In the final of the World Chess Championship between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana, the tenth duel was also tied. It was an exciting encounter right up to the time control. In the end, Caruana failed to exploit Carlsen's inaccuracy in a high-class match.
At the beginning of the game, both players remained true to their style of play. From the Sveshniko variant of the Sicilian defense, Carlsen attacked Caruana regularly with his peasants. The American fended off the world champion's attacks but missed it after two and a half hours to sacrifice a pawn to gain a slight material advantage.
Until the time control Carlsen and Caruana delivered an exciting game on a very high level. In the meantime, Carlsen had only 90 seconds left for five remaining moves. "The black attack had a lot of potential, but it was also quite slow, we both had a lot of different possibilities during the game, and it was hard to keep track," said Caruana, who had played the white pieces.
After the time control, a double tower endgame developed. Thanks to a more active king Carlsen had optical advantages. Both players had dangerous pawns in the field, which provided a dynamic balance. Despite an inaccurate move by Carlsen, who cost him a pawn, Caruana Carlsen offered a draw after nearly five and a half hours because of the highly decimated material in the field.
"It was just a case of too complicated a position where there was too much to calculate, and I think I could have played better in several places," Carlsen said.
After the draw again, it is now 5: 5 between the world ranking leader and his direct pursuer. On Saturday starts from 16 clock German time, the eleventh and penultimate regular duel (live ticker on SPIEGEL ONLINE).
If no winner is found in the remaining two games, the tiebreaker will be played with a shorter playing time. Carlsen is considered the favorite.