World Chess Championship: Birthday-boy Carslen settles for draw in game four

Birthday-boy Magnus Carlsen chose to play it safe against a well-prepared Ian Nepomniachtchi and forced a 33-move draw following perpetual checks in Game Four.

FILE PHOTO: Birthday-boy Magnus Carlsen (pic) chose to play it safe against a well-prepared Ian Nepomniachtchi and forced a 33-move draw following perpetual checks in Game Four of their World chess championship title-clash in Dubai on Tuesday.

Birthday-boy Magnus Carlsen chose to play it safe against a well-prepared Ian Nepomniachtchi and forced a 33-move draw following perpetual checks in Game Four of their World chess championship
title-clash in Dubai on Tuesday.

With the sequence of draw continuing, the players are locked 2-2. On Wednesday, in the fifth game, Nepo plays with white pieces.

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Nepo, playing black, employed the rarely-played Petroff Defence after Carlsen started by pushing his king-pawn to the fourth rank. The game followed 17 moves of well-known theory before Carlsen deviated on his 18th move, taking just seven seconds  to play his knight to the
extreme-right file

At this point, Nepo took about five and a half minutes to find a risk-free continuation.

Later, Carlsen took 22 minutes on Move 25 and another 34 minutes for Move 30 but could not find any concrete plan. Three moves later, the game ended.