960WCC Match Games: Nakamura vs Carlsen (2018)

Here are all the games from the 2018 Nakamura – Carlsen 960WCC match in PGN format.

The event was high quality with mainstream Norwegian media coverage:

When asked if he would like to see more chess960, Hikaru said:

Absolutely. I think it was great that they held the event in Mainz every year. They were very popular events and I really liked it. I think there should be more Chess960 events. The thing is, a lot of people feel it’s just too fundamentally different from the start, but more often than not the positions are fairly similar to regular chess. The piece play is a little bit different, and it’s not as easy to simplify the positions as in classical chess. So yeah, I hope there will be a lot more 960 for sure.

The quality of the chess was excellent, with hard fought games and some brilliant saves from both players (particularly in games 10 and 11). Game 11 was especially nerve-wracking with Magnus producing a draw after an epic defence playing off of the 5 second increment. Throughout the game the commentary team was sure that black was lost, which was true at this point:

Sacrificing the bishop for the g pawn, Magnus then played for a draw with the rook pawn. Although technically lost beforehand, once the pawn reached a3 it became apparent after nearly 50 moves of prodding that white could no longer make progress:

Time to dust off that copy of Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual!

Congratulations to all involved in the match and its coverage, see the official site for reports and more great photos. The live games were hosted by ChessBomb.