Here’s Bryan’s report off today’s game, which you can replay below. Adds Carlsen during the post-game press conference: “I wasn’t pleased from the opening and then after that I just wanted to play it safe. I was trying to push a little bit, but it was nothing real. In this match situation I thought there was no reason to go crazy.”
Updated
Caruana: 'Not much really happened today'
“There’s a lot riding on the last game,” says Caruana when asked about Monday’s Game 12, where he will play with white. “It will be very tense for both of us. I’m not going to go crazy or anything, of course, but I will try to put pressure on him.”
The players will have an extra rest day between now and then, which the American says he’s grateful for.
“I’ll try to rest,” he says. “The final game and potentially a tie-break will really be decided by nerves and by whose head is working best in the end. Rest is very important for this. I’ll try to get some relaxation in.”
As for today’s game: “Not much really happened today.”
Updated
Carlsen: 'It wasn’t great but it’s no disaster'
“I’m not thrilled, obviously,” Carlsen says. “I got surprised in the opening and just decided to shut it down. It wasn’t great but it’s no disaster. Now I’ve just got to play well in one more classical and see what happens.”
He’s asked what he expects from Monday’s Game 12: “We’ll see what happens. A lot depends on what (Caruana) wants to do. If he wants to shut it down then that’s fine by me, we’ll play rapid. Otherwise we’ll have a fight.”
Updated
Game 11 is a 55-move draw!
One last move for both players (55. Bf2 Bc2) and it’s official: Game 11 is a draw after two hours and 13 minutes. The shortest contest of the fortnight leaves the best-of-12-games world championship match deadlocked at 5½-all after 11 indecisive results.
Caruana will have the white pieces in Monday’s Game 12. Says the American: “There’s a lot riding on the last game. It will be tense for both of us.”
A few more moves, happening more quickly now: 47. ... Ba2 48. Kg5 Bb3 49. Kf6 Ba2 50. h4 Bb3 51. f4 Ba2 52. Ke7 Bb3 53. Kf6 Ba2 54. f5 Bb1. A handshake should come soon.
On they go: 36. ... Bg4 37. c4 Be6 38. Kd4 bxc4 39. bxc4 Bg4 40. c5 Be6 41. Bh6 Bd5 42. Be3 Be6 43. Ke5 Bd5 44. Kf4 Be6 45. Kg5 Bd5 46. g4 hxg4 47. Kxg4. The action is petering out toward a draw. “I’ll take a short break because nothing is happening and nothing is going to happen,” Russian grandmaster Alexander Grischuk says.
No real progress after the last few moves: 32. Kd4 g6 33. g3 Be2 34. Bf8 Kc6 35. b3 Bd1 36. Kd3. Carlsen is still up a pawn and trying to convert it, but Caruana is holding strong. Here’s what we’re looking at.
Another rush of moves sees Caruana surrender a pawn: 27. a3 Kf8 28. Bc7 b5 29. Bd6+ Ke8 30. Bxc5 h5 31. Ke3 Kd7. The Sesse evaluation engine, running Stockfish, gives Carlsen a slight advantage, though Caruana should be able to hold for a draw. Says Judit Polgar in the commentary booth: “When we talk about the fact that it’s a dead draw, it’s a dead draw if you know how to do it. So you still have to be careful if you’re not familiar with these kind of theoretical positions in principle.”
Another rook exchange as Game 11 trudges toward a peaceful result: 25. ... Rxd2 26. Kxd2 a6 27. a3. Caruana has spent 12 minutes (and counting) pondering his response. While all signs point toward a draw, white is slightly better due to black’s exposed pawns on the queenside; indeed, the Norwegian supercomputer Sesse indicates a number of endings where white has an extra pawn. So Caruana, with more than an hour to make 14 moves before the time control, is correct to take his time and make sure he gets it right.
Another rush of moves including a rook exchange: 21. Rxd6 Rxd6 22. Bxd6 Rd8 23. Rd2 Bxc4 24. Kc1 b6 25. Bf4. We’re heading toward an opposite-colored bishop endgame. Only an hour and a half into the match and the end appears near.
The position simplifies after a quick flurry of moves: 15. ... Rfe8 16. Ng6 Ng4 17. Nxe7+ Rxe7 18. Re2 Ne5 19. Bf4 Nxd3 20. Rxd3 Rd7. “Another miserable preparation by Magnus with white,” Russian grandmaster Alexander Grischuk says.
Carlsen plays 15. Nh4. He’s more than a half hour behind on time right now.
Caruana plays 14. ... h6, which prevents Ng6 and stunts the position even further. Carlsen has spent more than 10 minutes considering his response and Caruana has stepped away from the board. Disappointing how fast this line fizzled out. Barring any inaccuracies a draw should be forthcoming.
The queens are off the board!
