[Annotated] After 12 draws, Magnus Carlsen is once again the chess world champion

The Norwegian could not secure a victory in the classical format, but dominated the rapid-chess tiebreaker^[각주:1]

Rarely has a tournament involved so little winning. The World Chess Championship of 2018, held in London at The College in Holborn over nearly three weeks from November 9th-28th, began with a series of 12 games played under classical time controls, the traditional slow pace of play. The reigning champion^[각주:2] and top-ranked player in the world, 27-year-old Magnus Carlsen of Norway, failed to win a single one of his contests against the challenger, 26-year-old American Fabiano Caruana. Fortunately for the Norwegian, Mr Caruana never reached a checkmate or extracted^[각주:3] a resignation either^[각주:4]. Each of the dozen classical games ended in a draw, sending the match to a series of faster-paced tiebreakers, starting with a series of up to four "rapid" games, in which players are allotted less than^[각주:5] one-quarter the thinking time of the classical format. Mr Carlsen, the stronger competitor in speedier formats, won the first three rapid games to clinch the tiebreaker^[각주:6] and retain his title^[각주:7]. 

To the casual observer, three weeks of drawn games may sound excruciatingly boring^[각주:8]. (In the first game alone, the two men played 115 moves over seven hours before reaching an impasse^[각주:9].) But like a football World Cup full of impregnable defences, or a baseball World Series studded with^[각주:10] scoreless^[각주:11] pitching duels, the chess title match featured two equally matched grandmasters competing at an extremely high level. A game of chess opens in a state of equilibrium^[각주:12], and if the optimal move is^[각주:13] made with each play, a draw is all but assured. For a player to win a game, he must capitalize on^[각주:14] his opponent's blunders^[각주:15]. Neither man played perfectly - a supercomputer identified a guaranteed, though extremely opaque^[각주:16], path to victory for Mr Caruana in the sixth game, and Mr Carlsen held a sizeable advantage in^[각주:17] the final classical game before surprisingly offering a draw - but mistakes were rare. Indeed, the frequency of draws is a strong indicator of the overall level of play. Among beginners, roughly one in five games end deadlockd. At the elite, grandmaster level, more than half of contests are drawn, a figure that has remained steady for decades. The governing body of chess^[각주:18], FIDE, uses an algorithm called Elo to evaluate players, boosting a competitor's rating after victories^[각주:19] and dropping it after losses, with the magnitude determined by^[각주:20] the opponent's own rating. Among the highest-rated players - those above 2,700 on the Elo scale, a category that currently counts around 50 members - 63% of classical games end in draws. Mr Carlsen and Mr Caruana entered their championship match atop the ranking table, with ratings a hair's breadth^[각주:21] apart at 2,835 and 2,832, respectively^[각주:22], and had drawn 18 of their 33 career games against each other. 

Mr Carlsen has drawn games at an even greater clip when playing on the sport's biggest stage. This year's World Chess Championship was the Norwegian's fourth, after he claimed the title from Viswanathan Anand in 2013, successfully defended it against the same opponent in 2014, and withstood Sergey Karjakin in 2016. Of the 35 games in the three previous championships (the match was decided after 11 games in^[각주:23] 2014), 26 ended in draws, a rate of 74%. Not only are the competitors in these matches among the very best in the world, they also spend months preparing to parry^[각주:24] the preferred tactics of^[각주:25] a single foe^[각주:26]. 

Computer chess engines play a significant role in that preparation, and they help explain the increasingly precise play of the world's best. In 1997, a machine defeated the top-ranked human player for the first time, when IBM's Deep Blue overtook Garry Kasparov. In the intervening two decades, engines have gotten smarter and processing speeds have^[각주:27] increased exponentially^[각주:28]. When Deep Blue made its breakthrough, it edged out a player rated by^[각주:29] Elo in the 2,800s. Today, Stockfish, the highest-rated engine, is rated above 3,450, more than 600 points above Mr Carlsen, a gap that implies the machine would defeat the human nearly every time. (Google's AlphaZero engine isn't rated, but it is far stronger. In December 2017, it demolished Stockfish in a 100-game match^[각주:30], winning 28, drawing 72, and losing none.) While grandmasters cannot use the engines during play, they use computers to evaluate openings and develop strategies tailored to specific opponents^[각주:31]. 

