Carlsen Wins 5th Champions Chess Tour Title

GM Magnus Carlsen defeated GM Ian Nepomniachtchi 4-1 to win the 2024 Champions Chess Tour Finals and his fifth consecutive Champions Chess Tour title. Again earning the $200,000 first prize, Carlsen has won every edition of the Champions Chess Tour since it began. It is his 11th tournament win this year.

2024 CCT Finals Bracket

The first two games played a decisive role in the match. Carlsen never lost a single game of the match and completed it with a game to spare. In fact, Carlsen lost just two individual games the entire week (out of 27), way back in the round-robin.

Two-time World Championship Challenger Nepomniachtchi lost two matches early in this event, against Carlsen and Firouzja, but then won the five remaining matches on his way to the Final. The most impressive was his 3.5-0.5 demolition of Firouzja in the Semifinals, a match he won with two games to spare.

Carlsen, however, won every match except for a loss to Firouzja in the round-robin. He is rightfully known as the king of the Champions Chess Tour, as the only player to win it every single year.

Champions Chess Tour winners:
2020 - Magnus Carlsen
2021 - Magnus Carlsen
2022 - Magnus Carlsen
2023 - Magnus Carlsen
2024 - Magnus Carlsen

Nice, @MagnusCarlsen 🏆 pic.twitter.com/bdWAdvmKoC

— Chess.com (@chesscom) December 21, 2024

As for previous encounters between these two gladiators, Carlsen defeated Nepomniachtchi 7.5 to 3.5 in 2021 to defend his world championship title for the last time. He also won their last encounter in the CCT, 3-2 in the Winners' Quarterfinal of the 2024 Julius Baer Generation Cup.

Carlsen 4-1 Nepomniachtchi

Carlsen played the fancy 28.Rxc4! in game one, already leaving his queen hanging in the very first clash. Had Nepomniachtchi found the brilliant counter queen sacrifice, 28...Qxf2!!, he would have secured equality. But, in the game, Carlsen won a pawn and went on to win the four vs. three rook endgame—one that should be drawn between computers, but it was not so between two humans with little time.

Carlsen actually demonstrated the win with a queen against a rook at the very end of that game, and he pointed out that he defended it (with the rook) against Nepomniachtchi earlier in the Champions Chess Tour. Can he defeat Stockfish in that endgame? He'd like to think so!

Can Magnus beat Stockfish with queen versus rook? "No, I'm not sure I can beat Stockfish, but I'd like to think I have a good chance."#CCTFinals pic.twitter.com/0KNNCsqLcg

— chess24 (@chess24com) December 21, 2024

After another win in game two, Carlsen already foreshadowed the rest of the match was going to be "tough" for his opponent.

"We're getting to a point where, you know, it's gonna be tough for him," says Magnus Carlsen after winning the first two games of the title match.#CCTFinals pic.twitter.com/ciEtAob4g3

— chess24 (@chess24com) December 21, 2024

In that second game, Carlsen achieved an opening advantage in about 10 moves with the black pieces in the Italian Opening. Once he planted the knight on f4 (knife f4!), hovering over the white king, the rest of the game just flowed. GM Rafael Leitao breaks down the Game of the Day below.

"Game three was a step in the right direction for Ian Nepomniachtchi," summarized GM David Howell, "but ultimately it was a tale of missed opportunities." Nepomnaichtchi had many winning positions in the middle and endgame, but Carlsen slipped out with a draw. At one point, on move 53, Carlsen could have even won.

In the next game, the former world champion convincingly held a pawn-down rook endgame to leave himself a half-point away from victory.

Finally, Carlsen wrapped it up with a 23-move win in the French Defense, when even a draw would have been enough. Incredibly, Black's only serious mistake was castling—sending the king straight into the fire.

Carlsen has now won 15 out of 18 Champions Chess Tour finals. He explained that the format suits his strengths:

I think that the format is quite suited to me because I put a lot of pressure on [my opponents] in these matches and to beat me in a tournament is very possible, [but] to beat me in a match is quite a bit harder.

He added that he had lost matches to some of the competitors before, including Nepomniachtchi himself as well as GMs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Alireza Firouzja, but noted: "I'm more often than not able to get the better of them."

Of course, it was special to win this one on home soil, in Oslo. "Today was good. It's great to spend the week here with a lot of people that I know." He also mentioned that he met old acquaintances, for example, an older gentleman who had beaten Carlsen in 1999 at his first adult tournament.

You can check out GM Hikaru Nakamura's video recap below.

That ends this year's Champions Chess Tour, and we look forward to the 2025 edition that will be linked to the Esports World Cup!

Final Standings And Prizes

Previous coverage:

• Day 4: Nepomniachtchi Beats Firouzja With 2 Games To Spare, Carlsen Eliminates Vachier-Lagrave
• Day 3: Vachier-Lagrave To Play Carlsen In Semifinals, Firouzja Faces Nepomniachtchi
• Day 2: Firouzja Ends Carlsen's Streak, Still Trails By 1 With Lazavik, Nepomniachtchi
• Day 1: Lazavik, Carlsen On Perfect 3/3 After Surviving Rollercoaster 3rd Round
• Champions Chess Tour $500,000 Finals Kicks Off On December 17 In Oslo, Norway