You may talk about UEFA Champions League football or several Test Cricket series going on India, New Zealand, Australia and Zimbabwe or Lewis Hamilton’s F1 championship chances in next Sunday’s last race of the season at Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina Circuit or intrigues in any other global sports. But everything pales in comparison to the World Chess Championship match in New York because that is about the most exciting sporting event on the planet right now. The battle of two minds from West & East between Norway’s Magnus Carlsen and Russia’s Sergey Karjakin cannot attract football size crowds around the players but the event has captured the imagination of sports lovers across the world in its own way. After Sergey Karjakin led 5-4 at the end of the drawn 9th game, the defending champion bounced back by winning the 10th on Thursday. The 12-game championship match went on draws for the first seven games before Karjakin opened the door for a big underdog story by winning Game-8. They couldn’t break each other in the 9th game but in 10th, Carlsen found the crack in Karjakin’s armor. The champion beat the challenger in 75 moves lasting 7 hours and kept the world engrossed. Thursday was the American holiday of Thanksgiving and although they don’t celebrate it in Norway, Magnus Carlsen decided to do so in New York. Just when things looked gloomy for him, Carlsen fought back and brought the championship fight on equal terms. At 5-5, the players have just two more games of regulation chess left in the championship.
The contest is now tied at 5-5 and if the stalemate is not resolved after 12 regulation games, the players will go through the tie-breakers of rapid and even blitz games. Friday and Sunday are rest days. The 11th game will be played on Saturday and the 12th on Monday. If the players are still tied, they will play the tiebreaks on Wednesday November 30. As per FIDE criteria, the tiebreaks consist of one 4-game rapid chess, followed by five 2-game Blitz and if the tie still persists, an Armageddon game will be used to break the tie.