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01/12/2021 World Championship Game 5
The fifth game between Magnus Carlsen and Yan Niepomniashchy was played on 01/12/2021.
Game 5 followed game 3 up to Niepomniashchy’s 8. a4 whereupon Carlsen varied with 8. … Rb8. Queenside pawn exchanges resulted in an essentially symmetrical pawn structure. Then both players swung their queen-side knights to g3 and g6 respectively, and the stage looked set for perhaps a bit more piece-shuffling followed by another draw. White played on, however, presumably hoping somehow to induce Carlsen to make a crucial error, which is never likely to happen at this level in such a relatively simple position.
The number of viewers on Lichess rose gradually as play went on, and by White’s 27th move was over 13,000, and there will have been a similar number, presumably, watching on chess.com.
White developed a superficially better position while Black simply battened down the hatches, and the virtually inevitable draw was agreed at move 43.
Click here to play through Game 5, Yan Niepomniashchy ½-½ Magnus Carlsen.
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