Karjakin Wins World Rapid Championship
As most readers probably predicted, someone born in 1990 won the World Rapid Championship in Astana, Kazakhstan; as most readers probably failed to foresee, however, the identity of that individual was Sergey Karjakin, not Magnus Carlsen.
Carlsen came into the last day of the tournament with a point and a half lead, and he kept that lead with a win in the first of the day's five rounds. In round 12, however, he lost to Vassily Ivanchuk, and then in round 13 he suffered a loss to Alexander Grischuk. Karjakin won in those two rounds to take a half-point lead, and won in round 14 as well while Carlsen drew with Radjabov. Karjakin coasted in with a last round draw to clinch first. Carlsen, meanwhile, nearly lost his third game of the day - should have, really, but Veselin Topalov missed a simple mate and only managed to draw.
Had Topalov won that game, he and Carlsen would have tied for second. As it was, Karjakin finished with 11.5/15, Carlsen 10.5 and both Topalov and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov came in with 9.5 points apiece. For Topalov, it was his second mini-tragedy of the day - he was winning against Vladislav Tkachiev some rounds earlier, and certainly had what one would normally consider an utterly unloseable position. But Topalov has been known to overpress, and he managed to achieve the seemingly impossible, losing an ending with a knight and four pawns against Tkachiev's knight and lone pawn.
Next on the list was Alexander Grischuk with 9, and then Boris Gelfand finished with 8. Sixth out of sixteen wasn't a fantastic placement, but it's not terrible either, especially with players like Svidler, Ivanchuk, Radjabov and Morozevich below him in the tournament table.
Tomorrow (today for most of us) most of these players will resume battle in the world blitz championship. Alas, Anand, Kramnik and Nakamura aren't present, but it should still be a lot of fun to watch. And judging by the rapid games, lovers of schadenfreude will enjoy a real feast!
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