World championship match in Astana

[LawrenceCooper]

A draw after 90 moves and six and a half hours.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Carlsen gets an extra day as World Champion, then.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Ding does appear to be the least well prepared WC player ever! One might be concerned that he might not have enough time in the rapids to continue to pull out of the fire bad opening positions. At any rate, it is that, rather than Nepo's general speed, which would seem to be the cause of concern. But the fact that Nepo has scored about a point less than he should have done in these last few games, and so shouldn't really have to be playing tie breaks at all, might also play a part.

Oh well, we all know it - we love the excitement of play offs, even (I believe) those who think they are not proper ways to determine the world title.

[Mick Norris]

I was pleased it was extended to 14 games, although I would have preferred at least 16, I can see the players will be understandably tired

As the title is vacant, there is no real alternative to tiebreaks

[Nick Ivell]

Caruana was of the opinion that Ding has shown nothing as White in the opening.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Surely the Nimzo-Indian game (number 8 I mean) was an exception there?

[Mike Gunn]

I was pleased it was extended to 14 games, although I would have preferred at least 16, I can see the players will be understandably tired

As the title is vacant, there is no real alternative to tiebreaks

Replay the match? I don't like penalty shootouts in football either ...

[LawrenceCooper]

Rapid game 1 underway. Ding is white and his initial pleasant advantage has turned into trying to avoid all of Nepo's tactical tricks.

[LawrenceCooper]

Rapid game 1 underway. Ding is white and his initial pleasant advantage has turned into trying to avoid all of Nepo's tactical tricks.

Game 1 drawn. Another Lopez in game 2.

[LawrenceCooper]

Game 2 drawn. White had some pressure but Ding escaped relatively comfortably.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Am I right that several times the engines need to go very deep to get an accurate assessment?

If that's true, then can you rely on the assessment of any engine giving instant analysis as the game is played? Probably not.

I'm reminded of my own games where it's not that uncommon for the engine that's running while I enter the games into my database to say that I, or my opponent, missed a very good move, only for there to be no mention of the move in the engine's analysis when I give it all night to analyse the whole game.

Coming back to this, I have only just realised what was staring at me in the face...

"Register to boost local engine depth to 12"

In other words, unless you are registered and logged in, then, yes, the engine assessments can be rubbish!

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Unless game 4 is more unbalanced than the other games, we are looking at a potentially infinite series of mini-matches of 2 games of blitz, which will be exciting but a bit unsatisfactory...

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Game 4 is looking very unbalanced at move 31 (Ding 6 minutes behind on the clock).

This might be the final game...

[Matt Mackenzie]

Well its equal according to the computer (which might not mean much in the circumstances)

[Christopher Kreuzer]

And breathe!