Chess: jeans-clad Carlsen defies critics to share Blitz with Nepomniachtchi
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The world No 1 withdrew from the World Rapid then came back for the Blitz, where he shared the title when Fide agreed to stop play after three games of a shootout. Magnus Carlsen completed a remarkable few days at the World Rapid and Blitz Championships on Wall Street, New York, when the Norwegian, 34, who first withdrew then returned to the event after Fide rescinded its ban on jeans, controversially agreed to share the Blitz crown with his old rival, Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi, while their final sudden-death tie-break was still in progress.
![[Chess 3953]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5115ce8fc75bf059182163b6187351711eb23bec/0_0_2256_2256/master/2256.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The pair were survivors from an eight-player knockout, and Carlsen took a 2-0 lead before Nepomniachtchi fought back to 2-2. Official Fide rules then called for an indefinite series of sudden-death games, the chess equivalent of a penalty shootout, but after only three of these, all featuring conservative strategy by both sides, Carlsen suggested that they share the title at 3.5-3.5.
Nepomniachtchi, who had never won a world championship despite appearing in two classical finals, agreed. As with the jeans issue, the matter was referred to Fide’s Russian president, Arkady Dvorkovich, who was not in New York. Dvorkovich probably felt he had little choice but to rubber stamp the agreement by the players. He would have been pilloried in Moscow as preventing a Russian world champion had he ruled otherwise, and a negative could also have provoked a series of the notorious Berlin draws, the standard method for a quick mutually agreed half point. However, that course of action would have brought the players into disrepute, and it is more likely that an inspired game or a blunder would have settled the final.
