"It was a little sadder than I hoped," said Magnus Carlsen of the ending he found himself defending against Ian Nepomniachtchi, but Game 5 of the World Chess Championship ended in a 5th draw with the Russian never really coming close to picking up a full point. The opening was another 8.a4 Anti-Marshall, and though Magnus made the first new move it was Ian who missed any chances to win. The score is now level at 2.5:2.5 going into the 2nd rest day, with Magnus taking solace from the fact he has two Whites before the 3rd.
A 5th draw, with Ian Nepomniachtchi this time on top from start to finish, but unable to break through | photo: Niki Riga, FIDE
Replay all the games so far with computer analysis:
Check out Grandmaster Danny King's recap of Game 5.
And here's the day's live commentary and press conference with Judit Polgar and Anish Giri...
...and with David Howell, Kaja Snare and Jovanka Houska.
We’re now more than a third of the way through the 2021 FIDE World Chess Championship match in Dubai and so far no-one has given an inch.
Game 5 saw Ian Nepomniachtchi playing with the white pieces for the 3rd time, and he stuck to the policy of, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. He’d got solid, comfortable positions out of the opening playing 1.e4 and meeting Magnus Carlsen’s Marshall with the Anti-Marshall in Games 1 and 3, so he kept to the same plan. He played 8.a4 as in Game 3, and Magnus was the first player to vary from that game, with 8…Rb8.
Magnus articulated what’s already been clear from his games so far:
I thought it’s always good to spring the first surprise.
But then he added:
Unfortunately it didn’t work out very well for me. I think he chose a very good line and I actually kind of knew that it’s hard to completely equalise in this line. I thought there’s limited material and it’s fairly symmetrical, so I’ll figure it out if it comes to that, but yeah, it was a little bit more unpleasant than I’d hoped.
Ian Nepomniachtchi has looked incredibly well-prepared in the opening so far | photo: Niki Riga, FIDE
The next move, 9.axb5 rather than 9.c3, already deviated from Duda’s play, and it was soon Magnus who was burning up noticeable amounts of time on every move while Ian blitzed out his preparation. Anish Giri talked about how the players were approaching their games with the black pieces.
Interestingly, the players have a slightly different strategy with the black pieces. Ian is trying to kill the game in the most efficient way, while Magnus also tries to equalise, but he tries to still have some surprise value in there. Ian is just not interested in surprise value, he just wants to say that ok, I’ll play the most rough equaliser. This is the best way — you know it, I know, we all know it, I’m going to do it, I’m going to repeat my files. And Magnus is trying to be a little more flexible, a little deviation here and there, have Ian a little more alert, and perhaps this is a strategy to try and maybe one day get a playable position with the black pieces, maybe perhaps put some pressure on Ian in the middlegame later on.
For once, however, it was Ian who was clearly winning the manoeuvring battle, with Magnus drifting into an uncomfortable position. Anish pointed to 15…Bd6!? as a potential inaccuracy.
The players didn’t specify where things went wrong afterwards, but Ian did comment:
Basically all sensible tries after 8.a4 in the Marshall are very solid, so ok, 8…Rb8 is one of the most solid, perhaps, but Black should come up with some precise moves afterwards. I guess Magnus didn’t manage to make all the moves in the right order.
Soon Ian had a 40-minute advantage on the clock, and the position after 19…Qe8!? looks to have been the critical one in the game.
Magnus was asked if he’d been concerned about 20.c4 here, and responded:
Yeah! I definitely considered that the main option. I thought everything else was kind of manageable. Obviously it’s always a bit worse, but it feels like my position is not going to get worse, it’s only probably going to gradually improve, seeing as I have very few real weaknesses. But yeah, c4 was definitely what was worrying me the most there, and seeing 20.Red1 I kind of thought that the worst was over.
Ian cited an embarrassment of riches:
I considered c4 as one of many options, but somehow the position was that pleasant it was difficult to choose the type of advantage I wanted to see at the board.
There was in any case no quick kill for Nepo after 20.c4, but in the game after 20.Red1 Be6 21.Ba4 Bd7 22.Nd2 Bxa4 23.Qxa4 Qxa4 24.Rxa4 queens had disappeared from the board and it initially felt as though we were simply going to race towards an early draw. Soon, however, the question of whether White could actually win became a real one again.
