Why Did Carlsen Blunder?

Chess is a significant part of human culture, which is why it is often referenced in movies and, especially, in financial advertisements, where it symbolizes intelligence and acumen. 

I remember watching a kids' show with a famous Russian actress and comedian, Rina Zelyonaya, where she joked that her last name (which translates to "green") means that she would be timeless and youthful in her spirit. "Look at chess," she said, "they have the 'Evergreen Game' there, which means that people will always admire it!" As I just started playing chess, I really enjoyed this chess reference from such a famous person. I wish Rachel Green would say something similar...

Anyway, in those ancient, pre-Internet times, most people answering a question about the most famous chess game were mentioning the same three or four games: the Evergreen Game, the Immortal Game, the Opera Game, and the Game of the Century.

Boy, how times have changed! These days, I ask my students if they have heard about any of these games, and usually, at best, they have heard about one or two of them!

This is not very surprising since now, according to IM Levy Rozman, "people know Carlsen, Nakamura, and me." Therefore, even those who have no idea who GM Garry Kasparov is have read or heard about the game "where Magnus Carlsen slammed a table." Due to the endless number of memes, there is a very good chance that the game between GMs Gukesh Dommaraju and Magnus Carlsen will become the most famous game ever played! 

While this game became quite famous, not many people know what really happened besides the fact that Carlsen blew a winning position. Let's take a look at the critical moment:

Here is where the tragic blunder 52...Ne2?? took place. However, first of all, the win was already gone! Check the game with your favorite engine or read the annotations by GM Rafael Leitao to see where Carlsen lost his winning advantage.

Secondly, contrary to a ridiculous but popular belief, Carlsen didn't miss the obvious move 53. Rxe2+. Indeed, how could he possibly miss something that is essentially his opponent's only move? So, what did Carlsen miss after spending 35 seconds on his blunder 52...Ne2? Let's investigate.

As I mentioned earlier, the move 53.Rxe2+ is forced. Otherwise, White loses his rook for nothing. So after the forced sequence of moves 53...Kxe2 54. Nxf8 d4, we have the following position:

This is pretty much what Carlsen calculated in the 35 seconds he spent on his 52...Ne2+ move, thinking that it would lead to a forced win. If he had more time on his clock or at least wasn't so tired after a long and complicated game, he would've seen a simple refutation of his plan.

Chess knights are notoriously tricky, especially when they need to stop passed pawns. The following position by Nikolai Grigoriev is a good example. It looks like a lonely knight cannot stop Black's passed pawn, and yet it is possible to do so by moving the knight—in the opposite direction!

If you think that miracles like this happen only in composed positions, here is a game played in the Candidate's Tournament:

At first sight, it looks like the game ended quite logically and Black's passed pawns were simply unstoppable. But as we already know, sometimes the only way for a knight to stop a pawn is to move in the opposite direction!

However, all these examples pale in comparison to the next one. It looks like White's king is as far away from Black's passed pawns as possible, and White can resign. Indeed, how can a lonely knight stop three connected passed pawns? But you should never underestimate the trickiest chess piece!

Now you can see that, considering the tricky nature of this kind of position, Carlsen's task wasn't that easy, especially since he was tired and short on time. Here is an example where a legendary grandmaster made a similar kind of blunder in his World Championship match game. The only difference was that GM David Bronstein played his blunder after thinking for 40 minutes!

The moral of the story is quite simple: when you have situations where a knight fights far advanced passed pawns, you should expect unexpected things to happen! Additionally, if you have time on your clock, you should definitely double- or even triple-check your calculations!