The result is human chess that increasingly resembles computer chess. Chess.com has developed a metric^[각주:32], Computer Aggregated^[각주:33] Precision^[각주:34] Score (CAPS), which compares a player's moves to those of a top engine. Mr Carlsen scores higher than any other champion; his moves parallel those of the engine's^[각주:35] more than 85% of the time, and his overall choices are better than 98% as effective as those of the computer. At this year's championship, Mr Caruana was nearly as good. A smaller-scale approach to measuring the level of precision relies on the concept of centipawn loss^[각주:36], the difference between a player's move and an engine's optimal alternative. (One centipawn is one-hundredth of a pawn, a unit that represents the effects of strong or weak positions on the board.) In the 2018 championship, as well as the drawn games in Mr Carlsens three previous title matches, the average centipawn loss was less than 10, a mark that had been achieved only a handful of times in^[각주:37] over a century of chess championships. By the same metric of centipawn loss, the gap between the competitors' performances was the smallest ever in a title match. 

But even if an increased draw rate represents a positive step for the quality of play, it doesn't present the sport at its most gripping^[각주:38] at the one time that the world is watching. The tiebreaker, which took place in a single day, made for much more engaging viewing: three speedy games, one after another, and do draws. The faster time controls of rapid chess prevent grandmasters from carefully choosing every move, and the limitations drove Mr Caruana into mistakes that he had avoided in the previous 12 games. Among rapid games between players with ratings of 2700 or higher, only 47% of meetings result in draws. In the even quicker "blitz" format, which was slated to be the second tiebreaker had the competitors drawn even after four rapid games, the draw rate is lower still, at 34% of elite-level games. 

Still, the World Chess Championship determines the classical chess title, and it may be a bit unfair to deny the American the honor due to his lapses in^[각주:39] a different format. But a decision had to be made somehow, and the suggestions of purists that^[각주:40] the match be extended to 16, 18, or more games seem impractical^[각주:41]. At the level of Mr Carlsen and Mr Caruana, a draw is the most likely outcome in any single contest, and both deserve ample credit for^[각주:42] playing well enough to prevent the other from breaking through. Such acknowledgements are^[각주:43] surely little consolation for^[각주:44] the American. But as the early favorite to challenge the Norwegian once again in 2020, Mr Caruana now has another 15 head-to-head games' worth of^[각주:45] information to take with him into his preparation to unseat the champion next time^[각주:46]. 

