CHESS#1329

Two world titles have been defended, but not in an entirely satisfying way: in rapid tie-breaks. Both matches have led to demands for format changes. One match was so short, the excitement felt contrived while the other saw a cynically pragmatic decision and no decisive classical games. 

In the women's final, Ju Wenjun came back from the brink against Kateryna Lagno. Ju lost Game 2 in the classical four-gamer and won Game 4 when Lagno blundered horribly. That meant a four-game rapid tiebreak. After two draws, Ju won Games 3 and 4 to retain the title.  

The Wimbledon KO format of the women's circuit is exciting but there's a large element of luck in two game mini-matches. A four-game final is also much too short.  Why not shift to emulating the open cycle, with a World Cup "Wimbledon" followed by a Candidates and a longer title match? 

Even a 12-game match may be too short between evenly matched players. We saw that in Magnus Carlsen versus Fabiano Caruana. A 12-gamer is not conducive to risk-taking, if the first few are drawn. Very few openings were played. Neither player took chances. 

The 12th game was a nihilistic classic. Carlsen got a big edge through excellent manoeuvres, and Caruana was struggling after a Sicilian Sveshnikov went wrong. By move 31, black was close to winning. White had no counterplay; he could only wait and see if black could break through. Machine analysis shows black already had decisive advantage. Carlsen had 40 minutes. Caruana was down to 15 minutes. 

At that stage, Carlsen offered a draw. That repeated his strategy from Game 12 of the last title match when he also offered a quick draw to push Sergey Karjakin into tiebreaks. In that match at least, there had been two decisive games, a win for each side. This time it was 12 draws. It's absurd that the highest-rated classical player in history has had two successive title defences in rapid play. 

Both draws offer were pragmatic, given Carlsen's superiority at short controls. The tiebreak was actually embarrassing, with Carlsen rolling out a 3-0 victory. But it should never have come to this. There's no reason why the title match can't revert to being a 24-game classical where players have the leeway to take risks, even if the unlimited "first to six wins" is infeasible. 

Carlsen clinched the match at the Diagram, Black to Play (White : Caruana Vs Black: Carlsen, World Championship, London 2018, Game 14 Rapid). He slammed out 26. — Bxc7! 27. Nxc7 Ne5 — the threats include Nd3, Nf3, Qf3, Nxc4, etc.  If 28. Qd5 Rab8 followed by Rxc7 / Nf3 will win the Queen at least. White tried 28. Nd5 Kh7! Negates the fork on e7 and (0-1). 
 

Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player