Brief Thoughts on the Carlsen vs Karjakin Match

So far the World Championship Match has had a few surprises. One is that after nine games Sergey Karjakin leads, with one win, no losses, and eight draws - Magnus's inability to win a game is striking, especially given that he had winning positions in both games three and four. Another is that the vaunted Russian preparation machine has failed to impress in the openings - Sergey hasn't really gotten much out of the opening phase, and game nine was the first one with really deep opening prep, and that was old prep that Magnus chose to walk into, apparently with no improvements in mind.

I believe this is all part of the same story. To me, Sergey's match strategy has now become apparent - had really become apparent after game five, and especially game eight. I believe that a great deal of the preparation of Karjakin's team has not really been opening prep, but has been psychological assessment of both players, tailoring a match strategy to combat Carlsen effectively, and working on increasing Karjakin's internal resources and preparing him to execute the match strategy they have prepared.

That strategy, I believe, has been designed solely with the intention of frustrating Magnus to the point where Magnus would start lashing out. This was a risky strategy, as if Karjakin had fallen behind, as he almost did, it would be hard for Sergey to switch gears. But it seems to be working. I believe that Karjakin's team had noticed some small psychological weaknesses that they believed they could exploit - a certain arrogance and impatience on Magnus's part. (My favorite bit of arrogance was at a tournament earlier this year which had both Carlsen and Karjakin as participants. At one press conference Magnus stated that only one person at the tournament had the talent to defeat him for the world championship - and that it wasn't Sergey.) Thus a plan to frustrate Carlsen at every turn by simply keeping everything balanced - and then let Magnus stew in it. Being pleasant and relaxed away from the board would probably add to Carlsen's frustration, as it wouldn't give him anything to latch onto psychologically - and indeed, Karjakin has been a model of conduct at and away from the board.

The biggest part of this strategy would consist of Karjakin not doing anything to unbalance a game unless he clearly saw an easy advantage in doing so. Thus he passed up some opportunities in earlier games that appeared promising, but had some risk. He even did this in game eight, passing up the opportunity to play ...Qg5 at one point when it looked very strong. And it was. But it also entailed risk, and would have given Magnus the chance to outplay him in dynamic position with unbalanced chances. That might have also had something to do with Karjakin playing Bxf7 at one point today instead of Qb3. He didn't quite see the final strokes to make Qb3 work, so he went with the piece sac, which was the much safer continuation. I suspect that in a normal tournament game Karjakin would have pulled the trigger on Qb3 and taken his chances. But the stakes for any one game in a match are much higher, so he stuck with his strategy, and almost won anyway.

This strategy would require enormous self-discipline, and a great deal of confidence in one's abilities. Everyone was remarking upon Karjakin's demeanor during and after the first game - not only did he not seem overwhelmed by the moment, he seemed completely comfortable during the most important contest of his life. I wouldn't be surprised to find that he had been doing extensive work with a sports psychologist , even a hypnotist, in his training camps. A sense of destiny might help in this regard, too, just so long as he can maintain discipline.

With three games left in regulation, two of them with White, Magnus needs to make up ground. He CAN do it, of course. He is the best player of his generation, and when all is said and done may well be the greatest player of all time. But Karjakin seems completely in the moment, while Carlsen is looking shakier from game to game. I can't wait to see how it ends!