The King of the Computer Age

It wasn't easy and it wasn't especially pretty, but world chess champion Magnus Carlsen has successfully defended his crown in what was scheduled to be a 12-game match against world No. 2 Fabiano Caruana. After all 12 of those games were drawn, the victor was decided via a best-of-four series of "rapid chess" contests, in which each player has about 30 minutes to complete all his moves. The Norwegian Carlsen, by far the world's No. 1 player at rapid chess, predictably dominated Caruana, who entered the match ranked only No. 8 in the format, winning the playoff games 3-0 and retaining his title for another two years. What kind of match was it? A bit dull, to be honest, at least until Wednesday's rapid games. Top-level chess isn't the romantic game it once was, and it's becoming less and less romantic every year.