It was the kind of position you imagine Magnus would have loved to play on the white side, and he admitted things had got a little out of hand:
I do think that I somewhat underestimated the ending. I realised that it was worse, of course, but it was probably a little sadder than I had hoped.
After a few questionable moves, however, Magnus then demonstrated extreme precision. His 31…f6 got the computer’s stamp of approval, although our commentators were surprised the World Champion hadn’t gone for the more obvious “positional” choice of 31…h5.
Magnus explained his reasons afterwards:
I thought concretely 31.f3 was threatening Nxd6, and I could not go Nxd6 anymore, because the pawn was not hanging on e4, and I simply considered Nxd6 to be a positional threat, and I thought I needed to be able to recapture with the knight, and that’s why I thought that was more important than not allowing h4, h5. And besides, I’d already kind of envisioned the fortress that I had in the game, where i just exchange one knight, put the bishop on f8 and then just do nothing.
The fortress arose after 32.g4 Kf7 33.h4 Bf8 34.Ke2 Nd6 35.Ncxd6+ Bxd6 36.h5 Bf8 and suddenly there was nothing that White could do to alter the outcome of the game. Our commentators at the time, Judit Polgar and Nils Grandelius, were wondering how many moves had to be made before a draw could be offered. In the previous match it was 30, but was it different this time round? While others discussed, Anish Giri explored his new hobby with the answer!
There was also more fun to be had. One of the most curious recurring moments in a chess match is when both players have left the board.
On another similar occasion near the end, Giri recalled the famous Steinitz-Von Bardeleben game where the player with Black left without resigning.
The players hadn’t slipped away unnoticed, however, and on move 43 a draw was reached with a repetition of moves.
That made it five draws to start the match, with Magnus telling Tania Sachdev immediately after the game:
Obviously the tension is rising and it's becoming clearer and clearer that it's going to be hard for both of us to break through.
Were the draws an issue? Not yet, Magnus said in the post-game press conference:
I think there is some magical cut-off point where draws instead of just being normal become a problem, but I don’t think we’ve crossed the Rubicon yet.
When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC it made Civil War inevitable. Too many draws in the match is more likely to make the press conferences unbearable | photo: Niki Riga, FIDE
Ian regretted not pushing harder when he had an advantage, but at least he’d had Magnus on the ropes. The World Champion described the game:
Obviously I’m not thrilled with a game where unless you count Ra2, Ra1 at the end I didn’t make a single active move, so that’s not ideal, it doesn’t win you many games, but the result obviously is fine.
Magnus in fact claimed to have enjoyed it.
I didn’t mind. It was ok. It’s a perverse kind of taste to like defending these positions, but I do enjoy it from time to time, and as you said, I had a clear goal for what I wanted to do, and that was reach the fortress that I had in the game, and in that sense it was a job well done and that was definitely satisfying.
What about life regrets? The players were asked what they would have done differently in their careers.
Ian: Start working earlier.
Magnus: There were a couple of moments that I could have changed, but I’ve had so much good fortune I don’t think I would have changed anything and risked a butterfly effect.
It wouldn’t be a World Championship match press conference without something completely random, however, and we got that with some revenge for Andrea Botez. She’d once been asked by Magnus if she knew how the knight moves.
Andrea got the chance to ask that to Magnus, who gave a considered response.
That’s a good question. It generally moves like an “L”, and sometimes in blitz games it can be very unpredictable.
At times it seems hard to find a chess internet personality who isn’t currently in Dubai, with Hans Niemann there to report for Chessable. He had a bold prediction for Game 6, when he thinks blood will finally be spilt.
We’ll have to wait, since first there’s a rest day on Thursday, but then the players will resume battle for the next three days in a row. Magnus himself highlighted the fact that he’s got White for two of those games, and we can expect him to be pushing hard to open the scoring.
First, however, there were some delayed birthday celebrations!
All the action will be live right here on chess24 from 16:30 local time (7:30 ET, 13:30 CET) each game.
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