Kolkata: They sat at adjacent modular desks with headphones on, made no eye contact and played each other on their computers for close to five hours in one of the most hyped chess battles of recent times. World No 1 Magnus Carlsen was dominant, Hans Niemann was combative, and the five-time world champion let his chess do the talking. He defeated Niemann 17.5-12.5 in the Speed Chess Championship semis in Paris. In the post-match studio interview, Carlsen described it as a “very, very strange day”, admitted that he was a “little bit nervous” and “definitely more tense than usual” and expressed his relief at getting the match over with. “The match didn’t give me great joy but obviously losing this would have been really bad,” he said. It was the first time in two years that both players were in the same room, facing off against each other, after Carlsen had accused the younger GM of cheating at the Sinquefield Cup in September 2022. Niemann had defeated Carlsen with Black in their classical match-up then. A $100m lawsuit and a great deal of bad blood followed. Carlsen chose not to play Niemann thereafter, until Friday.

Staged at the Espot Arena with a live audience, a stone’s throw away from the Louvre, Carlsen flew into a 6-2 lead in the 5+1 opening blitz section of the match. Playing White in the first game, the Norwegian sacrificed an exchange and ran into trouble early. Niemann had plenty of time on his clock and seemed to be in a comfortable position to land the first blow. As luck would have it, the 22- year-old American ended up trapping his own rook and Carlsen pounced on the chance. Down 0.5-3.5, Niemann’s Bc8 move put White’s King safety into question and brought up his first win in the match. His double rooks were deployed to hassle the King as well and Carlsen soon resigned.

“I felt like he was playing quite well, but he does blunder a lot. I was playing those (time) scrambles better than him and I was a bit more practical perhaps. But it didn’t feel like he was playing that badly in general… For the 5+1 portion he was playing OK, but after that he went off the rails,” Carlsen reflected on the 5+1 blitz segment, which he won 7-2. The match was divided into three different time controls. The 90-minute 5+1 section was followed by 60 minutes of 3+1, followed by 30 minutes of 1+1. The number of games wasn’t fixed.

In the 3+1 segment, Carlsen bolted to a 7-2 lead before Niemann managed to win another full point with Black by unleashing a mating attack. The world No 16 in a black full-sleeved t-shirt with the words ‘GMHans.com’ painted in block letters on its chest and sleeves – tried to close in on the gap with one more win to bring matters to 8-4. The recurring theme of blunders, however, continued. Carlsen blundered a pawn, had his hand on his head in annoyance but still managed to hold the game to a draw. He was soon shaking his head and smiling before running through his playlist of American rapper Flo Rida numbers.

The 3+1 segment ended with an equal score of four points each for both players, but Carlsen was getting antsy to wrap up the match. As the clash moved into the final 1+1 bullet segment, he racked up a pile of wins and was gained a commanding 10-point lead. The occasional scowl Niemann wore through tough bits of the match earlier, was now firmly planted on his face. “I think he’s (Carlsen) already broken…I broke him in the Sinquefield Cup. As long as I can look him in the eye and understand that there is absolutely nothing that he can do to even enter my mind space, I believe victory will be mine,” Niemann told Levy Rozman before the match. Niemann also touched upon how originally a live evaluation bar for the audience was proposed and of it being done away with after the players objected.

By the close of the match, Niemann seemed unhappy and complained about “resistance” on his mouse and there being an issue with the server and website. Carlsen was up 17.5-10.5 and in a winning position then. The game was paused, the arbiter came in and heard Niemann out. For the first time in the match, Carlsen looked in Niemann’s direction. He took off his headphones and appeared to be listening in before he shrugged, wore them back on and smirked. The game was cancelled and a new game was played in its place. “I was experiencing the issue of blundering.” Carlsen responded when asked if he was facing the same tech issues as Niemann, “I was way up in the match and didn’t really care. I don’t know if these were real issues or not.” Niemann won the fresh game and the final one after that. It didn’t make much of a difference to the final result of the match. “He is miles, miles better than what he was two years ago, so he has certainly made improvement,” Carlsen offered in compliment.

The former world champion will play the finals next against Alireza Firouzja while Niemann will face world No 2 Hikaru Nakamura. Niemann, who’s been running his own series of matches against top GMs titled ‘Hans Niemann against the world’ has risen to his career-best ranking. His match against Carlsen was supposed to be a grudge duel. But at the end of the day, the young, ambitious American was up against the one of the strongest chess players of all time. “There is no excuse for defeat. I will be back stronger,” Niemann tweeted after.