To his credit, Magnus Carlsen wasn’t particularly satisfied with his play, and that’s part of the reason why he is on the short list for the greatest player ever. (It may be a one-player list, but I’ll leave Garry Kasparov in the conversation. Youngsters, please don’t think the older guy you saw playing Chess960 a week or so ago is really Garry Kasparov. It’s not even his ghost.) Carlsen made some errors, it’s true, but he also found a lot of good ideas and played long stretches of excellent chess. His opponent, Arjun Erigaisi, was outclassed today, losing the first two games and barely drawing the third. He avoided a shutout, but as the goal was to a win a best-of-four match there was no competitive significance to losing 2.5-0.5 rather than 3-0.
But that was today; tomorrow, they start all over again, and if Erigaisi can win that best-of-four game match the match will be tied, and they’ll move on to a playoff. It doesn’t seem likely that this will happen, but stranger things have happened in Meltwater Tour events.
In the meantime, enjoy today’s games, with fairly thorough commentary on the first two games.