1. tiebreaker ; (경기) 타이브레이크(무승부인 경우 승패를 결정짓기 위한 연장전). (또는 tiebreak) ;; [NOUN] A tie-breaker is an extra question or round that decides the winner of a competition or game when two or more people have the same score at the end. [본문으로]
2. the reigning champion ; 현 챔피언[선수권 보유자] [본문으로]
3. extract ; 4. (남에게서 지식·정보·허가·돈 따위를) 끌어내다, 얻다(obtain, manage to get) ; (천연자원에서 물자를) 채취하다(obtain). [본문으로]
4. resignation ; 3. [U] 체념, 인종(忍從), 감수; 포기, 단념 ((to)) [본문으로]
5. allot ; 1. 할당하다(assign), 분배하다, 배분하다 ;; 2. 충당하다, 충용(充用)하다(appropriate); 가져다 대다; 지정하다 ;; [VERB] If something is allotted to someone, it is given to them as their share. [본문으로]
6. clinch ; 1. [타동사] 성사시키다, 이뤄 내다 ;; 2. [타동사] 매듭짓다, 결말을 내다 ;; [VERB] If you clinch something you are trying to achieve, such as a business deal or victory in a contest, you succeed in obtaining it. [본문으로]
7. retain ; (비교적 격식) 1. [타동사] (계속) 유지[보유]하다 ; 유의어 preserve [본문으로]
8. excruciatingly ; [부사] 견딜 수 없이, 극심하게 [본문으로]
9. impass ; [명사] 교착 상태 ; 유의어 deadlock ;; 미국식 [ˈɪmpæs] 영국식 [ˈæmpɑːs] [본문으로]
10. be studded with ; …이 점점이 박혀 있다; …이 산재(散在)하다 [본문으로]
11. scoreless ; [형용사] 경기가 무득점의 ;; [ADJ] In football, baseball, and some other sports, a scoreless game is one in which neither team has scored any goals or points. [본문으로]
12. equilibrium ; 2. (대항 세력 따위의) 균형, 균세(均勢). ;; 3. (마음의) 안정 상태, 평온(mental balance). ;; [NOUN] Equilibrium is a balance between several different influences or aspects of a situation. ;; 미국·영국 [ˌiːkwɪˈlɪbriəm;ˌek-] [본문으로]
13. optimal ; [형용사] 최선의, 최상의, 최적의(optimum) ;; 미국식 [ɑ́ptəməl] 영국식 [ɔ́p-] [본문으로]
14. capitalize on/upon sth ; ~을 활용하다[기회로 삼다] ; 유의어 take advantage of sth [본문으로]
15. blunder ; [명사] (어리석은) 실수 ;; [NOUN] A blunder is a stupid or careless mistake. [본문으로]
16. opaque ; 4. 알기 힘든, 까다로운; 명료하지 않은(obscure). [본문으로]
17. sizeable ; [형용사] 꽤 큰[많은], 상당한 ; 유의어 considerable ;; [ADJ] Sizeable means fairly large. [본문으로]
18. governing body ; (병원·학교 등의) 이사회. [본문으로]
19. rating ; 1. [C] (상대적인 인기·중요성 등의) 순위[평가] ; 참조 credit rating [본문으로]
20. magnitude ; 1. [U] (격식) (엄청난) 규모[중요도] ;; [NOUN] If you talk about the magnitude of something, you are talking about its great size, scale, or importance. [본문으로]
21. a hair's breadth ; a very small distance or amount [본문으로]
22. respectively ; [부사] 각자, 각각, 제각기 [본문으로]
23. be decided[settled] ; 판가름이 나다, 결정되다, 확정되다, 정해지다 [본문으로]
24. parry ; ((-ried)) <공격·질문을> 받아넘기다, 슬쩍 피하다, 비키다; 회피하다, 핑계대다, 얼버무리다 [본문으로]
25. preferred ; 선취권이 있는, 우선의; 발탁된, 승진한 [본문으로]
26. foe ; [문어·시어] 적, 원수; 적수; (주의에 대한) 반대자; 해로운 것, 장애가 되는 것 ((of)) ; 유의어 enemy ;; 미국식 [foʊ] 영국식 [fəʊ] [본문으로]
27. processing speed ; 처리 속도 [본문으로]
28. exponentially ; [부사] 전형적으로, 기하급수적으로. [본문으로]
29. edge out ; 간신히 이기다 ;; edge sth/sb out (of sth) ; (지위·직장에서, 특히 본인이 잘 모르게) ~을 서서히 몰아내다 ; to gradually move somebody out of their job or position, especially by taking their place yourself; to gradually defeat somebody [본문으로]
30. demolish ; 4. [타동사] 완파하다 [본문으로]
31. be tailored to ; ~에 맞추다 [본문으로]
32. metric ; [명사] 1. (수학) 계량; 거리(함수). ;; 2. (종종 metrics) 《단·복수 양용》 측정 기준(법); =metric system. [본문으로]
33. aggregated ; 집계된 [본문으로]
34. precision ; [U] 정확(성); 정밀(성); 신중함 ; 유의어 accuracy [본문으로]
35. parallel ; 1. [타동사] …와 유사하다[병행하다] ;; 2. [타동사] …에 필적하다 ; 유의어 equal ; 참조 unparalleled [본문으로]
36. centipawn ; [Noun] (computing,chess) One hundredth of the value of a pawn, especially for calculation purposes in computer chess. [본문으로]
37. a handful of ; 소수의 [본문으로]
38. gripping ; [형용사] (연극·책 따위가) 주의[흥미]를 끄는, 매혹하는, 황홀하게 하는 ;; Something that is gripping is so interesting or exciting that it holds your attention completely: ; gripping·ly 부사 [본문으로]
39. lapse ; 1. (특히 무엇을 잊어버리거나 부주의해서 하는 작은) 실수[과실], 깜박함 [본문으로]
40. purist ; [명사] 순수주의자 ;; [NOUN] A purist is a person who wants something to be totally correct or unchanged, especially something they know a lot about. ;; 미국식 [ˈpjʊr-] 영국식 [ˈpjʊərɪst] [본문으로]
41. impractical ; 1. 터무니없는, 비현실적인 ;; 2. (사람들이) 손을 쓰는 일에 서툰; 계획[조직]하는 일에 서툰 ; 반의어 practical ; 참조 impracticable [본문으로]
42. ample ; 1. 충분한 ; 유의어 plenty of ;; 2. (사람의 모습이) 풍만한 ;; [ADJ] If there is an ample amount of something, there is enough of it and usually some extra. [본문으로]
43. acknowledgement ; 1. [U] 승인, 인정; 자인, 자백 ((of)) ;; 2. [U] 사례, 감사; [C] 감사의 표시, 답례품 ;; 3. [pl.] (협력자에 대한 저자의) 감사의 뜻[말] [본문으로]
44. consolation ; [U, C] 위안[위로](을 주는 사람·것) ; 유의어 comfort [본문으로]
45. head-to-head ; [형용사] ([명사 앞에만 씀]) 직접 대면하는 [본문으로]
46. unseat ; 1. [타동사] (사람을) 자리[권좌]에서 몰아내다[내쫓다] ;; [VERB] When people try to unseat a person who is in an important job or position, they try to remove him or her from that job or position. [본문으로]