Norwegian Magnus Carlsen retains the World Chess Championship

The shorter tiebreak games will be played on Wednesday.

Watching the final itself, which begins at 2 p.m. ET Wednesday, requires paying $7 for a live video stream from the official World Chess Championship site, but the same link also features a free move-by-move simulcast illustrated on a virtual chessboard, as do chess speciality sites like chess24.

Norwegian Magnus Carlsen extended his dominance over the chess world on Wednesday by winning the World Chess Championship for the third consecutive time on Wednesday, beating his Russian challenger Sergei Karyakin in a tiebreaker. One can sense that a Chess cold war is being fought on a checkered warfield in NYC. Karjakin was simply no match to Carlsen in the tie-breaker. The chess-loving President’s interest is well known and he avidly followed the match online.

Then if it is still a draw, 25-year-old Norwegian and the 26-year-old Russian will play Armageddon, a format that gives White five minutes, and Black only four, but produces a guaranteed victor, as a draw is counted as a win for the Black player. Karkajin’s position weakened as he struggled to battle the pressures of the clock and the defending champion, and he eventually finished the third game with three seconds on the clock – and a match down.

Carlsen previously defeated world champion Vishy Anand in 2013 to take the title, and defended his crown against Anand again in 2014.

“I’m very happy that at the end of the match I managed to find joy in playing”, Carlsen said, adding, “That’s the most important thing”. They were riveted as the two grandmasters leaned into the tense game, barely moving, in total silence and deep in thought.

The accelerated games left plenty of opportunity for anxious mistakes, and while predictions were hard, Carlsen – world number one since 2010 was the favorite to clinch the Title.

Their overall score after 12 games played is tied at 6-6 and both Grandmasters will be playing a series of tie-break games on November 30 to determine the new world champion.

After a gruelling 16 games and a painstaking 10 draws in the lead-up to the tiebreakers, the World Chess Championship has finally come to a close. Vladimir Putin was keen to get the title back. In the tournament with Karjakin, Carlsen ended up tied 6-6 after losing the eighth game, but returned with a victory in the tenth.

Many chess grandmasters and former world champions will participate in the analysis of this grand competition on various websites and TV channels starting 12:00 midnight India time.