New opening ended in a fizzle in game 7

Russian challenger Sergey Karjakin tried a new opening but got a familiar result as he and world chess champion Magnus Carlsen played their seventh straight draw of their scheduled 12-game world title match in New York City Sunday.

Karjakin, playing White, opened with 1. d4 after three straight king-pawn openings, but failed to generate much of an initiative against the Norwegian champion’s Queen’s Gambit Slav Defense. Just when Black appeared to have equalized comfortably, though, an apparent miscalculation by the champ gave White an opening.

Black’s 16. Ba3 Rc8?! was not the best (more solid was 16…Rb8), as after the tricky series of exchanges 17. Nf6+ Bxf6 18. Bxb7 Bxa1 19. Bxb4 Bf6 20. Bxf8 Qxd1 21. Rxd1 Rxf8 22. Bxa6, Karjakin emerged a pawn ahead.

But as in several games in the match to date, the simplified position featured bishops of opposite colors, and after 22…b4!, locking down White’s queenside majority, Carlsen encountered little difficulty in holding the ending. In the final position, White has no good way to advance his a-pawn and thus can’t cash in on his material advantage. After 32. g4 g5 33. Ke4 Rc8, the two players agreed to split the point.

Full article here.