Norway’s world champion and his US opponent renew their rivalry in Stavanger amid multiple anti-coronavirus precautions
After more than six months of mousing his moves on a computer screen, the world champion, Magnus Carlsen, finally got back to a wooden chessboard on Monday at the traditional Altibox Norway elite tournament in Stavanger. By Wednesday evening’s third round the 29-year-old from Oslo had extended his world record unbeaten streak to 124 games, with his last defeat coming in July 2018.
Carlsen and the
United States world No 2, Fabiano Caruana, are both in the leading group going into their crunch pairing together on Thursday afternoon (4pm start, live on norwaychess.no). The scoring system has three points for a win, and the third round front runners are Levon Aronian (Armenia) and Caruana (US) 7, Carlsen (Norway) 6, Alireza Firouzja (formerly of Iran) 5.5.