Magnus Carlsen fought back from the verge of defeat on Thursday as the world champion clinched his seven-day, 38-game match against Hikaru Nakamura by four sets to three after the US champion took a one-set lead on several occasions. Nakamura, in the form of his life at age 32, was one up with two to play before Carlsen won the final blitz game then set up an impregnable fortress with the black pieces in the Armageddon game, which gave him a draw on the board and the full point under the match rules. It was a remarkable success for Nakamura, whose surging career as a streamer has gained him half a million followers on Twitch. This contrasted with his years in slow classical chess when he was Carlsen’s customer, with, at one time, 12 defeats against a solitary win. Nakamura is a different animal at 15-minute rapid and five-minute blitz and even more so at one-minute bullet and in this match he adopted a psychological approach that paid off brilliantly. His technique was to prepare the opening well, then play reasonable moves that took little time on the clock. Carlsen is normally faster than his opponents, but in several games he seemed rattled by his opponent’s confidence and played too slowly. A second factor that aided the American was his resilience in difficult positions, a former weakness in his game he has worked hard to improve. Both players had offboard problems. During the second set Nakamura’s webcam failed and this contributed to his defeat, while just before the start of the sixth set Carlsen injured his back while on the beach in Denmark. He grimaced frequently, but still played some of his best chess of the match. With online audiences estimated in the tens or even hundreds of thousands, the match captivated the spectators. There are problems for the future, though. Only a handful of players are involved in the top online events, while most of the grandmasters whose over-the-board careers have been derailed by the virus are excluded. Fide, the global chess body, is still struggling to find a way to complete the Candidates, which was stopped at halfway in April and should produce an official challenger to Carlsen. The 163-nation online Olympiad is the England chess team’s only event in 2020, following their vintage 2019 silver-medal performance at the world teams. However, the Olympiad’s format of six-player teams with two men, two women and two juniors favours the Russian, Chinese and east European squads where women’s chess is a serious professional game. The difference showed last weekend in the B group pool where England were No 1 seeds with three to qualify for the top group matches on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. England lost to Hungary and won narrowly against Ecuador, Argentina and Colombia, while individual board statistics told the story. The grandmaster quartet of Michael Adams, Luke McShane, Gawain Jones and David Howell plus the No 1 woman, Jovanka Houska, were all unbeaten. Houska won a highly entertaining game where her opening knowledge of an offbeat variation (4 Nc3!) led to a lively king hunt. However, England’s lower boards lost nine games and it was noticeable several could not cope with the time limit of 15 minutes plus five seconds per move increment when the clocks approached zero. Online time speeds are unforgiving to the inexperienced. England’s matches this Friday, Saturday and Sunday in a tough pool headed by Russia and Armenia pose a difficult test against the odds. Games start at 3pm, 4pm and 5pm and England will be in contention with Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Turkey for the third qualifying place in the knockout stages. All the games can be watched on chessbomb.com where England v Russia in round six on Saturday at 5pm will be the popular choice. It is doubtful that England can succeed, but if they do it will be a notable result to match their vintage year of 2019. 3685: 1 Ng6+ Kg7 2 Rxh7+! Kxh7 3 Nf8++ Kg7 4 Qh7+ Kf8 5 Qf7 mate.