Round 8 of the FIDE World Championship was performed at present between the reigning champion, GM Magnus Carlsen and his challenger, GM Ian Nepomniachtchi.

(title picture – FIDE / Eric Rosen)

Lichess is offering a broadcast of the strikes being performed in real-time. Additionally, GM Nijat Abasov is offering recreation annotations and insights on the video games each day. Round eight’s recreation annotations might be discovered under.

Carlsen had the white items once more at present, simply earlier than the remainder day – alternative to profit from it and push. Carlsen began with 1. e4, and Nepomniachtchi responded with the Russian defence (the Petrov). The recreation went into a distinct segment variation, performed solely a handful of occasions on the high stage, however the place regarded drawish, and symmetrical general.

https://lichess.org/examine/embed/RoBvWqfx/WodqeDZr#0

With some feisty play Nepomniachtchi signalled his intention to push for greater than an equal and symmetrical draw (with 9… h5), and Carlsen gambled on that (10. Qe1+). At worse, Carlsen would seemingly be risking a draw (with 10… Qe7). However, the gamble paid off, and Nepomniachtchi responded with 10… Kf8, giving up castling rights. Even so, the place was primarily equal.

Through the early middlegame, each gamers retained equality, buying and selling off key items and for all intents and functions the sport regarded like it could be a fast draw. However, with 21… b5 Nepomniachtchi blundered, saying within the press convention he merely miscalculated that his bishop was hanging within the continuation. Dropping a pawn for nothing, Nepomniachtchi had an uphill wrestle.

Following some inaccurate play from Nepomniachtchi, white regarded to have extra lively items, in addition to a further pawn. Further, Carlsen with a rook elevate added extra woes to Nepomniachtchi’s place, with potentialities of threatening Nepomniachtchi’s weakened f-pawn, or long run stress on an remoted h-pawn. Just over 20 strikes in, and issues have been trying dire for Nepomniachtchi.

(picture credit score – FIDE / Eric Rosen)

Even so, Carlsen nonetheless needed to play rigorously and precisely to keep away from the chance of any sneaky threefold repetition traps Nepomniachtchi might spring. Carlsen, in such a high-stakes event, was extremely cautious, highlighting within the press convention later that he was very aware of not slipping up. Nepomniachtchi was unable to spring any threefold traps, and ultimately resigned to Carlsen, three pawns up in a queen-pawns endgame. 

Nepomniachtchi now has an uphill wrestle to beat Carlsen’s +2 lead in six remaining video games. Carlsen is the overwhelming statistical favorite, with purely the numbers suggesting he has a 98.5% probability of successful the match outright. In an identical vein, throughout all his World Championships, Carlsen has solely misplaced two classical video games general (one towards Anand, and one towards Karjakin). However, chess is greater than numbers, however Nepomniachtchi has what seems to be a Herculean process forward of him to equalise the rating, not to mention win the match within the classical portion. 

In his annotations (above) GM Nijat Abasov touches on the troublesome psychological problem Nepomniachtchi has, sharing:

“Unlike game 6, where Magnus put enormous effort to win the game, it feels more like Nepo self-destructed today. It’s extremely difficult to strike back after such unpleasant defeats. I have a sensation that Ian has burnt himself with declining draws in both Game 6 and today by taking too much risk. […] Yet I genuinely hope the rest day tomorrow will recharge Ian and in the second half of the match, we see a completely different player – the true samurai in action! I am most definitely sure he is capable of keeping the intrigue until the very end and It’s never over until it’s over!”

The subsequent recreation will probably be performed after a relaxation day, so on Tuesday 7 December 12:30 UTC. For extra particulars on the event, you possibly can assessment our first spherical recap which has extra data.

(GM Nijat Abasov achieved the GM title at simply 15. He was Azeri nationwide champion in 2017, additionally successful the Baku Open the identical 12 months. He has performed the Tata Steel Challengers and the Grand Swiss (twice), amongst many different tournaments, reaching his all-time peak score of 2670 in February 2020. He lately represented Azerbaijan on the European Team Championships, successful a board prize with a efficiency score of 2760).