World Chess Championship 2021 Review

I'm confident that you already heard of World Champion Magnus Carlsen's win over Ian Nepomniachti. Overall, this was a very exciting match, but I was kinda disappointed in Nepo's play. The thing about Nepo was that after game 6, he went down a downhill spiral. In fact, in the Candidates Final Match in 1975, Korchnoi made a comeback from a two-point deficit, but it still wasn't enough to win the match. Unfortunately, Nepo didn't come back at all, he choked most of his games after game 6 and ended with an embarrassing 7.5-3.5 loss. In fact, the previous two matches ended with all draws, and Carlsen had to battle it out in the three tie-break games. Part of me just wants to blame Nepo's unusually fast play when compared to the other world champions. Nepo was the type of guy who plays his move quickly in a tournament and then looks at the other game while the other guy is still thinking. I understand that the time control is demanding for a classical match, with the 30-second increment only after move 60, but not losing on time while maintaining a comfortable position shouldn't be too hard for two grandmasters. In addition, the extra 60 minutes after move 40 is generous, and it saved Carlsen from time outing quite a few times. However, Ian Neponmiachi blundered his every loss in the match, even though he was mostly not in time trouble. It can only take one seemingly innocent blunder against Carlsen to lose the game entirely, and after game 6, I can't blame him. I'm honestly kinda glad it was not a slaughter, like the 1971 match where Fischer demolished Taimov 6-0, with the latter believing he couldn't have lost this bad to an American with no political expression. Ian Nepomniachti's career is likely to go downhill from here, but at least he got to face the world champion for the championship title (that's a very impressive feat even for a grandmaster).