Written by: Emadeldin Teama

Game 8-Carlsen strikes again!

In this article we are going to review game 8. It has been a thrilling match between Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi .
After Game 6 where Carlsen won the longest game in the history of chess world championship playing 138 moves, Carlsen became a head with one point in the match and this puts Ian under pressure as he must play for win with both colors.
In this round, Carlsen played the white pieces while Nepomniachtchi played the black pieces. Now let’s review the game.

1-e4 Carlsen is aiming for an open game. Of course he can now play any type of game he wants! He is ahead in the match score.

1-..e5 2-Nf3 Nf6 3-d4!? Nepomniachtchi chose the Russian defense with the previous moves. Carlsen answered with the quick 3-d4!? line.
That line is absolutely fantastic against the petroff “Also called the Russian defense”. White breaks the symmetry immediately and gets away from the main boring lines. We are actually recommending this move. It is very simple and aggressive, also leads to unbalanced positions with many rich ideas.

3-…Nxe4 5-Bd3 d5!? (5-…Nc6 is popular lately temporary sacrificing a piece and getting it back with later d5 and e4 however ian goes for the most direct line here).

5-Nxe5 Nd7!? Quickly challenging the knight on the center.

6-Nxd7! Of course the world champion did his homework here, this counter intuitive move is essential in this position. White usually in the middle game after exchanging the e4 knight with Nd2 or Nc3 goes for Qh5 idea double attack on h7 pawn and d5 exposed pawn sometimes forcing black to choose between losing a pawn or playing f5 himself killing his own light square bishop!

6-…Bd7 7-Nd2 Nxd2 8-Bxd2 Bd6 9-o-o h5?

A very strange blunder in the opening, this h5 move is not related to black development on any case.
We all know that in the opening you need to develop your pieces, make your king safe and then only start an attack. In this position the crazy 9-..Qh5!? would even make sense as it attack and prepares to long castle! But this h5? Is just a bad idea.

10-Qe1+?! Not the best way to give the check, Re1+ was simply better.However, white achieved his goal of making enemy king stuck in the center. Black here should have answered with 10-..Qe7 exchanging queens and going for quick draw.However, Ian went for

10-..Kf8!? 11-Bb4 Qe7 12-Bxd6! exchanging black good bishop for white bad bishop and refusing to exchange queens . white is slightly better now.

12-..Qxd6 13-Qd2 Re8 14-Rae1 Rh6 Black finished his development.However, he doesn’t have enough power to attack and white pieces are more harmonic white continues activation of his pieces to its maximum potentials with the following move

15-Qg5!? C6 16-Rxe8+! Bxe8 Re1! Taking over the open file 17-…Qf7 18-Qe3! Complete domination of the open e file and a better bishop as shown in the following diagram

18-..Bd7 19-h3 h4 20-c4 starting an attack

20-…dxc4 21-Bxc4 b5?? Unbelievable blunder, black simply drops the a7 pawn!

22-Qa3+ Kg8

23-Qxa7 Qd8 a passive move but the active alternatives are not pretty for example (23-..Bxh3!?24-Re8+! Kh7 25-Qxf7 forcing queen exchanges and this is a much better endgame that is hard to defend).

24-Bb3 Rd6? Giving white the chance for a rook lift and prospects to attack both f7 and h4.

25-Re4 Be6 26-Bxe6 Rxe6 27-Rex6 fxe6 28-Qc5!

Now here we are. A queens endgame where white has an extra pawn and more active queen in addition to a safer king from the checks. Black has so many weaknesses.however, this should not be an easy win.
It is usually very difficult even with a pawn up to in the queens endgame. Let’s checkout Carlsen technique . we will understand why he is the best player in the world!

28-..Qa5 trying to exchange pawns is correct in addition to activating black queen.

29-Qxc6 taking on the challenge, Carlsen carefully calculates that there is no draw yet here by preptual checks.

29-..Qe1+!? 30-Kh2 Qxf2 31-Qxe6+! Kh7

32-Qe4+! Now black has no perpetual checks over f4 square and white is two pawns up. The d4 itself is a huge problem.

32-..Kg8 33-b3 Qxa2 34-Qe8+ now that black queen so far away white takes this opportunity to eliminate black b5 pawn!

34-..Kh7 35-Qxb5 Qf2 36-Qe5 stopping the draw by repeating of checks. Black is totally lost now.

36-..Qb2 37-Qe4+ Kg8 38-Qd3 simple plan keeping all material , stopping draws and then white will push the d pawn

39-Qc3 Qf4+ 40-Kg1 Kh7 both players reach move 40. They get extra time and they can think calmly about that position.

41-Qd3!? Not really necessary white could go d5 direct , still he is winning in both cases.

41-..g6 42-Qd1 playing it super safe.it is a correct approach when you are winning!

42-..Qe3+ 43-Kh1 g5 44-d5 g4 45-hxg4?! Really unnecessary, the simple d6 wins as follow (45-d6 gxh3 46-Qh5+! Kg7 Qg4+ then if the king goes to f file qf3 exchange queens into winning pawn endgame and going back to h file means u will capture all black pawns with checks)

All the same, the way Carlsen plays wins too. He goes for most direct keeping it simple. Ian tries 45-..h3 and was stopped directly with Carlsen next move.

46-Qf3! Forcing resignation.

There is no tricks anymore. White is three pawns up with super safe king. This would be won sooner or later.

Conclusion:

With Carlsen winning this round . the score is 5 -3 for Carlsen. it becomes super hard for Nepomniachtchi to recover. However, let’s not forget there is still 6 rounds of classical chess remaining. Anything can happen in the forthcoming rounds and we are sure Nepomniachtchi will recover quickly and strikes back!

We Evaluate this world championship match as extremely exciting full of surprises and deep original play and we can’t wait for the next rounds to be played!

Here is the full game as well :