2017 Champions Showdown, Day 6: Carlsen Finishes off Ding Liren

The match had already been clinched, but it was necessary to play today's five-minute games as well. The wins-to-losses ratio was exactly the same as yesterday: Magnus Carlsen won six games and lost one, drawing the rest; the difference is that four more games were played today, which means that instead of only one draw today's action saw five of them.

Oddly, after the first ten games (of twelve) today, Carlsen hadn't won a single one with the white pieces, while for Ding Liren the white pieces were even worse: he didn't score so much as a single draw. Finally both players' streaks came to an end in the last two games: Carlsen won game 11 with White and Ding drew game 12 in his last White game to finish off the match on a comparatively high note.

Carlsen thus won today's action 17-7 (on the day's 2-1-0 scoring) and the match by a hefty 67-25 score. His play wasn't as impressive today - it was clear that they were playing five-minute chess and not "real" chess, and with the match already decided and no rating points on the line Carlsen's motivation probably declined at least somewhat compared to the previous days. Still, it was a good performance, and he'll be back in (blitz and bullet) action on Saturday against Wesley So in the last quarterfinal match of Chess.com's Speed Chess Championship.