If Firouzja captures here, he's going to be up a pawn. But Magnus is still in theory, and knows that his better piece activity offers him full compensation. A sharp position straight out of the opening.
Firouzja goes for an in-between move, avoiding dropping his bishop away from the attack and instead targeting Carlsen's own undefended piece!
Magnus doesn't want to let go of this piece with check, so he drops it back.
The danger of this kind of position for Firouzja is that Magnus is the one who will find it easier to create threats and build a strong pawn center! Firouzja has to be very careful here to not lose control.
Firouzja not yet finding his form. Giving up his bishop leaves Magnus with a very powerful 'bishop pair' here that is going to be able to generate a tonne of threats. Early advantage Magnus!
The light squares are going to be a nightmare for Firouzja to defend here over the coming dozen or so moves. If these collapse, that could well be a second win for Magnus to almost wrap up set 1!
Magnus playing patiently, knowing that his center and two bishop advantage are stable. He'll defend his pawn next.
Trying to soften the impact the enemy bishop is having against his kingside.
Magnus has played inaccurately the last couple of moves. Firouzja has a golden chance to undermine Magnus' strong center by pushing his pawn forward!
Firouzja goes a different route. He's looking to trade off one of the bishops to take away that small 'bishop pair' advantage that Magnus has.
Moving the rook away, so that he can keep the bishop on the board if attacked.
Magnus has to be a little careful here. Long term, Firouzja's extra pawn could make all the difference if he can guide things to an endgame.
The right plan! Firouzja needs to break down that strong pawn center that Magnus has.
Magnus has gone an aggressive route. But it's come at a big cost: now Firouzja has a passed pawn in the center!
Firouzja insists on trading off Magnus' bishop pair. It's hard to stop it now, since otherwise the world no.1 would have to retreat it to a passive square.
Firouzja forced to shatter his structure, as his queen was tied to the defense of his dark-squared bishop.
Looking to open up the scope of his bishop (and queen). But at the cost of a strong outpost for Firouzja's knight!
A little premature. Now Magnus can swarm this central piece and perhaps even sacrifice a rook to break apart Firouzja's defenses! The game remains balanced.
The problem that Firouzja will have to navigate is that Magnus could try and take the knight with the rook instead, leading a deadly check against Firouzja's king that is stuck for squares!
Magnus uncorks a really nice tactic here! And now it's Firouzja that has to be careful to guide the game towards equality and not the other way around!
Firouzja had done an incredible job of navigating the tactics after Carlsen's blunder. But now he's allowing a potentially fatal pawn push on the queenside!
Magnus fails to spot the pawn push, which would have served to lock down Firouzja's three queenside pawns with likely fatal results.
The worst is over for Firouzja, as things are looking to be headed to a draw from here.
This is going to be an unbelievable hold if Firouzja can do it with almost no time on the clock!
He agrees to the draw by repetition, when the position still allowed for a lot more moves to be played. And in spite of Alireza Firouzja's prodigious speed, you have to wonder: would it have been enough?!
1.5-0.5 to Magnus!
Firouzja against the ropes already!
It's just 4 games in the first set, so a second loss here would be devastating for Alireza's hopes of winning the first set of today's final. He'll be pushing for victory from the get-go.