The Week in Chess

The fifth game of the World Chess Championship was drawn in 34 rather tense moves. Once again with Caruana as white the game went into a Rossolimo Sicilian variation. Carlsen's pace of play slowed considerably after 6.b4 although it became clear he knew the theory well. Caruana's 12.Qe2 seems to be a novelty but I don't think it was new to Carlsen. Fairly soon after it became clear that if anyone was better it was Carlsen, Caruana thought for over half an hour on move 19 and it was Carlsen's turn to go into the tank on move 20. Carlsen presumably was hoping for winning chances but his choice of 20...Kb6 didn't really work out (the computer idea of 20...b5 would surely have been his other choice). Caruana's 21.Bd2 brought about a nice sequence where he gave up pawns for activity and when he finally restore material equality on move 34 the position was a dead draw.

Caruana to NRK: "A well played game with some fireworks."

Carlsen: "It was a long preparation from him. But I wasn't very worried about the position that arose. I felt that I had sufficient compensation with my bishop pair. After that I found a way to play for advantage, but I found nothing clear."

"I felt that I had a fine position after the opening. I hoped to press him. I don't think I played particularly well today. There were not many difficult decisions."

"I definitely hoped more than I have shown until now. I have to focus on that now. I am pretty pleased with today's game as long as I didn't miss anything I will regret."

All post game player quotes via Tarjei J. Svensen @TarjeiJS on twitter.

Game 6 Carlsen-Caruana is at 3pm on Friday. It's the first of two games where Carlsen has white as the colour sequence for the pair of games played together is changed for the second half of the match. White has made little or no headway in the match thus far so it's unclear if this will be an advantage for Carlsen or not.

Score Carlsen 2.5 - Caruana 2.5.