World Blitz Championship Concludes: Grischuk Takes His Third Blitz Title
It was a day full of surprises, with great runs and remarkable collapses at the World Blitz Championship. Those who prospered on day 1 didn't necessarily enjoy continued success today while some who didn't race off to a great start played brilliantly on day 2.
As you may recall, with one round to go in the first day's action, Magnus Carlsen and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave tore out of the gate with identical scores of 9/10. They were slowed a little at the end, with Carlsen losing a tough game to Karjakin and MVL giving up a draw, but it was reasonable to expect their run of good form would continue the next day. For Carlsen, this definitely was not the case, and he opened with a winless 1.5/5, and was fortunate to save a couple of those draws. He played a bit better after that, but never managed to fully get back on top of things. After a little run leading up to the penultimate round, he lost to Vassily Ivanchuk and finished well out of the running.
For Vachier-Lagrave, however, the day started quite well, and after 17 of the 21 rounds he was a point and a half clear of the field. And then: collapse. He lost two straight games - with White to Yuri Vovk and with Black to Vassily Ivanchuk - and found himself tied for first entering the last two rounds. After a draw with Ian Nepomniachtchi in the penultimate round his fate was no longer in his own hands. Still, he bounced back with a win, and tied for 2nd-3rd, taking the silver on tiebreak.
Two of the mighty comeback stories belong to players already mentioned, Nepomniachtchi and Ivanchuk. "Nepo" had a catastrophically bad first day, starting with 4.5/10. But then he turned things around. He won the finale of day 1 and scored 7.5/8 to start the second. He only manged to draw with MVL in the penultimate round, however, and was mathematically eliminated from the race for first. Still, a last round victory over Vovk left him tied for 4th-5th with Ivanchuk, a point out of first.
Ivanchuk, as we've already seen, played a huge role as a spoiler in the tournament. He had a decent but not great first day, scoring 6.5/11 before going crazy with an undefeated 8-2 score on day two. Had he won his last round against Vladimir Kramnik, he would have taken the bronze; as it was, he took the saddest spot - 4th - on tiebreaks. (Not so sad in terms of the prize fund, though!) He definitely put plenty of pressure on Kramnik, who was also trying very hard to win, but the game ended peacefully.
It was Kramnik who finished with the bronze, but had he managed to defeat Chuky in that last round he would have taken first on tiebreaks. Kramnik started the event slowly with 2.5/5, but went undefeated the rest of the way. He was already in good shape at the end of day 1 with 8/11, even if that put him a point and a half behind the streaking Vachier-Lagrave. He came very close to beating Carlsen in the first game of day 2, but only drew, and for a while he seemed to be in a drawing rut, getting through round 16 with only one win (on day 2) under his belt. Finally, things picked up in round 17. He beat Sergey Karjakin, who up until then had been very much in the race for first place, beat Levon Aronian in round 18, drew with Alexander Grischuk in round 19 and beat Vovk in round 20 to enter the last round tied for first with Grischuk. Had he won he would have had a better tiebreak score (opponents' average rating, which implies a higher TPR) than Grischuk, but his draw left him tied for second with MVL, and MVL had the highest tiebreak score of the event thanks to his great start.
So it was Grischuk who was the big winner, acquiring his third world blitz championship title. (He previously won in 2006 and 2012.) His day 1 score wasn't especially good - 7.5 points - and he started day 2 with a loss to Teimour Radjabov. And then he woke up, going 8/9 the rest of the way. He beat Pavel Eljanov, Dmitry Bocharov, Magnus Carlsen (with the black pieces), drew with MVL, beat Hrant Melkumyan and Sergey Karjakin, drew with Kramnik and then finished with wins over Evgeny Tomashevsky and Boris Gelfand (who made a great run on the second day) - in both cases with Black! He was a deserved winner.
Reader Comments (4)
The organisation of this blitz WC was not so good. Too long breaks between games make it extremely difficult to maintain concentration. It would be better to have a round robin tournament to decide the champ. 30 best players or so (15 games per day) and all play all would make it less random than it is now. It is clear that day one leaders had a much tougher opposition which explains their day two "collapses".
[DM: I don't really understand that last point. If I play all my toughest foes on day one, I'm looking forward to killing the fish on day two. There's nothing to make me collapse!]
The final positon in MVL game in the last round is very funny. It was surprising to see so many KBK vs K endings in the event and at least two of them didn't finish in a win (Motylev stalemated in round 1 and there was a very strange adjudication in Sethuraman - Ghaem Maghami from round 5 as a draw without obvious reasons - clock times were ok and only 20 moves after last capture happened). Felt sorry for Perunovic - up a pawn in a Q+pawns endgame, he got mated in the middle of the board by Dominguez (similarly to a known ending from Batuev - Simagin) and before that he couldn't mate Radjabov with two queens. Also memorable were emotions of both players after the game Carlsen - Ivanchuk.
It is really sad to see Anand perform so poorly in speed chess. I am talking about both rapid and blitz here. The fact that Anand hardly met other top players shows his poor quality of play rather than his finish.Anand was one of the best players of speed chess and would have definitely held multiple titles if it was conducted so regularly when he was at his peak say from 1995 to 2008.But good to see other old players such as Ivanchuk , Kramnik, and Gelfand perform well.Just for curiosity I would like to know where does Anand stand in the pantheon of all time greats in speed chess.
[DM: He is very, very far up the list. I think the rumors of his death are greatly exaggerated. Last year he tied for second in the rapid, going undefeated and handing Magnus Carlsen his only loss. In fact, one could argue that he was the best player in the world in 2014, or at the very least a close second behind only Carlsen himself. On the other side of the coin, what has happened to Carlsen this year? From being a dominant force he has alternated between mild successes to dismal failures. I guess he's over the hill at 24. Or Alexander Grischuk (31 years old), who started the year the #2 player in the world and has now plunged more than 60 rating points. Or Aronian (33), who has also taken a nose dive the last couple of years, excepting the Sinquefield Cup.
The point I'm making, a bit tongue-in-cheek, is that everyone has their inconsistent moments. (Anand had bad results and, once or twice, a fairly bad year even when he was a much younger man.) There's probably going to be more variance as one gets older, less physically fit and/or more consumed with family responsibilities, but I'm sure that Anand will continue to have great results in the years to come.]
"In fact, one could argue that he was the best player in the world in 2014"
How would one argue then? Carlsen won the title match against Anand, won Zurich with Anand far behind him in fifth place, won both rapid and blitz World Championships with Anand in the fields, won Gashimov Memorial, and was second in Norway and Sinquefield Cup. Anand won Candidates and a weak Bilbao against three opponents (and not the greatest either, Vallejo, Pono and Aronian) plus shared first with Giri and Kramnik in London. None of these with Carlsen playing. To me it is difficult to argue that Anand was better than Carlsen in 2014.
"what has happened to Carlsen this year?"
He indeed had a couple of for him bad results, but also won Tata, Grenke, Gashimov Memorial and the rapid world championship, and was second in Sinquefield Cup, with some events still left to win, so it isn't all that bad even if Norway of course was. Compared to his latest predecessors on the throne that would count as an amazing year, but for Carlsen it is below average.