The best grandmaster of the century Magnus Carlsen won the World Cup for the first time

The best chess player of this century, Magnus Carlsen, has filled the only notable gap in his track record. He won the World Cup held in Baku, defeating a group of exceptionally talented young players on the way to the prize that had previously eluded him. The last victim of the great Norwegian was the 18-year-old Indian Rameshbabu Pragnanandha. He was able to hold his own against Carlsen in the “classic” part of the final, but fell short in the tie-break in rapid chess, his outstanding opponent’s favorite genre now.

Immediately after the end of the Baku final, Magnus Carlsen was contacted by two well-known grandmasters – Daniel Naroditsky and Peter Leko, who commented on his confrontation with Rameshbabu Pragnanandha for Chess24. And both, it seems, were slightly shocked by what and how the interlocutor told them. They probably expected that a person jumping out of his pants with happiness would appear on the screen, who would explain the already obvious. Here is a great, one of the greatest in history, which is already an absolutely indisputable fact, a chess player. Since 2013, he has held the world title for almost ten years and was at the top of the rankings, not letting anyone near him, and parted with the title solely on his own whim: fed up with championship matches, the boring routine associated with them. So since May, the Chinese Ding Liren has had it, but the reservations of the leading chess programs, who still often call Carlsen champion out of inertia, do not infuriate anyone: it is clear who is the real, and not the formal frontman.

This grandmaster in his life won everything that can be won, he became the best in all varieties of the game, he did not miss any valuable prizes. Except for one and only.

For some reason, it did not grow together with the World Cup, with this demanding knockout system. Even when the form was chic – as in the previous draw, two years ago, when in Sochi Carlsen was knocked out in the semifinals by the Pole Jan-Krzysztof Duda. And I really wanted to win. And finally, it all came together. And there are no more holes in the track record – filled to capacity.

But Magnus Carlsen on the screen somehow very calmly admitted that he actually registered as a participant in the World Cup in Baku at the last moment. And maybe he wouldn’t have registered at all if it weren’t for the June failure at the Norway Chess tournament. There, at home, in a tournament that was especially important for him, he took only sixth place. It was already god knows what Carlsen’s inexpressive performance in a game with the classic time control that bored him. But after the Norwegian, it seems that something pricked him: is he really not capable of anything in the “classics” ?! And he decided that in the World Cup, in which in each round you first need to play two classic games with an opponent, it would still be nice to play – well, to regain confidence. Although doubts about the correctness of the act, as it turned out, overcame Magnus Carlsen even directly during the Baku competition, and sometimes he asked himself: “What the hell am I doing here?”

But somehow everything worked out. Moreover, the scenario by which Magnus Carlsen got to the title came out in a sense ideally emphasizing his status, his special position.

Perhaps the most relevant topic in today’s chess is the onslaught of the freshest generation of chess talents. There is a whole detachment of them, these bright talents, who are already beating with might and main representatives of the older generation, the one to which Magnus Carlsen belongs. And, in theory, the knockout system with its rigidity is just tailored for young people – the best platform to demonstrate that it is time for the “old men” over 30 to give way to the fore.

The Baku bracket forced Carlsen to face three such incredible teenagers at once. But instead of winning, doomed to become a symbol of a breakthrough, each of them gave in to the master.

In the fourth round, 18-year-old German Vincent Kaimer folded, who, having defeated Carlsen in the first classical game, probably thought that he had already accomplished a feat, but in the second he was convinced that in the endgame with the Norwegian, if he is collected and determined, it is completely pointless to compete , eventually losing in a tie-break. In the quarter-finals, the seemingly panicked 17-year-old Indian Gukesh Dommaraju folded, although before this clash with Carlsen he had not been noticed in a penchant for jitters and blunders out of the blue.

In the final, Magnus Carlsen got another extraordinary talent from India, who turned 18 just two weeks ago. And Rameshbabu Pragnanandha lasted longer than his compatriot – however, perhaps only because Magnus Carlsen, who had suffered severe food poisoning, was not in the mood for fighting games. At the tie-break, the Indian suffered the same fate as all of Carlsen’s rivals, who were not lucky enough to fight the Norwegian in his favorite genre today – rapid. In the first game, having white color, Pragnanandha got into time trouble and began to make mistake after mistake. Having led the second, the Norwegian easily “dried up” in order to soon amaze interviewers with unexpected confessions. Including the fact that success in the World Cup has not changed anything in his perception of classical chess and the championship title: he is ready to fight for it only if the format of the match is radically transformed – so that, say, two rapid games are played a day.

That is, Carlsen refuses to participate in the Candidates Tournament in Toronto next year, in which a contender for the Ding Liren title will be determined.

And this means that he also refuses the ticket to this competition, which is due to the World Cup medalist. Thus, along with Rameshbabu Pragnanandha and the American Fabiano Caruana, who won bronze, the modest Azerbaijani Nijat Abasov, who sensationally found himself in the top four, will also receive it.

Alexey Dospekhov