Magnus Carlsen: Triple World Champion!
Saturday, June 21, 2014 at 1:51AM
Dennis Monokroussos in 2014 Rapid & Blitz World Championship, Magnus Carlsen

The Rapid & Blitz World Championships have concluded, and Magnus Carlsen, the classical world chess champion, is now also the world champion in rapid and blitz play. While the margin of victory wasn't particularly large in either event, his play was consistently strong and he was the deserving winner of both events.

In the rapid, he lost one game - to Viswanathan Anand(!), though by a blunder in a better position, and finished with 11/15, half a point ahead of Fabiano Caruana, Anand, Levon Aronian and Alexander Morozevich. Caruana took the silver on tiebreaks; Anand the bronze.

In the blitz, his one loss came on the first day, to young Chinese GM Lu Shanglei. On the second day he was briefly surpassed by Ian Nepomniachtchi, who won six games in a row, but in the end Carlsen finished with an impressive 17/21, good for a one point margin of victory over Nepomniachtchi and Hikaru Nakamura (who finished second and third, respectively); they were in turn two points ahead of their closest pursuer, Le Quang Liem, who was last year's world blitz champion.

Article originally appeared on The Chess Mind (http://www.thechessmind.net/).
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