The opening press conference at The College, Holborn, made it obvious that this was not going to be a conventional World Chess Championship match. On Thursday evening, world champion, Magnus Carlsen and his challenger, Fabiano Caruana agreed to their tenth straight draw at The College in Holborn, central London, leaving the match in a 5-5 deadlock. Before Carlsen had actually played the move, the possibility was being discussed at the Today in Chess webcast by the Saint Louis Chess Club where Kasparov said: “If he does it he deserves to remain a world champion.”

And indeed, 21…b5 was on the board soon enough. There are now just two games left for either player to find a win or the series will go to a best of four tiebreaker series. The game then fizzled out to a draw a few moves later as neither side had a chance of winning.
After ten consecutive draws, a record for the 132-year-old championship, Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana are tied 5 points each in the best-of-12-games match.