Norway’s Magnus Carlsen claimed his Fifth World Chess Championship title. Carlsen attained a 7.5-3.5 victory against Russia's Ian Nepomniachtchi, who stumbled after a toe-to-toe follow up with the defending champion in the early games. He won the prize money of 2 million Euros. The Championship was held at the Exhibition Hall of Expo 2020 in Dubai.

The 31-year-old Carlsen benefited from a blunder by Nepomniachtchi winning his fourth game of the match, with the black pieces, to take an unassailable lead in the best-of-14 contest, which lasted 3 hours and 21 minutes. Carlson won with 49 moves and three games to go.

“These things which happened here, they have never happened to me at basically any events,” a disconsolate Nepomniachtchi said of his blunders. “In my career I lost quite some stupid games but not as many in such a (short) time.”

Carlson, who defeated India's Viswanath Anand at the 2013 World Chess Championship in Chennai, has yet to relinquish the title.
He is without a doubt one of the best players the world has ever seen. His play combines the styles of Bobby Fisher and Anatholi Karpov.

“I didn’t expect it go quite like this. I think it was just a very good professional performance overall. No regrets at all, just very satisfied,” said Carlsen. His large margin of victory made it the most one-sided world championship since Jose Raul Capablanca of Cuba defeated German Emmanuel Lasker 9-5 in 1921 – an outcome that few would have bet on during the contest’s initial stages. The contest sprang to life in game 6, won by Carlsen with the white pieces after seven hours 45 minutes and 136 moves – the longest game in world championship history.