in the previous post, 2018 Carlsen - Caruana, the Second Week, here is a graphic overview of the entire match. The credit for the evaluation of individual games goes to Stockfish.

fivethirtyeight.com (538.com)

While the squiggles might show an overall advantage for Black during the first six games, the trend reversed course for the last six games, when White retook its traditional advantage. Here are the reports from 538.com for games 9 through 12:-

• 2018-11-21: It Was Finally Fabiano Caruana’s Turn To Survive At The World Chess Championship
• 2018-11-23: Chess World Celebrates A ‘Sensational’ Move … That Leads To A Championship Draw
• 2018-11-24: Caruana ‘Suffers Successfully’ In Game 11 Of The World Chess Championship
• 2018-11-26: Carlsen’s Bizarre Decision Has Sent The World Chess Championship To Overtime

Later today a series of tiebreak games will decide who will be the World Champion for the next two years. Opening preparation has played an important role in the first twelve games, played at slow time control. What role will it play in the faster tiebreak games? Last year, on my chess960 blog, I quoted GM Caruana in a post titled Caruana on Chess960 (April 2017). In response to the question, 'What about Chess960?', he said, 'Maybe preparation plays a big role in classical chess, but in blitz and rapid it doesn’t play much of a role at all.' In a few hours, in the tiebreak, we'll get some clues about whether he was right.

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Later: Magnus Carlsen won a World Championship match for the fourth consecutive time. After 12 consecutive draws in the regulation games at a slow time control, he won three consecutive tiebreak games at rapid time control. Here is the final report from the same mainstream news source I've used in the previous posts on the match.

• 2018-11-28: Magnus Carlsen Is, Again, The World Chess Champion

And once again, from the same source I've been relying on throughout the match, here is a squiggle chart showing the progress of each of the three tiebreak games.

fivethirtyeight.com (538.com)

For sure, there will be discussions and even arguments about the fairness of the tiebreak system used in the match. Will that system be changed? We'll find out in the next World Championship match, currently scheduled for the year 2020.