Anyone following the chess world championship?

[PeroK]

I don't think I agree with this. When you're down so much, you can't go into a game being amenable to a draw. With so few chance left, you need to try every game. Maybe it's possible that the last game rattled him so much that he didn't think he was in a position to play a serious game last round, but I mostly think he's given up on the match...

I think you might have been right. The final game was a poor attempt at a win, as it was Carlsen who took the initiative in the middle game! If Nepo was going to lose that game, he should have lost by pushing too hard for a win, but he was forced to defend.

Possibly the match showed that there is a gulf between the players. It was a bit like Short against Kasparov - the longer the match went on the more obvious it became that he was no match for Kasparov.

 

[BillTre]

Here is a 358 article reviewing the matches.
They have several charts comparing aspects of the different games.
Here is one of them.

 

[david2]

Uh Oh

After Magnus Carlsen convincingly won the World Championship match 7.5-3.5 against challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi, the old and new World Champion seems to be tired of defending his title. In a Norwegian podcast interview with his friend Magnus Barstad, Carlsen indicated that he lacked the motivation to defend his title again. Unless the next challenger would be Alireza Firouzja.

https://en.chessbase.com/post/no-more-world-championship-matches-for-carlsen