The World Chess Championship 2018 was a match between the reigning world champion since 2013, Magnus Carlsen, and the challenger Fabiano Caruana to determine the World Chess Champion. The 12-game match, organised by FIDE and its commercial partner Agon, was played at The College in Holborn, London, between 9 and 28 November 2018.FIDE-Agon agreement (3.1a) of Annex 11, 2012 FIDE General Assembly. The games were broadcast on worldchess.com and by NRK.
The classical time-control portion of the match ended with 12 consecutive draws, the only time in the history of the world chess championship that all classical games have been drawn. On 28 November, rapid chess was used as a tie-breaker; Carlsen won three consecutive games to retain his title and became four-time world champion.
Candidates Tournament
Caruana qualified as challenger by winning the 2018 Candidates Tournament. This was an eight-player, double round-robin tournament played in Berlin on 10–28 March 2018.
Qualified players Players qualified for the Candidates Tournament as follows (age, rating and world ranking are as of March 2018, when the tournament was held):
Player Age Rating RankQualification path28 2763 13The runner-up of the 2016 World Championship match. 35 2794 5The top two finishers in the Chess World Cup 2017 who did not qualify from the 2016 match.25 2769 1132 2809 2The top two finishers in the FIDE Grand Prix 2017 who did not qualify through the World Cup.34 2767 1225 2784 7The top two players with the highest rating (by the average of all 12 lists in 2017), who did not qualify via one of the above qualification routes, and who have played in either the World Cup or Grand Prix.24 2799 442 2800 3 Wild card nomination of the organizers (Agon). Must be rated at least 2725 in any FIDE published rating list in 2017.
Results
Championship match
The Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana was held from 9 to 28 November 2018 in London, United Kingdom, at the Cochrane Theatre of The College in Holborn.
Match regulations
The match was organised in a best-of-12-games format. The time control for the games was 100 minutes for the first 40 moves, an additional 50 minutes added after the 40th move, and then an additional 15 minutes added after the 60th move, plus an additional 30 seconds per move starting from move 1. Players were not permitted to agree to a draw before Black's 30th move.RULES & REGULATIONS FOR THE FIDE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH (FWCM) 2018 FIDE.
The tie-breaking method consisted of the following schedule of faster games played on the final day in the following order, as necessary: Best-of-four rapid games (25 minutes for each player with an increment of 10 seconds after each move). The player with the best score after four rapid games is the winner. The players are not required to record the moves. In the match, Carlsen immediately won three games in a row, securing the championship. If the rapid games had been tied 2–2, up to five mini-matches of best-of-two blitz games (5 minutes plus 3 seconds increment after each move) would have been played. The player with the best score in any two-game blitz match would be the winner. If the blitz matches had failed to produce a winner, one sudden death "Armageddon" game: White receives 5 minutes and Black receives 4 minutes. Both players receive an increment of 3 seconds starting from move 61. The player who wins the drawing of lots may choose the colour. In case of a draw, the player with the black pieces is declared the winner.
Prize fund The prize fund was 1 million euros net of all applicable taxes. Had the match been decided in the classical portion it would have been divided 60% vs 40% between winner and loser. As the match went to a tiebreak the split was more even at 55% vs 45%.
Previous head-to-head record Prior to the match, Caruana and Carlsen had played 33 games against each other at classical time controls, of which Carlsen won 10 and Caruana 5, with 18 draws. The most recent game, during the 2018 Sinquefield Cup tournament, resulted in a draw.
Head-to-head recordCarlsen winsDrawCaruana winsTotalClassicalCarlsen (white) – Caruana (black)510217Caruana (white) – Carlsen (black)58316Total1018533Blitz / rapid / exhibition134623Total23221156
Alternative logo
The World Chess Federation also showcased an "alternative logo", which depicts two figures with overlapping legs holding a chessboard. The image received controversy for appearing provocative and even "sexy". When the head of World Chess, Ilya Merenzon, was asked to speak on the topic, he said that "it's about two people fighting", but later added that "it would be nice to bring a little bit of sexual appeal into chess".
Organisation and location The match was held under the auspices of FIDE, the world chess federation, with the organisation rights belonging to Agon, its commercial partner. Following the previous championship match in 2016, the president of FIDE, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, said that the next venue would be in London or somewhere in Asia. Japan, South Korea and Singapore all said they were prepared to host the match. In November 2017, London was revealed as the host.
The Chief arbiter was Stéphane Escafre from France, and deputy arbiter was Nana Alexandria from Georgia. The appeal committee was composed of International Grandmasters and was chaired by Alexander Beliavsky (Slovenia) with Nigel Short (England) and Jóhann Hjartarson (Iceland) also present. The FIDE Supervisor was Ashot Vardapetyan, an International Arbiter from Armenia.
The match took place at The College in Holborn, Central London, an impressive Victorian building with a glass dome on the roof. The interior was refitted for the match to provide an elevated rectangular playing space that was to be sound-proof and set behind unidirectional glass so that the players were separated from the audience: the players could be seen, but they would not see the spectators who stood in near total darkness. To attend the event, ticket prices ranged from £45 to £100. It was also broadcast online, with IM Anna Rudolf and GM Judit Polgár providing commentary.
