World Cup: Finals, Day 3 (The End)

Carlsen first (Pragg second), Caruana third

Magnus Carlsen has long wanted to win the World Cup - just about the only achievement missing from his career résumé - and now he has done it. He defeated Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa in their first rapid tiebreak game (well-played by both sides almost to the very end) and cruised to an easy draw in the second to win the match and the World Cup. Pragg had a great tournament as well, defeating among others the world’s #2 and #3 players on the way to becoming the runner-up. He is continuing to improve rapidly, and may well be a force to be reckoned with in next year’s Candidates.

In the match for third, Fabiano Caruana showed that he had fully recovered from the tiebreak loss to Praggnanandhaa and his first-game loss to Nijat Abasov. After grinding Abasov down yesterday to force rapid tiebreaks, today he blasted him off the board in bloodthirsty fashion. If this is the Abasov who shows up in the Candidates, he’ll turn into a full-point bye for the other seven players, but if the Abasov of the classical games and the rest of the tournament shows up he’ll still be a big underdog, but he’ll make a good account of himself and score some points.

So, four spots for next year’s Candidates are settled: Ian Nepomniachtchi (for being a World Championship finalist), plus Praggnanandhaa, Caruana, and Abasov (unless Carlsen claims the spot). Two more spots will go to the top two finishers in the FIDE Grand Swiss (scheduled to start October 25), one from the 2023 FIDE Circuit (looks like Dommaraju Gukesh, Anish Giri, and Wesley So are the likeliest little-c candidates to get the spot), and one for the player with the highest rating (who is eligible, interested, and hasn’t qualified by some other means; currently, this would be Hikaru Nakamura, if he has played enough games).

By way of wrap-up, two last things. First, of course, the games: here they are, with my annotations. Second, the next big event starts Saturday: the World Team Championship (rapid). Lots of super-GMs are playing (or are at least scheduled to play): Caruana, Nepo, So, Anand, MVL, Duda, Gukesh, Pragg, Grischuk, Aronian, etc. It should be fun for us, and also for the players, since the pressure here will be far less than what they’ve experienced the past four weeks at the World Cup.