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Journalism of Courage
Even the combined assault of his wily 18-year-old opponent from India, R Praggnanandhaa, and the after-effects of a bout of food poisoning were not enough to prevent Magnus Carlsen from winning his first ever World Cup title in Baku. Carlsen needed just two games in the shorter time control of 25 minutes in the tiebreaker to prevail on Thursday.
He won the first tiebreaker with 47 moves despite playing with black pieces. Just one day ago, playing with white he had chosen to push for a draw in the second classical game, in a ploy five-time World Champion Viswanathan Anand likened to the tactics Carlsen had employed against Sergey Karjakin in the 12th game of the 2016 World Championship battle.
If he was feeling any after-effects of the food poisoning that had waylaid him after his semi-final win over Nijat Abasov, Carlsen did not show them on Thursday. He was his ruthless self against the young Pragg, noticing the teenager had waded into time trouble in the first tiebreak and responded by complicating things on the board and simultaneously flooring his foot on the pedal as he played like a man with a train to catch. With Carlsen almost blitzing his moves at the end, Pragg found no breathing space and finally yielded. In the second game, Carlsen forced a draw to seal his coronation.
Before Thursday, the Norwegian boasted of a formidable resume: five-time world champion in the classical format, four-time rapid world champion and six-time world blitz champion. Not to mention that he’s been World No. 1 since 2011. But the World Cup title was the one piece of trophy missing.
The World Cup triumph comes at a time when Carlsen’s career is at a fork in the road: only earlier this year he chose to forsake his right to defend his position as World Champion. Consequently, the 32-year-old was replaced by China’s Ding Liren, who went on to become World Champion. This is the first time since 2013 the Norwegian doesn’t wear the crown.
The reasons Carlsen gave for abdicating his throne were pretty straightforward and understandable: lack of motivation and not wanting to put himself through the rigours of another campaign. Playing in a world championship battle does force a player to put their lives on hold and barricade themselves with their battery of seconds for at least half a year as they prepare.
You can follow our liveblog for the Praggnanandhaa vs Magnus Carlsen FIDE World Cup final here
At Baku too, Carlsen has struggled to find the motivation and the confidence at times to joust on the chess board.
“Almost since the first day (of the World Cup) I’ve been wondering, what am I doing here? Why am I spending all this time playing classical chess, which I find stressful and boring? It’s not a good state of mind,” Carlsen admitted to FIDE’s YouTube channel after managing to stave off elimination at the hands of Vincent Keymer in the fourth round.
That defeat to the German teenager though came as something of a wake up call. In 2017, he had suffered an equally ignominiously early exit when he lost to World No.35 Bu Xiangzhi in the third round.
“My thoughts yesterday were, if I lose and go out, that’s going to be another humiliation in the World Cup. I know I’ll forget about it in a couple of days, but still it’s less than ideal. Now I’ve had my first serious scare,” Carlsen said.
Since that scare, Carslen has started to resemble his old self, a man known to intimidate opponents on the board. In the last-16 encounter against Vasyl Ivanchuk, Carlsen rejected a draw offer from his Ukrainian opponent in the second game having won the first one.
“I’m not normally known for being merciful. Rating is one reason (for pushing for the win), but it also feels good to win,” he grinned.
Later on, after making it to the quarters, he almost seemed to shrug as he said that he had managed to make it this far so he “might as well go all the way and win it.”
