Norway’s Magnus Carlsen Retains World Chess Title

Norway’s Magnus Carlsen has solidified his claim to be the greatest chess player in the world.

Carlsen beat Fabiano Caruana of the United States 3-0 Wednesday in a rapid-chess tiebreaker game at the world chess championships in London.

Carlsen and Caruana played to 12 draws in their series of championship matches that started Nov. 9, games that lasted as long as seven hours each.

They decided to settle the impasse in games of speed chess, in which each player is given just 25 minutes to try to beat his opponent.

After the long excruciating series of ties topped off by three speed games, Carlsen would only say that he had a “really good day,” while Caruana admitted that he “had a bad day.”

Carlsen takes home a $621,000 prize while Caruana pockets $508,000.

Carlsen has been the world chess champion since 2013, when he took the title from India’s Viswanathan Anand.

Caruana was hoping to become the first American to win the title since 1972, when Bobby Fischer defeated the Soviet Union’s Boris Spassky in a thrilling series of matches that made global headlines.




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