Carlsen’s title defense in jeopardy after back-to-back losses at Tata Steel

The world champion lost with the White pieces against Nodirbek Abdusattorov to follow up his defeat to Giri, leaving him with a mountain to climb for the remainder of the Tata Steel chess tournament. It was an uncharacteristic defeat for Carlsen, who is normally the one grinding out tough endgames, but he was unable to find his way out of complications

The players entered a brand new position in the Symmetrical Variation of the English Opening after just eleven moves of play, and it took three more moves for Carlsen to make a slight inaccuracy that tilted the position in the young Uzbek’s favor. He continued to nurse a small advantage all the way to the endgame, and Carlsen managed to keep things close all the way up the time control, but giving up his h-pawn in exchange for Black’s advanced a-pawn turned out to be a decisive mistake in a tough position.

The game ended on move 60, giving Nodirbek a memorable victory against the titan of competitive chess at Tata Steel, and leaving Carlsen in the danger zone.

There’s growing history between the two players despite their massive age difference: Nodirbek was born in 2004, the year Carlsen played his breakout tournament at this very venue.

In 2021, Nodirbek beat Carlsen to the World Rapid championship title, which Carlsen won back late last year. Right after that, Carlsen also regained the world blitz crown, defeating Nodirbek himself in the final round of that tournament.

This time, the youngster prevailed in the slower time control.

With this result, Carlsen is now ninth in the fourteen-player field with two points out of five, a whopping two whole points behind Nodirbek, who is leading the field after five rounds of play. Elsewhere, Levon Aronian defeated Vincent Keymer and Parham Maghsoodloo triumphed over Jorden Van Foreest with an impressive piece sacrifice. With draws on all other boards, Anish Giri is currently in second place with 3.5 points, while Aronian, Pragg, and Caruana chase them with three points.

The sixth round will pit Carlsen against one of his seconds, Jorden Van Foreest, wielding the Black pieces, while Nodirbek will go up against fellow young starlet Pragg in a bid to break away from the rest of the Tata Steel pack.