Magnus Carlsen won the Norway Chess 2024 tournament late on Friday night after defeating Fabiano Caruana in the Armageddon with white pieces. The duo had played out 52 moves in the Armageddon format before Caruana threw in the towel. Their classical game had meandered into a draw after 25 moves with a three-fold repetition on the board.
Carlsen’s victory was confirmed by Praggnanandhaa holding World No 2 Hikaru Nakamura to a draw in the classical portion. Praggnanandhaa returned in the Armageddon format to take down Nakamura to hand the American his second defeat in the Armageddon format in two days.
After victory over Caruana, Carlsen was made to wait a considerable while for confirmation that he had won the title as Nakamura and the 18-year-old Indian were still tussling over the board. Heading into Friday’s Round 10 games, Carlsen was leading the standings with 16 points but both Nakamura and Pragg had a chance to win the title as well. Nakamura was on 14.5 points after Round 9 while Praggnanandhaa was on 13 points. Had Magnus lost in the classical section and Nakamura defeated Pragg in the longer format, he would have claimed victory. On the other hand, had Praggnanandhaa defeated Nakamura in the classical event while results in the Carlsen game had gone the 18-year-old’s way, the game would have gone into a tiebreak as well with Pragg and Carlsen competing for the title.
LIMITED USED IMAGE of Magnus Carlsen at the Norway Chess 2024 tournament in Stavanger. (Photo via Norway Chess / Stev Bonhage to be used only during Norway Chess 2024).
Meanwhile, in the women’s section of Norway Chess, Ju Wenjun claimed the title with 19 points ahead of Anna Muzychuk who was three points behind her in second place.
At the time of publishing, R Vaishali had dragged legend Pia Cramling into the Armageddon after a long game in the classical portion. Humpy Koneru was fifth in the six-player women’s event. World champion Ding Liren slumped to another defeat via the Armageddon section after holding Alireza Firouzja to a draw in the classical event.
In his 10 games, Carlsen claimed three wins in the classical format while he had five victories via the Armageddon format.
But he admitted that he was not sure what he needed to do coming into the game against Caruana on Friday.
“I wasn’t quite sure what to do today. It’s hard to know what to do against Fabi (Caruana) because when he wants to be solid, he’s quite hard to beat. Also I wans;t in the mood to take risks. It ended up being really neither here nor there,” admitted Carlsen to Chess.com as he waited for the Nakamura vs Praggnanandhaa game to end.
He admitted that when the opportunity appeared on the board to play for a draw against Caruana in the classical event, it was the way Pragg was playing that convinced him to settle for a draw.
“I saw there was a repetition on the board and then I saw the other game looked a little bit drawish to little bit better for Pragg. So (taking the draw) felt like a reasonable thing to do. The Armageddon game wasn’t great but I got the job done. I felt really good about it at the time. Now is probably the most concerning that I have been the whole game,” Carlsen admitted while the Nakamura vs Pragg game played on.
Eventually his concerns turned out to be misplaced as he won the open section.