Carlsen offers up a queen exchange with 13. c4 and the ladies are off the board (13. ... Qxd2 14. Bxd2)! Oh boy. “It’s clear without queens black is fine,” says Sergey Karjakin, who pushed Carlsen to the limit in the world title match two years ago, from the commentary booth. “I think it’s going to be a draw. At the same time it’s not like Magnus was playing for the draw, but it just happened because he did not expect Fabiano would play this line.”
13. c4 Qxd2 14. Bxd2 Carlsen cannot help himself. He wants to head to endgame immediately. No risk grinding! It seems that both sides are satisfied with what they have 😁 pic.twitter.com/WPqZ14qIUc
— Susan Polgar (@SusanPolgar) November 24, 2018
Updated
Carlsen plays 12. Kb1 after 12 minutes and Caruana quickly responds with 12. ... Qa5. The champion has spent 23 minutes on his last two moves. He’s about 25 minutes down on time already.
Magnus Carlsen after 10...c5. What exactly convinced him not to go for a sharper line such as 12.Bg5? He spent almost 11 minutes on 11.Rhe1 and 12 minutes and a half on 12.Kb1. pic.twitter.com/gFVWZKedCr
— Olimpiu G. Urcan (@olimpiuurcan) November 24, 2018
Updated
A few more moves: 8. Qd2 Nd7 9. O-O-O Nf6 10. Bd3 c5 11. Rhe1 Be6. A promising double-edged position takes shape. Caruana moving with incredible pace, clearly still in his preparation, with nearly four more minutes than what he started with. Here’s what we’re looking at.
Updated
The parallel lines extend for Carlsen’s first seven moves (3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Nc3 Nxc3 6. dxc3 Be7 7. Be3). Caruana is first to deviate from their Sinquefield Cup game, playing 7. O-O instead of Nc6.
Carlsen plays 1. e4 and Game 11 is under way!
We have 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 and another Petroff! They’re blitzing out the opening and so far it’s identical to their August meeting at the Sinquefield Cup. It was former world title challenger Sergey Karjakin who made the ceremonial first move with b4, which Carlsen left on the board for a tantalizingly long time before going with e4.
“A small suggestion for you, Magnus”... 1.b4! #carlsencaruana2018 @theworldchess pic.twitter.com/FuL8VjTDc9
— Niki Riga (@riga_niki) November 24, 2018
Updated
We’ve written heaps about today’s Game 11, Monday’s Game 12 and the prospect of a tie-breaker. But what comes next? Our Leonard Barden looks past the world title match in his latest column.
When the match does finally end, the winner will receive the plaudits, the traditional laurel wreath from the new Fide president Arkady Dvorkovich, prize money of €600,000 or €550,000 (depending on whether it goes to tie-breaks), and a guaranteed minimum two-year reign until the next challenger arrives in 2020. But what about the loser?
For Caruana, it will not be so bad. Having got extremely close and proving himself Carlsen’s equal at match play, he has every incentive to aim for another title shot in 2020 when he will be only 28 years old. His 2832 rating is virtually equal to Carlsen’s 2835, he can realistically plan to capture the No 1 global rating soon. Carlsen has been top dog in the ratings for seven years and has said that he values No 1 almost as much as the official crown.
Caruana will also have plenty to look forward to in his home city of St Louis and for the US team, which will aim to capture the world team championship and regain the Olympiad gold medals from China in 2020. America’s billionaire benefactor Rex Sinquefield, who has made St Louis a global capital for international chess, is always looking for new ideas. Would Carlsen and Fide agree to a Carlsen v Caruana rematch in St Louis in 2019? Giving the champion the right to accept a challenge from the No 1 in the rankings is at least an arguable concept.
It will be much more traumatic if Carlsen loses his crown. While the US has other elite grandmasters and rising talents, Norway’s chess boom is based on Carlsen, whose laconic down to earth personality has made him a national hero.
When NRK, the government-owned broadcaster, made the bold decision in 2013 to televise live the whole of Carlsen’s first match against Vishy Anand, critics said that it would be like watching paint dry. But for the final game in Chennai the TV audience was 335,000. In 2014 for the return series in Sochi, 572,000 watched the decisive game. In 2016, when Carlsen and Karjakin played their speed tie-breaks in New York, 768,000, 56% of the national TY audience, saw the programme.
NRK makes it a spectator sport. The live show has audience participation, a meter to show the computer odds and a light approach, plus a resident grandmaster. In the last resort it works because Carlsen wins the matches at the end. But if he loses, and has no further chance for at least two years, the chess boom will probably falter, as it did in Britain and the US in the 1970s when Fischer refused to meet Anatoly Karpov.
Carlsen would have to cope with his own form crisis. Asked to name their chess hero, Caruana answered “Fischer” while Carlsen replied “myself, four or five years ago”. Some of his sharpness and accuracy has diminished and he has become like Mikhail Botvinnik after the 1940s, primus inter pares rather than supremely dominant. He might struggle to win the 2020 candidates ahead of the Azeri world No 3 Shak Mamedyarov and China’s’s No 4 Ding Liren. Much is at stake. Game 11 on Saturday, game 12 on Monday, and tie-breaks if needed on Wednesday are the dates for your diary.
