Secrecy is an important thing in chess, especially in a world championship fight. Over many weeks, the opponents prepare for certain game sequences with the help of their respective seconds and high-performance computers, so that they are better prepared for certain situations on the board than their counterparts. Of course, this only works if the rival doesn’t know exactly what you’ve been dealing with beforehand; And all the more excitement sets in when there is even the slightest hint from which something can possibly be read.
When world champion Magnus Carlsen defended his title against Fabiano Caruana three years ago, the challenger’s team published a seemingly irrelevant image clip about the preparation process. But if you looked closely, you saw a list of files on a monitor in the background, in which the names of various openings were recorded – shortly afterwards the little film was gone again. On Sunday evening, the topic also reached the current World Cup fight between the Norwegian Carlsen, 30, and the Russian Jan Nepomnjaschtschi, 31.
Because after the end of the third game (all draws) a questioner pointed out in the press conference that the round that had just ended had been analyzed in an online database up to move 20 two days ago. That doesn’t necessarily mean something, and the two rivals promptly acted as if the finding seemed to amuse them. But at the same time it seemed a bit as if they wanted to check the settings on the computers of their team members between the upcoming doping control and the evening television program.
Regardless of these background noises, it is of course striking how Carlsen and his helpers prepared for the World Cup match in Dubai. Obviously they are pursuing the strategy that the Norwegian should put his opponent under pressure as early as possible – and that with rather unusual moves that should cost Nepomnyashchi a lot of thought time on the board.
Carlsen has not won a regular World Cup game since 2016
Right at the start, when Carlsen played with Black, he tried a knight move and a pawn sacrifice in the Spanish opening, something that had never been played between grandmasters before. When it came to the Spanish opening two games later, Nepomnjaschtschi prevented this pawn sacrifice, but Carlsen surprised now with a rarely chosen movement of the rook. And in his only game so far with the white pieces, Carlsen resorted to a variant in which he astonishingly early pushed a knight into the fifth row and Nepomnyashchi did not find a good answer either; but Carlsen later made a mistake and was lucky for his part that a complicated and wild game ended in a draw.
Should have to think as much as possible: Magnus Carlsen wants to put his challenger Jan Nepomnjaschtschi (pictured) under pressure as early as possible.
(Photo: Kamran Jebreili / AP)
This approach is, in principle, no surprise. Ever since Carlsen entered the world class a little more than a decade ago, he has been considered a man who is reluctant to move along the trodden paths of the openings, the first moves in a game. Instead, it has always been his approach to get into the middle and endgame using so-called side lines, in which he is superior to his opponents. But now in Dubai, where the fourth of a maximum of 14 games will take place this Tuesday, Carlsen seems to want to exhaust this approach again.
The Norwegian is not hiding these days that one thing is bothering him: Although he has been world champion since 2013, his last win in a regular game of a World Cup match was a while ago. That was in 2016 when he equalized in the tenth game against his then challenger Sergej Karjakin, whom he then defeated in rapid chess. In 2018 against Caruana all twelve regular games ended in a draw; again Carlsen was only successful in extra time. But if he continues to find provocative moves like the three opening draws, this series should actually end in Dubai.