How To Swindle A World Champion

Game 3 was a very sharp Catalan with some theoretical interest as well (thanks to Dubov's very creative 11.h4!? idea). In any case, the position in the diagram below was reached, with White to move:

The play remains very unclear, as although Black is up a pawn, his king is still in the centre and his queenside pawns are exposed. 

A normal continuation would be to defend the rook with 27.Rf4. Then after 27...b4 28.Rb3 Nd5 (now we see why Black did not jump at the h5-pawn before - it's more important to defend the connected passed pawns) 29.Rf3 f5 30.Nc5, a good practical decision is to sack the exchange with 30...Rxc5 (rather than allowing 30...Qc6 31.e4 when it's White who is playing with the initiative) 31.dxc5 Rf8!, and Black has full compensation for the exchange. 

The d5-knight is firmly entrenched in supporting the queenside passed pawns, which are immobilizing the b3-rook at the moment. After 32.Qd3 Qa7 33.Qc4 all three results are still possible, but the machines consider it dynamically equal. 

In the game, Dubov played 27.Nc5?, and it's not clear whether it was a deliberate sacrifice or simply a blunder. In any case, 27...Rxc5 28.dxc5 Nxg4 left Black a piece up, but the action was just beginning!

Realizing that normal moves leave White dead lost, Dubov went for 29.c6 to try and confuse Carlsen. Simply 29...Qb6 would threaten mate on f2 and leave White busted, but 29...Qxc6 30.Rxc3 Qb6 31.e3 Ke7 32.Rc6 instead happened, when suddenly Black has to be somewhat precise, as his king is coming under attack and for the moment, Black lacks coordination.

The game continued 32...Qd8 33.Qc5 Kf6 34.Rd6, and now we reach the critical position of the game, with Black to play:

It turns out that there are several good defences for Black. The most precise is the bold 34...Qa5!, with the idea that Black can also make threats to the enemy king, with ...Qe1. After 35.Qd4 Kg5 36.Qf4 Kxh5 37.Qxf7 g6, White's attack has suddenly come to a dead end, as taking the rook runs into ...Qe1, ...Qxf2 and ...Qh2 mate. And if 38.Rd1, 38...Rd8! is the simplest way to win, overloading the White rook and taking back the initiative.

Other moves are not so simple, as 34...Qc8 35.Rc6 Qd8 36.Rd6 essentially repeats moves. And after 34...Qa8 35.Rd4, Black would need to find a very difficult move to secure the win: 35...g5!! (stopping Rf4 at any cost!) 36.Rxg4 Rd8, and after 37.Rd4 (else ...Rd1) 37...Rc8 38.Qd6 Rc6 39.Qd7 Rc1, Black forces off the rooks to reach a winning queen endgame.

Nonetheless, all these moves are better than the move in the game, 34...Qe7?, which fatally cut off the Black king's escape. After 35.Qd4 Kg5, it seems likely that Carlsen had missed Dubov's next move, 36.f3!, after which Black's knight has no good retreat. It's telling that the computer gives 36...Qxd6, accepting a decisive material deficit, as the only move. 

Instead, Carlsen tried 36...f5, but after 37.fxg4 there is no good defence, and the game ended 37...Rc8 38.Qf4 Kf6 39.Qxf5#. 

See this link for the full game.  

With that, the final score of the match was 2.5-0.5 for Dubov, and Dubov eliminated Carlsen from the 2020 Airthings Masters!

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