Magnus Carlsen retains his world chess crown

After nearly three weeks, the deadlock has been broken – finally Magnus Carlsen has successfully completed the third defence of a World Chess Championship title that he first won in 2013.

Carlsen retained his title on Tuesday against Fabiano Caruana after winning the first three games in the best-of-four quickfire tie-breakers.

After each of the 12 classical games between the Norwegian and the United States’ Caruana ended in a draw – the first time this has happened in 132 years – the historic impasse was broken and won by the favourite.

The first title showdown between the world's number one and two players since 1990 – when Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov faced off for a fifth and final time – was always pitched as evenly matched during the 12 classical games, but Carlsen is the world's top-rated rapid player and top-rated blitz player (compared to Caruana's respective ratings of number eight and 16), so was always in prime position to win any tie-break.