The Week in Chess

Magnus Carlsen scored a second win in three games to take full control of the FIDE World Chess Championship match against Ian Nepomniachtchi after 8 games. Carlsen leads 5-3 with just 6 games left after winning two of the three games that took place Friday to Sunday. The record breaking 136 move game on Friday was always likely to have an impact on the two games that followed and I certainly felt Nepomniachtchi couldn't afford to lose another game, but he did.

The game was another Petroff Defence with Carlsen playing the very rare 7.Nd2 - Nepomniachtchi reacted with 7...Nxd2 8.Bxd2 Bd6 which Carlsen said he believed from his preparation wasn't the best - after 9.0-0 Nepomniachtchi played the surprising 9...h5! Which is a very interesting move that could have led to a lively fight.

Carlsen fell into a 40 minute think, he revealed he was having trouble calculating the consequences of this move and so replied with the solid 10.Qe1+ which after 10...Qe7 should lead to quite sterile equality. Nepomniachtchi instead played 10...Kf8 which Carlsen was please so see as he then had a tiny advantage to work with. This move was the first indication Nepomniachtchi wasn't really thinking clearly at all today as it really only gave Carlsen chances without giving himself any additional chances.

Nepomniachtchi admitted that around move 19 (where he suggested 19...Qd6 as an alternative) he started to feel uncomfortable. There was still nothing too much to worry about even after 20.c4 dxc4 but then to the shock of everyone - and after just 4 minutes thought - Nepomniachtchi lashed out with 21....b5? This is a move he must have known was at least very risky if not intuitively bad, yet he didn't spend much time on it and it turned out he had made the most banal of miscalculations - 22.Qa3+ Kg7 23. Qxa7 bxc4 was his intended line "forgetting" that the Bishop on d7 was en prise. This was especially poor as 21...Kg8 sorting out his back rank problems was a perfectly acceptable alternative.

Nepomniachtchi admitted he had no appetite for the fight after such a serious error - and in truth his position was pretty much beyond repair. 23...Qd8 was clearly just losing and Carlsen summoned every ounce of concentration to make sure he made no mistake in converting this huge advantage into the full point. The technical process was objectively very easy - only the circumstances gave the remaining moves of the game any tension.

It's hard to see Nepomniachtchi recovering from this and the danger must be that the wheels come off his campaign altogether.

Rest day Monday 6th December

Game 9 Tuesday 7th December 12:30GMT Nepomniachtchi-Carlsen.