Hello and welcome to today’s 11th game of the world chess championship between Norway’s Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana of the United States. Play resumes today after with the best-of-12-games match deadlocked at 5-all following 10 draws in as many games, no closer to a verdict than when we started. We have, however, borne witness to a bit of history: the longest streak of games to open a match without a decisive result in the recognized 132-year history of world championship matches.
The players
Norway's Magnus Carlsen is defending the world chess championship against Fabiano Caruana of the United States. The best-of-12-games match is taking place at the College in Holborn between 9 and 28 November, with the winner earning a 60% share of the €1m ($1.14m) prize fund if the match ends in regulation (or 55% if it's decided by tie-break games).
Carlsen, 27, has been ranked No 1 for eight straight years and was considered the world’s best player even before he defeated Viswanathan Anand for the title in 2013. Caruana, 26, is ranked No 2, having earned his place at the table by winning the candidates tournament in March. No American-born player has won or even competed for the world title since Bobby Fischer in 1972.
It marks the first title match between the world's top two players since 1990, when Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov faced off for a fifth and final time.
The format
The match will consist of 12 classical games with each player awarded one point for a win and a half-point for a draw. Whoever reaches six and a half points first will be declared the champion.
The time control for each game is 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, 50 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game plus an additional 30 seconds per move starting from move 1. Players cannot agree to a draw before Black's 30th move.
If the match is tied after 12 games, tie-breaks will be played on the final day in the following order:
• Best of four rapid games with 25 minutes for each player with an increment of 10 seconds after each move.
• If still tied, they will play up to five mini-matches of two blitz games (five minutes for each player with a three-second increment).
• If all five mini-matches are drawn, one sudden-death 'Armegeddon' match will be played where White receives five minutes and Black receives four minutes. Both players will receive a three-second increment after the 60th move. In the case of a draw, Black will be declared the winner.
The schedule
Thu 8 Nov – Opening ceremony
Fri 9 Nov – Game 1
Sat 10 Nov – Game 2
Sun 11 Nov – Rest day
Mon 12 Nov – Game 3
Tue 13 Nov – Game 4
Wed 14 Nov – Rest day
Thu 15 Nov – Game 5
Fri 16 Nov – Game 6
Sat 17 Nov – Rest day
Sun 18 Nov – Game 7
Mon 19 Nov – Game 8
Tue 20 Nov – Rest day
Wed 21 Nov – Game 9
Thu 22 Nov – Game 10
Fri 23 Nov – Rest day
Sat 24 Nov – Game 11
Sun 25 Nov – Rest day
Mon 26 Nov – Game 12
Tue 27 Nov – Rest day
Wed 28 Nov – Tie-break games/Awards and closing
The games commence each day at 3pm in London.
A brief refresher on how we got here: Game 1 was a grueling seven-hour, 115-move staredown, where Carlsen nearly become the first defending champion to win the opening game of a world championship with the black pieces in 37 years. The next four contests – Game 2, Game 3, Game 4 and Game 5 – were mostly safer, straightforward affairs where Caruana was able to get his teeth in the match. The tension ramped up in Game 6 when Carlsen was outplayed by Caruana in the middlegame and pushed to the limit before saving a draw with incredibly precise defending. They played to another draw in Sunday’s Game 7, a result that left the champion lamenting his gun-shy play as white. In Monday’s Game 8, Carlsen found himself down nearly an hour on the clock facing a dangerous position as black, until one false step by the American allowed him to hold. It was Caruana’s turn to suffer in Game 9 until he was bailed out by a Carlsen inaccuracy. Then came Thursday’s Game 10, where Caruana found himself on the brink once more until Carlsen overextended himself and was made to “grovel” for a draw.
Ten games. Ten draws. Will today be the day that first blood is finally drawn? We’ll soon find out when Carlsen makes the first move as white at the top of the hour.
Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s his report from Thursday’s Game 10.
The 27-year-old champion from Norway, playing with the black pieces, weathered Caruana’s novel deviation from the Sveshnikov Sicilian (12. b4) and responded with a bold attacking surprise (21. … b5!) to go for broke on the kingside and briefly take advantages in position and time over the American challenger.
But one false step (44. ... Kd4) while trying to squeeze victory from a seemingly drawish position left the champion on the back foot, where he admitted he was “fortunate” to salvage a half-point after five hours and 19 minutes.
“I felt that it was very close to mate,” Carlsen, the world No 1, said of his kingside attack. “The problem is if I don’t mate I’m losing. So I was trying to find some middle ground and my time was running out. I don’t know. I was just so nervous, I couldn’t make it happen. It ended up just being nothing.”
