Carlsen takes Game 8 after what most observers called a blunder by Nepo, who gave up a pawn for no compensation.
Defending champion now has a 2-game lead; Nepo will presumably now be forced to take some serious attacking chances if he’s to have any chance of getting back into the match.
According to the graphs on 538 Nepo was generally ahead (based on area under the curve) in games 1-3, 5 and 7 before ending in a draw,
The odds of Nepo winning the tournament seem very low (538 says 98.5% Carlsen), I think the odds of Nepo winning even ONE game in this tournament higher than 1.5% but still fairly low.
Brian
Just for those who are not aware, Carlsen now has the luxury of playing for draws which explains why Nepo’s chances are estimated so low…
I think the probability of Nepo winning a game has gone up a lot, to well above 1.5%. A game win is the only way he can salvage value from this event, which justifies (indeed, more or less requires) taking significant risks that increase the chances both of winning and of losing.
To a meaningful extent, he always did: If the 14 games played under standard time control end with equal scores, the tiebreak will be rapid chess, at which I think it’s generally believed Carlsen has a significant advantage.
Oof, streaming the J Polgar commentary to listen to audio while working, and Nepo seems to have outright blundered a piece. Carlsen’s expression is pretty telling.
ETA: Anish Giri says “he should just come back [he walked off after moving] and extend his hand.”
Yes, just an outright blunder of a bishop. It seems like there would have to be a “non-chess” reason for it, like Nepo reversed a move order or something, but I don’t see what it would be.
That certainly was a massive brain fart/blind spot. Oof, indeed.
It’s comforting to know I play exactly like Nepo.
Uh-oh, apparently in game 9 Carlsen touched his knight but didn’t move it. AFAIK Nepo didn’t protest (probably because he wasn’t there) so I’m guessing that doesn’t invalidate the game 9 win.
(Maybe Carlsen forgot how a knight moves 
and so changed his mind on which piece to move)
Brian
Well, here’s a clip of that:
I watched a bit of the press conference after, and he was asked about this, and he answered something like (paraphrasing) “not this [question] again …” and basically said that sometimes they adjust their pieces. In the clip, he clearly looks to me like he’s adjusting the piece (or, upon look and relook, maybe I’m not so sure now), and not meaning to move it. Was there a sensible knight move he would have been contemplating on the board for that position? I suppose that is moot, as Ian wasn’t at the table to protest. But I was a bit taken by surprise by Magnus’s answer as I’ve never heard of this as being common or allowed – typically once you touch, you have to move that piece (or pawn) – but I haven’t really actually watched this level of chess until the past two years – mostly read games from books.
Ah, here’s the reporter’s question. Magnus is clearly peeved with it. Perhaps it really is as common as he claims? I forgot at the end he finished it with a bit of a verbal slap with “do better” to the reporter, so it hit a nerve.
Where’s our resident chess expert? @glee - what do you make of this? I am not of the opinion that Magnus is cheating or anything like that, but it does sound like he got away with a little bit here by Ian not being at the board (which if Ian was, perhaps Magnus would have been more careful), but does this really happen all the time at world championships?
The white player starts out with an advantage, which is why Nepo shows an advantage in the odd games. Those small advantages aren’t enough to win on their own, it just means that player has a little more buffer for small mistakes. Without errors on either side, those games will typically end in draws.
Adjusting a piece is allowed if the user first verbally states their intention to adjust the piece. Magnus evidently didn’t say anything, so the reporter’s question is valid. I suspect Magnus knows he screwed up and is blustering.
So is he supposed to say it to an arbiter, or to the opponent, who wasn’t there? But if it doesn’t matter anyway, since his opponent wasn’t there to object, it doesn’t really matter if he says it to anyone, except to stave off any post-match controversy.
And putting it through a chess engine, Ng4 was an equally valid move as his bishop move, so it’s not like he’s touching and adjusting an arbitrary piece. That’s one of the main moves to follow-up Ian’s move, and maintains equality; it scores as high as the bishop move on lichess’s board analyzer (Stockfish 14 at depth 33.)
Who would he say it to? His opponent wasn’t at the table.
There’s an arbiter right there, off camera.
ETA: this isn’t remotely the same thing, but it flashes me back to the time Kasparov was playing a teenaged Judit Polgar, and actually took a move back just after releasing it. She later said that she wasn’t comfortable invoking the touch-move rule on the world champion.
And even further back! In the 1967 Sousse Interzonal, the one Fischer famously quit mid-tournament, Matulovic was playing Bilek, made a move, took it back, and then said [too late] “I adjust” in French (j’adoube). The arbiter refused to punish him, and after that he became known as “J’Adoubovic”, though apparently that wasn’t the first or last time he did it.
Actually, I may have done that wrong. On chess.com, both the knight and the bishop moves show up predominantly up to depth 20 or so, but as it crunches on, neither of those moves are even in the top 5 – there is the other knight to a5. Qa4 seems to be the one that the engines like at throughout the depth analysis, but by depth 33, the top moves are Qa4, Qf8, Ra7, Na5, Ra4, with the first 4 dead even (0.00) and the last a quarter pawn advantage to white. Ng4 confers +0.14 advantage to white at the same depth with the optimum move and perfect play, and 0.0 for the next four optimal plays.
Christ, the margins are razor-thin at this level.
Ah, yes, I remember that incident!
As others have said, the rules say that if you mutter ‘j’adoube’ (French for ‘I adjust’) to your opponent, you may then straighten a piece, without having to move it.
N.B. You shouldn’t do this repeatedly, as that constitutes distracting your opponent.
It’s unclear to me whether you need to say anything if your opponent is not at the board.
I don’t know if an arbiter is supposed to step in (I guess they should.)
For what it’s worth, my impression from the video is that Carlsen was adjusting the knight.
(This opinion is based on my decades of watching strong players move pieces!)
To finish with an anecdote:
I was playing in an English County match and left the board to stroll around (I had a good position.)
Whilst I was away, my opponent moved a pawn, let it go, realised it was a blunder and looked around to see if anyone had noticed. (eek)
Fortunately a team-mate was watching closely, so my opponent shrugged and committed to the move.
I won soon after.
Not a chess player here, but isn’t the point of the “no touching” rule is to avoid seeing how your opponent reacts before using a piece? Kinda like how you you’re not supposed to do the “I see you… and I raise you” in poker. If his opponent wasn’t there to react, does it really matter?
The point of the “no touching” rule is to stop players taking a move back.
Experienced chess players have already analysed their opponent’s likely moves.
So if it looks like their opponent are about to blunder, the player is already ‘prepared’ and should not show any emotion.
As you say, it’s different in poker (because of money at stake, plus an immediate result…)