The first move of each game of the match was ceremonially performed by guests invited by the organisers. Among the guests were movie stars Woody Harrelson (who also made the first move in game one for the previous championship match in New York) and Tom Hollander; Ellisiv Reppen, partner of Jan Gustafsson, who was part of Carlsen's team in New York; Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales; Sergey Karjakin, the previous challenger for the chess championship; Daniel Weil, the person who designed the pawn he moved, as well as the rest of pieces and the chessboard; and Lucy Hawking, daughter of physicist Stephen Hawking. For the first five minutes of actual game time, photographers were allowed to remain in the playing space to take photos.
Live analysis The games were analysed live by the Sesse computer, running Stockfish. The computer featured a 20-core 2.3 GHz Haswell-EP CPU, which is significantly more powerful than most personal computers.
Seconds The seconds of the players were revealed after the match. Carlsen was helped by Peter Heine Nielsen, Laurent Fressinet, Daniil Dubov, Jan Gustafsson and Nils Grandelius. Caruana's seconds were Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Ioan-Cristian Chirila, Alejandro Ramirez and Leinier Domínguez.
Match preparation video leak On 13 November 2018, a two-minute video showing Caruana's preparation for the match showing a list of openings, possibly revealing some of Caruana's opening preparation, was uploaded onto the Saint Louis Chess Club's YouTube channel. The video was quickly removed, but screenshots from the video were disseminated on the Internet. They revealed that Caruana's team was focusing on particular games, and openings—openings that deal primarily with how Caruana would defend as Black against 1.d4 or 1.e4; including variations of the Queen's Gambit Declined, Petrov's Defence, and the Grünfeld Defence with a fianchetto. Klein, Mike. "World Chess Championship Game 4: Draw Again Despite Release Of Caruana's Training Notes". Chess dot com. 13 November 2018
Schedule and results Days with games are shaded.
Date Event Thursday 8 November Opening ceremony Friday 9 November Game 1 Saturday 10 November Game 2 Sunday 11 November Rest day Monday 12 November Game 3 Tuesday 13 November Game 4 Wednesday 14 November Rest day Thursday 15 November Game 5 Friday 16 November Game 6 Saturday 17 November Rest day Sunday 18 November Game 7 Monday 19 November Game 8 Tuesday 20 November Rest day Wednesday 21 November Game 9 Thursday 22 November Game 10 Friday 23 November Rest day Saturday 24 November Game 11 Sunday 25 November Rest day Monday 26 November Game 12 Tuesday 27 November Rest day Wednesday 28 November Tie-break games Thursday 29 November Closing ceremony
The classical games began each day at 15:00 (local time and UTC) in London.
+World Chess Championship 2018 Rating Match games Points Tiebreak games Total 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 2835 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½61 1 19 2832 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 60 0 06
Classical games
Game 1: Caruana–Carlsen, ½–½
The first game was a marathon draw, lasting 7 hours. At the time, it was the fourth longest game in a world championship, after Game 5 of the 1978 championship (124 moves), Game 7 of the 2014 championship (122 moves), and Game 14 of the 1908 championship (119 moves). (Since then, this has been surpassed by Game 6 of the 2021 championship, with 136 moves, making the game the fifth-longest World Championship game.) Caruana opened with 1.e4, and Carlsen responded with the Sicilian Defence, with Caruana playing the Rossolimo Variation, an opening with which he had lost against Carlsen in 2015. After 15 moves, it was clear that Carlsen had won the opening duel, with White having no clear way to improve his position while Black still had plans. Caruana started to consume a lot of time, but failed to neutralise Carlsen, with the result that Carlsen had a strong position after 30 moves and Caruana was in serious time trouble. Carlsen had a winning position several times between moves 34 and 40 but, despite a significant time advantage, failed each time to find the winning continuation, and after 40...Bxc3 Caruana was able to reach a drawn endgame. Carlsen continued to play for a win but Caruana was able to hold the game, despite being a pawn down in a rook endgame. The players finally agreed to a draw after 115 moves.
Game 2: Carlsen–Caruana, ½–½
Game 2 began as a Queen's Gambit Declined with Caruana opting for the rarely played 10...Rd8. Caught by surprise, Carlsen avoided the most critical continuation and soon found himself far behind on the clock, a reversal of fortunes from Game 1. Caruana had the clearly-better position, but Carlsen was able to "beg for a draw", successfully navigating to a drawn pawn-down rook endgame. The game was drawn by agreement after 49 moves.
Game 3: Caruana–Carlsen, ½–½
Game 3 was a 49-move draw, beginning again with the Rossolimo Variation of the Sicilian Defence. Caruana deviated first with 6.0-0, against which Carlsen chose a rare continuation. White maintained some pressure, but it was not serious. On move 15 Caruana suffered a "blackout" and played Bd2, missing that Black does not have to exchange rooks. This lost all the White pressure, and a few moves later with neither side having any concrete plan, Caruana exchanged all the and went into a slightly inferior endgame, where Black possessed a bishop for White's knight as well as a slight advantage. Carlsen tried, but Caruana was never in real danger of losing.
Game 4: Carlsen–Caruana, ½–½