 "Magnus Carlsen (left) and Fabiano Caruana during the 2018 World Chess Championship in London")
The opening press conference at The College, Holborn, made it obvious that this was not going to be a conventional World Chess Championship match. Chess grandmasters are rarely, if ever, quizzed about their personal relationships with women and “female support”. If they are, they are unlikely to respond with a deadpan, “Women hate me, I repel them”, as Magnus Carlsen (who has modelled with, and supposedly dated, Liv Tyler) said. Nor would they state ironically that “some of my best friends are women and my mother supports me” as Fabiano Caruana did.
In many other ways, this match breaks the
