Review: Primarily Unexciting 2016 World Chess Championship Between Magnus

Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin

By Nick Failon
The World Chess Championship Match 2016 took place from November 11-30 at
the Fulton Market Building in the South Street Seaport in New York City. This was the
first match held in the United States since 1999, where there was a weakly rated match
between Vladimir Akopian and Alexander Khalifman in Las Vegas, Nevada.
This 2016 World Championship Match was simply a letdown of a match where
the fans saw only boring draws, dry positions, the same openings, and a lack of
complications. Adding insult to injury, there was a litigative controversy that should have
been worked out before the match started.
This match, however, was far from weak, as Magnus Carlsen of Norway and
Sergey Karjakin of Russia squared off in a match of two highly rated super
grandmasters. Magnus Carlsen -- the world number one and current World Champion --
had a monstrous 2838 FIDE rating entering the match. Sergey Karjakin -- 9th in the
world at the time -- had a still very strong 2783 rating entering the match. Although there
was a fairly large rating gap, Karjakin persisted in the match and gained surprising
equality in the standard games.
The match itself was a real snoozer, with 7 draws before a decisive result was
achieved, and only two total decisive results were achieved in the whole 12 games
match of classical time controls. This has been a common theme in World
Championships in the 21st century; Mind-blowingly unexciting games following the
same openings and same drawish lines. No tactics, no sharp lines, no excitement for
anyone. All the fans got to see were 8 Ruy Lopezs, 2 Queen Pawn Games, a quiet
Slav, and a Giuoco Piano.
Do you know why Fischer and Kasparov were some of the greatest World
Champions of all time? Its because they were fun to watch, and they played exciting
chess: These guys are not fun to watch.
Here is a chart of the games, openings, and crazy amount of draws:
Image Provided by Chessgames.com
Another obstacle to overcome was a huge litigative controversy where the World
Chess Association tried to block the websites chessgames.com and chess24.com for
relaying the moves of the tournament live. World Chess claimed that these websites
had to wait until after the games were over until they could show the moves, but U.S.
District judge Victor Marrero was not persuaded that organizers had a legal right to
block websites from disclosing the moves until after each game, rejecting virtually every
argument that World Chess asserted. I know this area of the law very well, said
Marrero to World Chess. This was just another reason why this match appeared
disorganized and poorly put together in some aspects.
Simply put, the only reason the big favorite Carlsen won was because of Rapid
games, whereupon Karjakin crashed and burned. Carlsen won 2 of the 4 rapid games,
and ended on the only exciting note of the tournament, with a cheeky queen sacrifice
leading to mate, but Karjakin resigned immediately, thus crowning Magnus Carlsen
World Champion again, making him world champion since 2013 when he beat
Vishwanathan Anand. Not an unexpected result, but still a World Championship
nonetheless, with a few ups and downs and solid chess games.
Here is the position where Carlsen found Qh6+!! Leading to mate and a quick
resignation from Karjakin, resulting in a nice finish to a less than perfect match:
Image Provide by Chessgames.com

Is this match boring, or do we just not appreciate such a complex high level of
play? Are future World Championship Matches going to be equally uninspiring?
Although this match does not foreshadow a promising future for the fans, the
games still will always have their interesting moments. Being as young as these
two players are, I suspect many more years of strong chess from these two
players, whether it is World Championship or not. This match, however, should
probably be discarded as far as eventful World Championship matches go.