Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is a sprawling epic in which the protagonist carries you through the course of their life from childhood to adulthood, ruminating on the passing of time and the lack of meaning that seems to obtain within the world. Writing about the novel, the American author Roger Shattuck notes how, “the novel embodies and manifests the principle of intermittence: to live means to perceive different and often conflicting aspects of reality. This iridescence never resolves itself completely into a unitive point of view.”
Game 6 of the World Chess Championship was a sprawling epic in which two protagonists carried you through the course of their game from opening to endgame, leaving us ruminating on the passing of time and wondering if life will ever have any meaning for us again. Intermittence—that iridescence that Shattuck talked about of Proust’s novel—pervaded the proceedings. There was not one thread to be followed through but many and conflicting aspects to the reality.
The game opened out with a novelty. We’ll call it a Pseudo-Catalan because that sounds good. Carlsen trying to get Nepomniachtchi out of book as early as possible with a never-seen-before-at-Super-Grandmaster-level-let-alone-World-Championship-chess opening. If it looked like Carlsen could come out ahead in the opening, then it was short-lived. As he has so often, the Russian fought back to parity.
But going out of book meant the search for lost time was soon upon both players. With “only” two hours each to make the first 40 moves, both players were barrelling towards time trouble. Carlsen had the more serious affliction. At one point, he had three minutes to play 10 moves.
And what moves! Carlsen had spent a chunk of time calculating 30. h4. This wasn’t about equalising. He wanted to win. But with great time trouble comes great irresponsibility, it seems. The needles on the engines swung backwards and forwards. What had been the most “accurate World Chess Championship on record” quickly became a leeching of centipawns as first Carlsen then Nepomniachtchi took turns giving their opponent the advantage.
When the dust finally settled, the engines had Carlsen at a very slight advantage. But this was not the end. It was not even the beginning of the end. But it was, perhaps, the end of the beginning. The search for lost time went on. The pieces danced around—first this way, then that—both players looking to see who would blunder first.
Once Carlsen has his king blockaded in, he went after Nepomniachtchi’s bishop looking to force the exchange he so badly wanted. Earlier in the game, the Norwegian had swapped off his queen for both of his opponent’s rooks. With only 13 pieces on the board, reducing Nepomniachtchi’s powerful pieces down to one would give Carlsen the advantage. In the end, this was achieved through an eye-watering rook sacrifice, allowing Carlsen to fork the bishop and the king with his remaining rook. As time was slowly slipping away, the end was approaching.
Another 50 moves and all time was lost along with the game. Nepomniachtchi, having realised the inevitability of his situation resigned. A first decisive victory in a World Championship for Carlsen for five years. It will take a gargantuan effort for the Russian to wrest the crown from the head that bears it.
As he looks back over the game, Nepomniachtchi will be left ruminating over his lost time. There was intermittence here; moments when the initiative was well within his grasp. In another timeline, there may have been a very different conclusion. After all, that’s how time goes. Just ask Proust.
But there are numerous timelines that have gone this way. Magnus Carlsen has wrested time to his advantage many times before. This is testament to his genius. This is just what Carlsen does.