Chess: Carlsen draws final classical game as world champion against Howell

Magnus Carlsen chose last weekend’s Norwegian League in Oslo for his three final classical games as world champion. The world No 1 scored two wins as White, one where he crushed his opponent and the other an endgame grind transforming a draw into a win before halving his final game as Black against England’s David Howell.

It was mission accomplished. Carlsen relinquished his crown on a high note, and also helped his club, Offerspill, become Norwegian champions for the first time by winning all their nine matches. Just to make sure, Offerspill fielded three other elite GMs in their final match, winning 4-2. The decisive weekend games were played in Norway’s national football stadium, Ullevaal, in Oslo.

Carlsen’s next classical games will be at Norway Chess in Stavanger, starting 27 May. By then there will be a new official world champion, as Russia’s world No 2, Ian Nepomniachtchi, playing under a neutral Fide flag, meets China’s world No 3, Ding Liren, in their €2m, 14-game title match at Astana, Kazakhstan.

There is only one precedent for Carlsen’s action. Nearly half a century ago, in 1975, Bobby Fischer resigned his Fide world title and was succeeded by Anatoly Karpov, who had won the Candidates a year earlier. Negotiations for a match between them stalled after three face-to-face meetings. At the first, in Tokyo in 1976, the opposition of the USSR Sports Committee proved a barrier; the second at Córdoba, Spain, later that year proved inconclusive; while at their final attempt at Washington 1977 they got as far as a draft agreement before Fischer refused to sign it.

Then, support for Fischer waned as he no longer competed, Karpov won almost every tournament he played, and the Russian became world No 1 as well as