It's over after today, 6-3 now in favor of Carlsen against Nepo from Russia. Carlsen needs just 1.5 more pts. to clinch.

Nepo blundered again in game 9 today, allowing his bishop to become trapped on move 25. He did not have a way to protect the pawn on the c-file other than moving it up a square or without moving another piece that was protecting other pawns. It was a bad position to begin with. Maybe playing the English against Carlsen was not such a good idea, but having to go through another Ruy Lopez would have been brutal for Nepo after the marathon game he lost in game 6.

Nepo has seemed il-prepared for Carlsen. He played the disastrous h5 in the Petrov as black in game 8, which he lost, while moving his king to f8 (and not castling). The plan seemed doomed from the start. After his game 7 loss, Nepo felt compelled to apologize at the press conference afterwards. That was a big mistake. He had nothing to apologize for. If anything, the organizers should have been apologizing to him for having to attend the stupid press conferences. Fischer would never have done that.

The reason Nepo lost today is because he was caught by a Zwischenzug by Carlsen. Nepo took pawn at b7 with his white bishop, but instead of immediately attacking that piece and forcing its retreat, Carlsen surprised Nepo by attacking his c-file pawn with his rook instead, which he had no defense for without losing at least a pawn.

Sometimes in chess it pays to not be completely logical with your move order by not always going after the superior piece. That's why Kirk would beat Spock at chess with non-linear/non-orderly thinking. It's also how they defeated Khan in space.

Article in today’s WSJ.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/magnus-carlsen-ian-nepomniachtchi-world-chess-championship-computer-analysis-11639003641?mod=hp_trending_now_article_pos2

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