Game 2 of the World Chess Championship Match is over. Everyone expected Carlsen to win after he missed a win in game 1 with Black. However, that’s not what happened. In fact, Fabiano Caruana was able to get an extra pawn in the rook endgame, which still ended in a draw after only 49 moves.

Carlsen went for 1.d4 which was a small surprise, later Caruana played the rare 10…Rd8.

This was a big surprise for Carlsen who immediately started spending a lot of time.

The most interesting moment in the game was on move 17 when Carlsen could have sacrificed a piece for what looked like a promising attack.

However, this is not his style so it wasn’t surprising that Carlsen decided to keep it simple and the game went to a draw. Even that he has a worse endgame, he didn’t have trouble holding it.

Let’s take a look at Game 2:

So after 2 games, both players showed their good preparation with black and in both games, white was suffering. This shows the importance of an opening surprise in the games between great players.

Carlsen: “This was not very good. I was surprised at the opening. I thought I had chances to a small advantage. I miscalculated something. Then I had to beg for a draw, but that went without problems.”

“I am not happy about this, but it’s better than losing.” He played a completely new move  Rd8 that actually doesn’t look natural to me. I have to look at it later. We’ll see if it was a surprise in this game or if he found something new.” Caruana pointed out that it has been played before in several games.

About the Author

GM Marian Petrov (FIDE 2537)

is an accomplished professional chess coach, theorist, and Bulgarian champion for 2002 and 2017, as well as winner of many open tournaments around the world. Also a FIDE trainer and coach of the team of Wales at the last Olympiad in Baku in 2016. He graduated from the National Sports Academy in Sofia, Bulgaria with a Bachelor’s degree in Chess Pedagogy, a four-year undergraduate program designed to prepare top-level chess trainers. Creator of the numerous video courses for TheChessWorld.com, including one of the recent: Opening Mastery – Dominate with 1.d4