World Championship Chess: Magnus Carlsen Retains Title

The world No. 1 Norwegian, Magnus Carlsen, retained his world chess title by beating his American opponent Fabiano Caruana in a decisive encounter.

He beat Caruana in three time-limited games, putting an end to the American's hopes of becoming the first American champion since Bobby Fischer's victory in 1972.

This confrontation followed a record sequence of 12 games of chess drawn.

Carlsen told the BBC that the win was "huge for me".

"Fabiano has played very well and he's an extremely strong player, so it's very special," he said.

"It was very tense during those three weeks and there was no particular reason to win the match – I did not particularly think I was losing it – it was still in the balance."

Caruana however told NRK TV, a Norwegian channel, that he had had a "bad day".

"I did not even fight," he said.

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Carlsen, who won the championship three times before and who was the favorite to win the match, took a two-game lead and needed only a draw in the third playoff to seal his victory.

But Caruana resigned on the third day as it became increasingly clear that the Norwegian would win.

To win the title, the players had to win the best of four of those abbreviated matches.

Carlsen 's victory came after he seemed to have played for the tiebreaker during the 12th and last regular day. Critics of former world champion Garry Kasparov have been criticized. favorite to win.

Vladimir Kramnik, another grand master of Russian chess, said: "He may be tired of tension, fighting, maybe even failures to a certain extent."

However, the Norwegian is ranked number one in the world for fast games, while Caruana is ranked at number 18.

"I'm a little surprised that no one has ever imagined that I could know what's best for me," Carlsen told the BBC.

"It was a purely sporting decision and whatever the outcome was today, I would have thought it was the right one.

After Carlsen's victory, Kasparov tweeted that his consistency was "phenomenal".