DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Reigning world chess champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway defended his title and won the FIDE World Championship on Friday in Dubai.
He beat Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia, securing the one point he needed to cross the seven point threshold to win the global tournament held at Dubai’s Expo 2020 this month in the United Arab Emirates.
After a surprise blunder by Nepomniachtchi, Carlsen clinched his fifth world championship title. Up until that point, the match was tense with games ending in draw after draw.
“Then everything kind of clicked. I think after that it all went my way,” Carlsen told reporters from the world’s fair after his win. “You don’t expect necessarily to run away with it in a world championship.”
Carlsen wins 60% of the 2 million-euro prize offered by the championship.
Nepomniachtchi said he was struggling to understand exactly what went wrong and at the moment had “no idea.”
“The things that happened to me here never happened to me basically at any events … in my career I lost quite some stupid games,” Nepomniachtchi said grimly. “I should find out why it happened.”
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